What Are They Saying About the Parables?: Greco-Roman Contexts (Chapter 6, Part 2): The Parables, Greek Fables, and Ancient Rhetoric

 

The Parables, Greek Fables, and Ancient Rhetoric 

Adolf Jülicher noted that “the majority of the parabolai of Jesus, the ones bearing a narrative form, are fables, such as the ones of Stesichoros and of Aesop.” Jülicher’s judgment did not gain wide acceptance, especially since his arguments primarily relied on the discussion of fable in Aristotle’s Rhetoric. Often when scholars do raise the issue of Greek fables, they are dismissed with a distinction between parable and fable such as the one used by T. W. Manson: parable tends to depict human relations by inventing cases analogous to what happens in real life. Fable, on the other hand, is “pure fiction,” which often invests animals, birds, and plants with human attributes. Madeline Boucher, for example, echoes Manson’s sentiments, but she adds that fables have a “prudential lesson,” whereas parables have a “religious or moral lesson” which is “typically Semitic.” 

Rhetoric, however, was pervasive throughout Hellenistic-Roman society by the first century C.E., and rhetorical modes of argumentation saturated everyday discourse in almost every form of oral and written communication. The most important rhetorical influences to the formation (and interpretation) of the gospels are the progymnasmata (or “preliminary exercises”), compositional textbooks used in secondary education that represent widespread educational practice for those who read/spoke/wrote Greek. These rhetorical handbooks, such as the ones by Aelius Theon of Alexandria (middle-to-late first century C.E.) and Hermogenes of Tarsus (second century C.E.), functioned in secondary education to instill the fundamental rhetorical skills to prepare students for more complex forms of oral and written composition: longer speeches and narratives. The parables, as well as other elements of composition in the gospels, reflect this progymnastic level of rhetoric and rhetorical training. 

Mikeal Parsons notes that the chapter in Theon’s Progymnasmata on the fable provides fertile yet under-tilled soil for examinations of the parables of Jesus, specifically where Theon states, “It may be possible for one fable to have several conclusions (or morals), if we take a start from each of the matters in the fable.” With this understanding in mind, the seemingly disparate applications of the parable of the dishonest steward (Luke 16:1–8a) in 16:8–9, 16:10–12, and 16:13 can be seen as a rhetorical unity instead of being evidence of “different traditions.” 

In antiquity the term fable denotes several kinds of brief narratives, including those stemming directly from human experience. Aelius Theon, for example, defined fable more generally as “a fictitious story picturing a truth,” a definition endorsed by the classicist Ben Edwin Perry. In fact, many fables are about humans and the Gods; thus they can convey religious truths (xxiv). In contrast to David Flusser’s claim that the mashal was dependent on the Greek environment (e.g., Greek philosophy, Aesop’s fables), Perry argues the reverse: The Greek fable had its literary-historical roots in the Semitic East. In fact, Perry claims, the Hebrew mashal is the precursor of the Aesopic fable.

Next up: Mary Ann Beavis and Joshua Stigall.

What Are They Saying About the Parables?: Greco-Roman Contexts (Chapter 6, Part 1)

 

Although Jesus was a first-century Jewish teacher and wonder worker, the parables, in their present contexts, are in Greek. The Jewish heritage of the Jesus portrayed in the Synoptic Gospels merges with Hellenistic-Roman forms of speech, thought, and action, so that the “Synoptic Jesus” speaks and acts in roles that combine Jewish and Hellenistic-Roman modes of words and deeds. Because Hellenistic culture influenced all Diaspora Judaism and Palestinian Judaism to a certain extent, the Jewishness of the Synoptic Jesus does not preclude the existence of Hellenistic elements. A careful reading makes clear that the gospels merge biblical patterns with Hellenistic patterns and conventions; they—and the Jesus they portray—are intercultural. 

Chapter 6 begins with a quick (and incomplete) review of scholarly views of the language(s) Jesus spoke, such as those who believed that the parables "almost certainly took shape in Greek" (Robert Funk) and opposing views (e.g., that Jesus told the parables in Aramaic). The latter is the more likely case, in my view, even though Charles Hedrick’s (and others) work seems to verify, at least in part, Funk’s arguments about the importance of euphony in the parables in Greek. 

Hedrick does not interact directly with Funk’s conclusion that the parables were initially spoken in Greek, however. Instead he notes that the form in which one analyzes the poetics of the parables will not be the language or the form of their “original audition.” While Hedrick’s investigation of euphony may give little information about the “initial” form of the parables, it does reveal much about their present characteristics in early Christian literature. In fact, one of Hedrick’s primary contributions is his innovative work of recognizing the critical nature of sound in both the structure of the parables and in the way the stories are organized.

Most of the remaining posts stemming from this chapter in the second edition will include discussions of fables and Greek rhetoric, but other aspects will be included as well.

Prodigal Son: “devoured your living (bios) with prostitutes” (pornōn)

Bartolomé Esteban Murillo, The Return of the Prodigal Son, 1667/1670. National Gallery of Art. 

An interlude before getting to the Greco-Roman contexts of parables.

While writing my current book project, What Do Parables Want?, I revisited an article by Callie Callon: Adulescentes and Meretrices: The Correlation between Squandered Patrimony and Prostitutes in the Parable of the Prodigal Son, CBQ 75 (2013) 259–78.  

It is a delight to encounter articles that drastically alter or enhance one's understanding of a puzzling text, and Callon's article is an excellent example of scholarship that accomplishes that feat. 

Skip down to the bold font below to get the main point.

In the parable of the Prodigal Son, the last section tells us that the older son had not yet been invited to the celebration of his brother's return, and, in fact, did not even know that his brother had returned: This “elder” (presbyteros) heard “music and dancing” and had to be informed what was happening by a slave boy (pais), who summarizes what had happened (cf. 15:23–24 and 15:27). 

Surely this omission adds to readers’ sympathy for the older brother, since he, once again, seems to be slighted. The older son so far appears to be hardworking and loyal to his father (e.g., he was “in the field” working when his wayward brother returned), and now his share of the inheritance is a real concern: the return of the younger son and the celebration with a fatted calf surely meant that his own share of the inheritance was already being used to support the younger son. 

[Deleted a bunch of other observations about the two sons and their father]

Once the older son appears on the stage, the parable begins to build a negative portrait of him. His refusal to enter the house and to engage in table fellowship insults his father, and the father has to come outside to plead with him—the Greek word plead can mean to invite, exhort, encourage, or comfort. Then the older son disrespectfully addresses his father without a title (even the younger son always uses the title, “father”; 15:12, 18, 21), states that he had “never disobeyed” his father’s commands (although, if true, he is rejecting his father’s entreaties now), and begins a litany of (exaggerated) complaints. He stresses his servitude to his father and complains about how his father had treated him (e.g., “me” in 15:29 is emphatic in Greek). He thus accuses his father of favoritism and attacks his younger brother by refusing any familial relationship with him—referring to him not as “my brother” but pejoratively as “this son of yours” (15:30)—and stressing and perhaps exaggerating the younger son’s failings. His claim that the younger son “devoured your living (bios) with prostitutes” (pornōn, which suggests a more negative translation than prostitute) might be questioned. How did the older son get that information, and is it accurate? 

One option cogently argues by Callie Callon is that Luke uses a “stock trope” of squandered patrimony and prostitutes: Luke, in telling a story that featured prodigality, could also avail himself of one of the stereotypical features of prodigality common in Greco-Roman comedy: “expending one’s patrimony on love interests, particularly prostitutes.” This accusation’s purpose is to defame his brother in a way that might also seem humorous to the intended audience. Another common feature in such comedies is the restoration of the prodigal through his father’s forgiveness.

What Are They Saying about the Parables?: Jewish Contexts (Chapter 5, Part 8): Reading Jesus’ Parables in their Jewish Contexts (Amy-Jill Levine)

 

What Are They Saying About the Parables? Second revised edition with three additional chapters and new content in every chapter 

A reminder: I am only selecting, editing, and revising selected sections of the book and deleting significant sections just to give a taste of what the book covers. For the full discussion--summaries and my analyses--please see the second edition of What Are They Saying about the Parables? 

Amy-Jill Levine

Amy-Jill Levine’s books on the historical Jesus, The Misunderstood Jew, and the parables, Short Stories by Jesus, also explicitly seek to be a “bridge” between Jews and Christians for whom “far too long Jesus has been the wedge that drives” them apart. Both books are written in an engaging style on an introductory level, are provocative yet constructive, and are essential readings for Jews who want to learn about the historical Jesus and his message and for Christians who need to learn about Jesus’ Jewish identity. 

In The Misunderstood Jew, Levine discusses how Christians generally tend to misunderstand Judaism—which can lead to intolerance and even hatred of Jews—yank Jesus out of his Jewish context, and thereby interpret the New Testament in anti-Jewish (and also sexist) ways.  

Jesus, Levine notes, actually is in a long line “of Jewish teachers and prophets, for he shares with them a particular view of the world and a particular manner of expressing that view” (20). As Levine argues: “Jesus cannot be understood fully unless he is understood through first-century Jewish eyes and heard through first-century Jewish ears.

The book discusses several key parables, but this post will focus on Short Stories by Jesus, in which Levine examines how Jesus’ provocative parables might have been heard by first-century Jewish audiences, how they have been domesticated, and how they have been misinterpreted in anti-Jewish ways. 

Levine’s treatment of the Lost Son (Prodigal Son) parable (Luke 15:11–32) illustrates her approach. She argues that Luke “misleads” by turning this parable and the other two “lost” parables—the Lost Sheep (15:4–7) and Lost Coin (15:8–10)—into allegories about repentance. Neither sheep nor coins are capable of repentance, and it is doubtful that the prodigal son repents either (27). This rather “harmless allegory” in Luke—where the younger son represents sinners and tax collectors and the older son represents Pharisees and scribes—later becomes a dangerous stereotype when the older son is interpreted as an allegorical representation of Jews who “slavishly serve God the Father in order to earn a reward” in contrast to Jesus’ proclamation of salvation by grace from a loving father (28). In the context of Jesus’ ministry, Levine argues, the parable is not a story of repentance and forgiveness, and these and similar misinterpretations “not only get Jesus wrong, and they not only get Judaism wrong; they inculcate and reinforce bigotry” (21). 

“Biblically literate” hearers of the parable recognize the biblical patterns encouraging them to identify with the younger son (e.g., Jacob versus Esau) and also suspect that the prodigal does not repent but “connivingly” concocts an insincere plan to return to his father so that he will no longer be hungry (53–54; cf. Exod 10:16; Luke 12:17; 16:3; 18:4–5). 

Levine also questions long-held assumptions of many scholars, such as ones popularized by Joachim Jeremias’s The Parables of Jesus (128–32). She argues, for example, that the prodigal does not treat his father as if he were dead, the prodigal’s problem is hunger not uncleanness (because of feeding swine), it is not surprising that the father is compassionate, and it is not undignified or dishonorable for the father to run to his son, and other details (47–57). Many of these arguments are convincing, although a few are not (e.g., whether the parable implicitly compares the father with God--although there clearly are some problems with a simplistic representation; cf. how the son claims to have "against heaven and before"shis father).   

 Levine closes by considering what the parable of the Lost Son “wants” (68–70). In a parable in which no one really repents, exhibits remorse at hurting another, or expresses forgiveness, Levine finds a simple exhortation that is “more profound” than a message of repentance and forgiveness: Do not wait for an apology or for the ability to forgive someone who wronged you. Instead: “Do whatever it takes to find the lost and then celebrate with others, both so that you can share the joy and so that the others will help prevent the recovered from ever being lost again” (69). By doing so, you will have begun a process that leads to reconciliation and a second chance for wholeness, whether in our personal lives, or communities, or even the world. 

Levine’s Short Stories by Jesus is essential reading for anyone interested in the parables of Jesus, just as her The Misunderstood Jew is essential reading for anyone interested in the historical Jesus. Careful readings of these two volumes will help to remove blinders that prevent Christians in particular from seeing the all-too-common anti-Jewish readings of New Testament texts. Yet Levine’s primary focus on reconstructing Jesus’ cultural context and criticism of “newer approaches” that are explicitly ideological (e.g., 22) minimizes the reality that all reconstructions of the cultural context of Jesus are, in part, also ideological representations of our own social and other locations. See WATSA Parables? for further details (e.g.,  her reading of the Rich Man and Lazarus parable, for example, omits insights about the culpability of the rich man).  

The Jewish contexts are critical for understanding Jesus' parables, but Greco-Roman sources and contexts should also be an essential part of the repertoire of any parable scholar, and the next series of posts will give highlights of some of those studies (rhetoric, fables, etc.).

What Are They Saying about the Parables?: Jewish Contexts (Chapter 5, Part 7): Reading Jesus’ Parables in their Jewish Contexts (Oldenhage and F. Stern)

 

What Are They Saying About the Parables? 

Second revised edition with three additional chapters and new content in every chapter

Reading Jesus’ Parables in their Jewish Contexts 

One of the most serious critiques of New Testament scholarship in general and parable studies in particular concerns the implicit and even explicit anti-Jewish interpretations that denigrate Judaism in order to contrast and elevate the “religion” of Jesus. Tania Oldenhage, for example, illustrates the existence of this problem in such works as Joachim Jeremias’s influential The Parables of Jesus, following on the earlier critiques of Jeremias and others by E. P. Sanders in his Jesus and Judaism. Thus a major emphasis in recent parable scholarship, similar to recent historical Jesus scholarship, is to situate Jesus and his parables firmly—and more correctly—within Judaism. 

Frank Stern’s A Rabbi Looks at Jesus’ Parables attempts “to strip away twenty-one centuries of interpretation and analysis to discover how listeners in Jesus’ audiences might have understood his stories.” Stern argues that Jesus’ Jewishness is essential to his life and teachings, and interpreters must attempt to “clear” the parables of centuries of Christian interpretations and present them in their first-century Jewish context (1). 

In Stern’s view, Jesus taught in parables because his teachings sometimes contained dangerous secrets (3). For example, the parable of the Wheat and the Weeds in its current context (Matt 13:24–30, 36–43) contains a “confusion of metaphors”: The righteous ones are called the “good seed,” and the “sons of the evil one” are the weeds in the interpretation given in verse 38, so the better parallel would be for the righteous ones to be symbolized by the wheat, not the seeds (43). Many of the parable’s ideas are found in earlier Jewish traditions, such as a harvest symbolizing the Last Judgment (e.g., Hosea 6:11), but two aspects stand out as unique: Jesus defines the righteous as those who accept his teachings (access to God was possible only through Jesus, 275) and proclaims the urgent message that “the conflagration was imminent,” so imminent, in fact, that the future was already present, the kingdom of heaven had begun in Jesus’ ministry (44). Instead of a standard Jewish tradition of the conflagration coming first “to punish the wicked and rescue the righteous,” Jesus was convinced that the “biblical period” had come to an end with John the Baptist and a new era of the kingdom of God had begun. In this intermediary period between the inauguration of God’s reign and the imminent conflagration, sinners and believers lived in the same world, just as the wheat and the weeds existed in the same field until the (final) harvest (46–47). A stunning aspect of this message is that Jesus believed that he was in charge of the angels who would punish the wicked and that the harvest would come at his command, an aspect that would explain why his teachings generated opposition among his contemporaries (49). 

Stern's book notes how “the Jewish and Christian communities drifted apart,” and Stern hopes his book will bridge that gap by teaching Jews more about the New Testament and Christians about their Jewish roots (278–80).

Next up: Two important books by Amy-Jill Levine: The Misunderstood Jew (on the historical Jesus) and Short Stories by Jesus (on the parables).

What Are They Saying about the Parables?: Jewish Contexts (Chapter 5, Part 6): Rabbinic Parables and the Parables of Jesus (Notley and Safrai)

 

Rabbinic Parables and the Parables of Jesus (Notley and Safrai)

The historical Jesus was a pious first-century Jew who led a renewal movement within Judaism and who debated with other first-century Jews how best to follow God, determine God’s will, and observe God’s Law. Attempting to reconstruct the larger first-century contexts in which Jesus’ parables were created, spoken, and heard is an indispensable element of interpreting the parables of this first-century Jewish teacher, one that can help prevent domesticating Jesus’ parables or interpreting them in an anti-Jewish manner. One should not—and does not have to—denigrate Judaism to emphasize positive elements in Jesus’ teachings. Some of those teachings are distinctive to Jesus, but all of those teachings are Jewish to their core. 

A significant step toward reading Jesus' parables in their Jewish context occurred in 2011, when R. Steven Notley and Ze’ev Safrai published an annotated collection of narrative parables from the earliest stratum of Rabbinic Judaism. The book includes over 400 parables, each interpreted briefly, and it draw conclusions from the entire collection. 

Since the meaning of mashal in late antiquity was evolving, Notley and Safrai refrain from attempting to define it (a definition of parable always loses almost as much as it gains for our understanding). Instead they list several distinguishing characteristics of a mashal, which they envision as a “form of metaphor” that tends to have some or all of the following elements: (1) the narrative explicitly defines itself as a mashal; (2) the story’s purpose is to teach a moral (included in a nimshal); (3) the story lacks identifying details, such as where the story took place; (4) the parable describes a “reality,” but it generally concerns a general type of person (e.g., a king, woman, sick person, etc.); (5) it does not contain divine visions; (6) the moral of the story is overt and explicitly explained; (7) the parable is always told in Hebrew (Notley and Safrai thus argue--which is doubtful--that Jesus originally spoke his parables in Hebrew). The more of these seven characteristics a story has, the more likely it is a mashal. 

Notley and Safrai demonstrate that parables were almost never used in halakah (legal material) and almost exclusively appear in interpretation of scripture. Jewish sages primarily considered parables to be a pedagogical instrument; in places they claim that it is impossible to understand the words or details of the Torah without the parable explaining them (32–33; as Midrash Song of Songs Rabbah I.1,8 indicates). These parables function to illustrate, reinforce, and emphasize—and sometimes exaggerate (e.g., the “king parables”)—a message. Thus they are inextricably related to the sermons preached by the sages and most likely used by Jesus in his public sermons, although one difference between the parables of the later Jewish sages and Jesus is that Jesus’ parables “are at the center of his sermon, and in effect are the sermon itself.” 

Notley and Safrai also note some key differences between rabbinic parables and the parables of Jesus: Jesus’ parables usually are about ordinary people and rural culture, usually stand on their own, and sometimes contain no application/nimshal or reference to Scripture.

The next post reflects further on reading Jesus' parables in their Jewish contexts.

Sit and listen; go and do: Mary and Martha as examples of faith and action

Christ in the House of Martha and Mary 

by Johannes Vermeer circa 1665 

Again, a post not about parables, (although I do mention the Good Samaritan parable) but selections from an article I published in the National Catholic Reporter, "Sit and Listen; Go and Do: Mary and Martha as Examples of Faith and Action, with insights from my research into Howard Thurman for my forthcoming book, What Do Parables Want?: Howard Thurman, the Parables, and the Quest for Common Ground.

One of my father's favorite sayings was, "If all else fails, read the instructions." That humorous advice is insightful in its analysis of human behavior, and its subtle underlying message is applicable to most areas of human endeavor: One must sit and listen before one can effectively go and do. 

Over the centuries, the story of Jesus in the house of Mary and Martha (Luke 10:38-42) was often misinterpreted as exalting the life of spiritual contemplation and minimizing a life of action. Those interpreters mostly built upon one of the third century theologian Origen's five different interpretations of the story. After all, Martha was "distracted by her many tasks," while Mary "sat at the Lord's feet and listened to what he was saying," and Jesus declared, "Mary has chosen the better part, which will not be taken away from her." 

Johannes Vermeer's Christ in the House of Mary and Martha, for example, subtly depicts the elevation of Mary's spiritual contemplation over Martha's service. Jesus is the focus of the painting, and his authority and divinity are illustrated by the light emanating from his head. Martha, standing to the left and holding a basket of food, looks down at Jesus, and her raised eyebrows ask the question of Jesus that the text of Luke narrates. Mary, in contrast, sits at the feet of Jesus, with her eyes upraised to look at Jesus and her cheek resting on her right hand as she contemplates his teaching. Jesus looks at Martha, and points to Mary, demonstrating that Mary has chosen the better path. 

Yet Vermeer's painting presents Jesus, Mary and Martha as a unified image in its oval composition of the figures, with Mary and Martha balancing each other with respect to Jesus. Similarly, numerous interpreters have understood that the portraits of Mary and Martha are more complex than they initially appear. 

The narrative of Jesus in the house of Mary and Martha, for example, is immediately preceded by the parable of the good Samaritan, which ends with Jesus telling the lawyer to "go and do likewise" to prove to be a neighbor to those in need (Luke 10:25-37). This juxtaposition demonstrates that, as Origen noted elsewhere in a homily on this passage, "there is no action without contemplation, or contemplation without action" (Fragment 171, Homilies on Luke). 

What the great theologian Howard Thurman realized, however, is that spiritual contemplation must be the foundation on which action is based. Thurman argued that a fundamental aspect of the religion of Jesus is to sit and listen in the quietness so one can experience the spirit of God and, therefore, ascertain the will of God. 

Also key to Thurman's understanding of the religion of Jesus and religious experience itself is his insistence that personal, inner transformation is the foundational first step that leads to all other transformations of self and society. One's inner transformation — the actualization of the presence of God in one's life — includes the building of human relations, and true community should lead to social action. Sitting and listening is a prerequisite for, and must be followed by, going and doing. 

As Thurman noted in his autobiography, With Head and Heart, about the church he co-founded in San Francisco, The Church for the Fellowship of All Peoples: 

It was my conviction and determination that the church would be a resource for activists — a mission fundamentally perceived. To me it was important that individuals who were in the thick of the struggle for social change would be able to find renewal and fresh courage in the spiritual resources of the church. There must be provided a place, a moment, when a person could declare, "I choose!" 

Thurman envisions moving from the spiritual aspects of religious experience to the practical needs in the lives of his congregation and then to the needs of the local and larger community.

[Deleted sections] 

An essential element of Thurman's argument is that all human beings are children of God in a sacred community of humanity: We act because we become involved in an encounter from the core of ourselves to the core of other human beings, an inward community that then manifests itself as an outward community. J

[Deleted sections] 

Both Mary and Martha, then, are examples of discipleship to be emulated. Mary can be seen as a paradigm of what it means to follow the first great commandment, to love God with all our heart, soul, mind and strength, whereas Martha illustrates the second great commandment, to love one's neighbor as oneself (Luke 10:27). 

[Deleted sections]

Understanding must lead to concrete action in the world, because truly understanding Jesus' radical message should create a profound moral obligation to reflect, decide and act accordingly, whether by working for civil and human rights, promoting justice in the midst of oppression, seeking peace among those who advocate for war or, in other words, proclaiming Jesus' good news to the poor, release to the captives and liberation of the oppressed (Luke 4:18).