Another Review of The Parables after Jesus

Many thanks to Ben Brown, a former student and now colleague at Oxford/Emory, who found the following review of The Parables after Jesus online and sent me the link.

The review is by Phillip J. Long and was posted on his blog, "Reading Acts." The review may be found here, so I will copy/paste only the first and last paragraphs:

Book Review: David B. Gowler, The Parables after Jesus

October 3, 2017 in Book Reviews, Parables | Tags: Book Review, Gospels, Jesus, Parables

Gowler, David B. The Parables after Jesus: Their Imaginative Receptions across Two Millennia. Grand Rapids, Mich.: Baker Academic, 2017. 320 pp.; Pb.; $29.99. Link to Baker   

David Gowler’s earlier book on the parables, What Are They Saying about the Parables? (Paulist Press, 2000) was a handy guide to the various approaches to the parables in scholarship. This new volume from Baker Academic extends that project by studying how scholars, pastors, preachers, philosophers and artists have understood Jesus’s parables. This book is a reception history, although it ranges broadly in both chronology and disciplines.

. . . .

Conclusion. This book is a joy to read, a book I would recommend one reads the book slowly. In many cases the examples are obscure and it will reward the reader to look up a few names in an encyclopedia or dictionary in order to place the section in a proper historical context. Gowler demonstrates an amazing range of scholarship, equally at home in patristics as in the Reformation, in both medieval and contemporary art. By including such a wide range of voices readers will be challenged by the diversity of responses to the parables of Jesus.

NB: Thanks to Baker for kindly providing me with a review copy of this book. This did not influence my thoughts regarding the work.


Many thanks to Phillip for his review of the work and including it on his blog.

Phillip was also kind enough to refer to this blog as the "seed-bed" (in addition to his reference to two of my books on the parables) of many parts of the book, so please, if you haven't already, go check out his blog as well.