Shakespeare and the Parables (part 2)

William Shakespeare

Some parts cut from the final version of the book:

“All Shakespeare’s Plays might be summed up in the three maxims—love God, love your neighbor, and do your work. Professor Morley, Times October 19, 1881 (Wordsworth 1892: 49).

“Thou shalt never get such a secret from me but by a parable” (Two Gentlemen of Verona 2.5.34-35).

“Jesus told the crowds all these things in parables; without a parable he told them nothing” (Matt 13:34; cf. Mark 4:33-34).

Shakespeare usually creates his plays based on other sources. Julius Caesar and Antony and Cleopatra, for example, were both based on the writings of Plutarch (ca. 46-120 CE). None of his plays, however, are explicitly based on biblical stories. For the play, Measure for Measure, Shakespeare’s primary source was George Whetstone’s two-part play Promos and Cassandra, which was first published in 1578 but apparently never performed, perhaps because it simply was not very good. A prose version of the play was published in 1582, which Shakespeare also used as a source, as well as other sources (e.g., Cinthio’s “Story of Epitia,” the “Disguised Ruler” stories in folklore, and so forth; Shaheen 1999: 245). The title of the play comes from Matthew 7:2: After Jesus commands his listeners in the Sermon on the Mount not to judge lest they be judged, he adds: “For with the judgment you make you will be judged, and the measure you give will be the measure you get.” There are a fair number of biblical allusions in this play—but no more than normal for Shakespeare—but Richmond Noble suggested that the plot of the play may itself parallel the parable of the Talents: a ruler leaves on a journey of unspecified length, and he leaves his servants with a varying number of “talents.” At the end of the story, the ruler returns to render judgment upon how well his servants have done (1935: 221; other scholars argue that the play also follows the plot of the Workers in the Vineyard parable, e.g., Marx: 2000: 79).  

Shakespeare and the Parables (part 1)

The First Folio

One of the sections of the book in its earlier drafts that was way too long was the section on William Shakespeare. There was so much material to cover, so much biblical imagery, and so much interaction with the parables of Jesus--especially the parable of the prodigal son.

This blog allows me the freedom to include elements that didn't make it into the book, and over the next few days, I will post a few things about Shakespeare and the parables that I found the most interesting.

But first, for those who don't know, a bit of context about Shakespeare himself:

William Shakespeare was baptized at Holy Trinity Church in Stratford, England, on April 26, 1564. Like many details of his life, the exact date of his birth is unknown, but between his birth and his death on April 23, 1616, Shakespeare composed the greatest dramas ever crafted in the English language. 

The next certain official record of his life  (unless he is the “William Shakeshafte” in Sir Thomas Hesketh’s 1581 will; see Honan 1998: 61-2) is his marriage at the age of eighteen to Anne Hathaway in 1582. Except for the baptism of their children—Susanna, in 1583, and the twins Judith and Hamnet, in 1585—Shakespeare disappears from view for a number of years until he resurfaces in London as an actor and playright. 

By 1594, Shakespeare had established himself as an actor, writer, and partner in the Lord Chamberlain’s Men (later the King’s Men), a successful acting company in London, a group that built the Globe Theatre (1599) and acquired the Blackfriar’s indoor theater (ca. 1608). Shakespeare published both plays and poetry (the first poem was published in 1593) and became wealthy enough to buy the second largest house in Stratford (the “New Place”) before returning to Stratford between 1611 and 1613. He thereafter spent most of his time in Stratford until his death in 1616.

Shakespeare’s extant literary corpus includes thirty-nine plays—comedies, histories, and tragedies—with Henry VIII being his final play (ca. 1613). In those works Shakespeare refers to the Bible more than any other source. Although the number and types of allusions are vigorously debated (a recent volume cataloguing such allusions consists of 879 pages; Shaheen 1999; cf. Wordsworth 1892 with 420 pages), every single play and many of his sonnets contain significant allusions to the Bible. 

On one hand, the Bible is a rich storehouse of stories of drama, intrigue, and pathos, but it also provides a rich variety of words and themes that would be easily recognizable to Shakespeare’s audiences, since the Bible was the most familiar and important book in Shakespeare’s England. Therefore, knowledge of the Bible is critical for understanding Shakespeare’s plays, especially such plays as The Comedy of Errors, The Merchant of Venice, and Hamlet (Hamlin 2013: 225; 2013: 3).

Book title announced

Yesterday I received word from Baker Academic that the official title of the book has been finalized:

The Parables After Jesus: 

Their Imaginative Receptions across Two Millennia

The Parables of Jesus in Islamic Literature (Part 5: Conclusion)

Sahih al-Bukhari

The time elapsed between this post and the last is the longest between any posts ince I started this blog over two years ago. I won't go into the details of what generated that gap, but it appears that I am starting to catch up with the myriad of things on my professional "to-do" list. 

One comment before I begin: I remember in my first teaching position at Berry College back in 1989, the chair of the department indicated to me that if my teaching did not generate responses from bigoted people then I wasn't doing my job. With that in mind, it is clear that these posts about Jesus' parables in Islamic literature are "doing their job." Hopefully others will learn from the trajectories we see in parable interpretations both in Islamic and in the other traditions covered in the book and in this blog.

As evident in the last post, the parable of the Workers in the Vineyard is reworked to argue that even though God’s revelations to Muhammad are reminders of what God had already conveyed to previous prophets like Abraham, they are also corrections to the "errors" of the Jews and Christians. 

The other major version of this parable found in the Sahih al-Bukhari in Volume 3, Book 36, #471 makes this even clearer (cf. Volume 1, Book 10, #533):

The Prophet said, “The example of Muslims, Jews and Christians is like the example of a man who employed labourers to work for him from morning till night for specific wages. They worked till midday and then said, ‘We do not need your money which you have fixed for us and let whatever we have done be annulled.’ The man said to them, ‘Don’t quit the work, but complete the rest of it and take your full wages.’ But they refused and went away. The man employed another batch after them and said to them, ‘Complete the rest of the day and yours will be the wages I had fixed for the first batch.’ So, they worked till the time of ‘Asr prayer. Then they said, “Let what we have done be annulled and keep the wages you have promised us for yourself.’ The man said to them, ‘Complete the rest of the work, as only a little of the day remains,’ but they refused. Thereafter he employed another batch to work for the rest of the day and they worked for the rest of the day till the sunset, and they received the wages of the two former batches. So, that was the example of those people (Muslims) and the example of this light of guidance they have accepted willingly.

In this version, the first workers (Jews) were hired to work from morning to evening. They only worked until midday, however, when they quit, stated they did not need the man’s money, and wanted their work to be annulled. Even though the man asked them to continue, they refused. Likewise, the second group (Christians) was hired to finish the day’s work, but they only worked until the ‘Asr prayer time. These workers do not state that they do not need the man’s money, but they likewise wanted their work annulled, told the man to keep the wages, and refused the man’s entreaty to keep working, even though “only a little of the day” remained. Therefore, the man hired a third group (Muslims) who completed the task and received the wages of the first two groups (thus double what the other two groups were promised).

This version of the parable stresses the recalcitrance of Jews and Christians and their refusal to complete the task upon which they and God had agreed. The Muslims therefore are the ones who complete the task and remain faithful to God’s commands. In all versions of the parable, Muslims receive God’s special blessing.

The differing versions in Sahih al-Bukhari illustrate how different trajectories in the traditions are developed. In this case, the message that many Christian interpreters had received from the parable—that the time of the Jews had passed—is now extended to mean that both the times of the Jews and Christians had passed and that Muslims are finishing God’s assigned task faithfully. Thus Islamic teachings and practice correct the deficiencies in the responses of Jews and Christians to the work assigned to them by God.

The Parables of Jesus in Islamic Literature (Part 4)

Sahih al-Bukhari

Many of the traditions about Jesus in hadith literature stem from the Sermon on the Mount; parables appear infrequently. The parable of the Workers in the Vineyard found in Sahih al-Bukhari is a prominent exception. This parable, which appears at least six times—although none of those instances ever indicates that the labor occurs in a vineyard—is significantly reworked to Islamicize its message (for a more extensive examination, see Elmostafa 2015). 

All versions follow the same basic story, but the occurrences in 3:468, 3:469, 4:665, and 6:539 (al-Bukhari 1971) are more closely related, and the occurrences in 1:533 and 3:471, where the first two sets of workers quit the assigned task, closely resemble each other.

The version in Sahih al-Bukhari Volume 4, Book 56, #665 (4:665) is an example of the first category:

Allah’s Apostle said, “Your period (i.e. the Muslims’ period) in comparison to the periods of the previous nations, is like the period between the ‘Asr prayer and sunset. And your example in comparison to the Jews and the Christians is like the example of a person who employed some laborers and asked them, ‘Who will work for me till midday for one Qirat each?’ The Jews worked for half a day for one Qirat each. The person asked, ‘Who will do the work for me from midday to the time of the ‘Asr (prayer) for one Qirat each?’ The Christians worked from midday till the ‘Asr prayer for one Qirat. Then the person asked, ‘Who will do the work for me from the ‘Asr till sunset for two Qirats each?’” The Prophet added, “It is you (i.e. Muslims) who are doing the work from the Asr till sunset, so you will have a double reward. The Jews and the Christians got angry and said, ‘We have done more work but got less wages.’ Allah said, ‘Have I been unjust to you as regards your rights?’ They said, ‘No.’ So Allah said, ‘Then it is My Blessing which I bestow on whomever I like.

In this version, Muhammad is explaining to Muslims their current situation. The employer—Allah, as we find out at the end of the story—hires the first group (i.e., the Jews) to “work” until midday for one Qirat—a weight measurement seen as equal to the weight of a seed from a carob tree (.2053 grams) for gold or silver, from which we get the English word carat. At midday, the work for the Jews was over, and then the Christians were hired, also for one Qirat, to work the next period of the day. The Christians finished their work, and then Muslims were hired to finish the day/task, and they were paid twice the amount as the first two groups of Jews and Christians. The reason for the doubling of pay is perhaps explained elsewhere in the Sahih al-Bukhari, in a hadith that envisions the doubling of pay for extra work/faithfulness:

Allah’s Apostle said, “(A believer) who accompanies the funeral procession of a Muslim out of sincere faith and hoping to attain Allah’s reward and remains with it till the funeral prayer is offered and the burial ceremonies are over, he will return with a reward of two Qirats . . . . He who offers the funeral prayer only and returns before the burial, will return with the reward of one Qirat only” (Volume 1, Book 2, #45).

In the parable, there is an important difference between the first two assignments and the third: The first two are finished working, since Jews and Christians have completed their tasks. The third group’s mission is still ongoing, since the labor of Muslims continues: “you . . . are doing the work.”

This interpretation of the different groups of laborers representing different religious groups is similar to some earlier Christian interpretations. Irenaeus, Origen, Augustine, and Gregory, for example, all argue that the different agreements the owner makes at different times with workers represent the different dispensations God established throughout history (e.g., the covenants made with Adam, Noah, Abraham, Moses, and Jesus). In hadith traditions, the first two dispensations are Jews and Christians, but the final dispensation is that of Muslims. In other words, this parable is reworked to argue that even though God’s revelations to Muhammad are reminders of what God had already conveyed to previous prophets like Abraham, they are also corrections to the errors of the Jews and Christians. Muhammad, the last and most important of those prophets, is able to correct those errors.

Next up: Other examples of the (re)interpretation of this parable in Sahih al-Bukhari.