Monday, December 26, 2016

Why did Jesus tell Parables?

Well actually he told stories, or if I must use the technical literary term for stories, his characteristic way of speaking was in narrative. Narratives (stories) have as a minimum a beginning, middle, and end, and consist of a series of related events that develop and continue through the narrative to the end. In other words it is a story, and not just a statement. Calling a story a "parable" is a reading strategy describing how one intends to read the story. In other words a parable is not a distinct literary form; it is simply a brief narrative read in a particular way.
 
            In the early Christian gospels parables are generally viewed as brief stories intended to make a comparison, draw an analogy, or illustrate a moral or religious principle. Some of the parables are regarded as example stories that provide an example of proper human conduct. Some scholars theorize that parables are stories making a single comparison between an unstated reality and the situation in the story. The single point where the unstated reality and the situation in the story come together is best rendered as a broad single moral point. The stories of Jesus have also been described as metaphors: a narrative description of one thing under the guise of another unlike thing. On this reading strategy parables are described as stories intended to bring the kingdom of God into expression in vivid memorable language—all the above theories take their place among other reading strategies for the parables of the early Christian gospels.
 
            Basic to all these strategies, however, is the story, i.e., the narrative. In my view the stories Jesus told are freely invented secular fictions, which are subjected to various reading strategies by the writers of the gospels and subsequently by modern critics. A parable works when readers put themselves into the story and identify with one of the characters; they are then positioned to make discoveries about themselves.
 
            Why would Jesus tell what are principally secular stories that have been so confusing to understand? The earliest recorded answer to that question is found in the Gospel of Mark around 70 CE—we have no idea what Jesus thought of his stories; all we have to go on are the stories themselves to investigate the earliest period of Christian origins. Some forty to fifty years after the death of Jesus Mark thought the stories were allegories, which is another reading strategy for the stories. A narrative read as an allegory assumes that it is comprised of a series of figures, or metaphors: See Mark 4:3-8, a story about farming in the first century and Mark's reading of it (Mark 4:14-20) as a series of individual figures, which understands it as an allegory about the results of early Christian preaching.*
 
            Why did Mark think Jesus told figurative stories? Mark said that parables are for those outside the circle of the inner group of associates of Jesus. Parables were designed to keep "those outside" in the dark so that they would not learn the "secret" of the kingdom of God and turn and be forgiven (Mark 4:11-12). Matthew, on the other hand, blames the crowds to whom Jesus addressed his parables for deliberately hardening their hearts (Matt 13:10-15)—but omits Mark's strange phrase "lest they turn again and be forgiven" (Mark 4:12). Luke says that the parables concealed the secrets of the kingdom, which were only meant for disciples. Luke left it open that the crowds might still understand other things Jesus spoke about in parables (Luke 8:9-10), and like Matthew he also omits Mark's offensive phrase "lest they (the crowds) turn again and be forgiven" (Mark 4:12).
 
            When I was teaching classes in the parables of Jesus at Missouri State, students delighted in telling me that Jesus used parables because it was a good teaching technique, and made things clearer to the audience—like good examples do. The difficulty is that not even the evangelists agree among themselves on what a parable is and what it was about.  For example, Matthew and Luke come to opposite interpretations of the Parable of the Lost Sheep, and even disagree on what the parable says (Matt 18:10-14/Luke 15:3-7).
 
            I have never found anyone to agree with Mark that Jesus used parables in order to keep people from understanding "lest they turn again and be forgiven."
 
Charles W. Hedrick
Professor Emeritus
Missouri State University
 
*See the discussion of Mark's theory of parables in Hedrick, Many Things in Parables. Jesus and his Modern Critics (Louisville: John Knox Press, 2004), 27-35.

18 comments:

  1. Hi Charlie,

    It seems to me that some of Jesus stories illustrate goal oriented passion. Here are some possibilities taken from the Jesus Seminar red-pink list:

    Shrewd Manager (Luke 16:1-8a: taking illegal steps to secure employment.

    Treasure (Matt 13:44; Thomas 109): selling every possession to gain the treasure.

    Lost Sheep (Luke 15:4-6; Matt 18:12-13; Thomas 107): putting herd and self in danger to save one.

    Corrupt Judge (Luke 18:2-5): beleaguering a judge to gain a favorable outcome for self.

    Castration for Heaven (Matt 19:12a): an act of self-castration to gain God's approval.

    Leave the Dead (Matt 8:22; Luke 9:59-60): there is nothing of sufficient importance to postpone commitment to the required goal.

    Pearl (Thomas 76; Matt 13:45-46): selling all of one's possessions to gain the pearl.

    The Assassin (Thomas 98): an extreme advance test of strength to assure the outcome.

    Lend without Return (Thomas 95; Matt 5:42b): set aside all desire to regain a relinquished possession.

    The Leased Vineyard (Thomas 65): it is worth even thievery and murder to assume control of the land.

    Money in Trust (Luke 19:13, 15-24; Matt 25:14-28):
    sacrificing everything to avoid participation in the Master's ill-gotten gains.

    Hating one's Family (Luke 14:26): commitment to the goal requires the most extreme breaking of previous ties.

    Barren Tree (Luke 13:6-9): The goal deserves at least one more year of committed nurturing.

    So what is the goal, the treasure, the pearl?

    Gene Stecher
    Chambersburg, Pa.

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    1. Good Morning Gene,
      I trust the celebration of the season (Christmas/Hanukah) was a joyful time!
      I know that my view of how stories work is in the minority but stories "illustrate" whatever a reader wants them to. Stories are limited to what they actually say (in print or audibly). A reader/auditor, if gracious, bestows meaning on the story, and that meaning can vary from reader to reader.
      Cordially,
      Charlie

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  2. Good evening Charlie,

    I have several questions about this technique of Jesus's. Because if it is indeed accurate that parables were meant to keep those on the "outside" in the dark... Why in the world did he bother telling them to the multitudes? Was he trying to taunt them? Seems like a big waste of time.

    And what in the world is so secret about the kingdom of heaven anyway? Is that some mystery? Would any Torah observant Jew never heard of this concept? What was so radical and earth-shattering in these parables that necessitated some shroud of mystery to conceal their meaning?

    Finally, what about John 18:20 "I have spoken openly to the world,' Jesus replied. 'I always taught in synagogues or at the temple, where all the Jews come together. I said nothing in secret.' "

    Is speaking in parables speaking openly?

    I just don't understand why he didn't speak openly- what was the NEED for parables?? Any thoughts?

    I hope you had a peaceful and enjoyable holiday with your family. Craig sends his best! Elizabeth

    PS: I asked Craig the question about why Jesus felt the need to shroud his teachings in the form of parables- and his theory is that Jesus wanted to conceal their meaning from the Pharisees. Again- what the was big controversy? What would they have objected to?

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    1. Good Morning Elizabeth,
      I hope your celebration of Christmas turned out to all you and Craig expected. Too often for many Christmas, like rum cake, promises more than it can deliver.
      Mark's theory of parables is unique to Mark (although it is likely pre-Markan in origin), but it does signal the difficulty that early Christians had with these secular fictions (they expected Jesus to be "religious"). And the church continues to try and wring religion from secular stories.
      There is no certain evidence as to how Jesus used his stories.
      In the Gospel of John (in spite of John 18:20) Jesus was said to speak in riddles (paroima not parabole) John 16:16-30.
      I personally have no idea what Jesus intended to do with his parables. At one time I (along with others) thought there were few who used parables/stories in the ancient world. But now I know from research done by James Breech ("The Silence of Jesus") and a team of graduate students that there are many such similar stories in the ancient world. Jesus was not really unique in that regard. In my view we have very little reliable historical information about Jesus--as you know if you happened to have dug a few holes in my "Wisdom of Jesus" book.
      Cordially,
      Charlie

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    2. Hi Charlie,

      Christmas is definitely much easier when you place no expectations upon it... True, true. We try our best to demonstrate that to our son, but I still stress out about the cooking!

      Thank you for pointing out the church's attempt to make these secular stories religious. Yes I did indeed read the Wisdom of Jesus a year ago... Is it true that there's no non-Christian historical documents mentioning the existence of Jesus until the second century? Rabbi Singer said that Pliny was the first non Christian to mention the existence of Jesus in 125. Is that your understanding as well?

      As for the purpose of the parables to keep those on the "outside" in the dark- where do you think that concept came from? The early church gospel writers?

      Thank you as always! Elizabeth

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    3. Good Morning Elizabeth,
      Josephus, who was a contemporary of Jesus, mentions Jesus in a statement, which is partially Christianized in the view of many. Pliny describes the Christian movement in a second century reference. Joseph Klausner, a Jewish scholar, finds numerous references to Jesus in the rabbinic materials. The problem with these however is precisely the issue of dating (Klausner, Jesus of Nazareth, Boston: Beacon Press, 1925).
      "Keeping those outside in the dark": In my view stems from the fact that the church itself did not know what the parables were about. Note that only Mark reflects a through-going secrecy motif. Jesus silences demons he exorcised, the disciples themselves, people he healed, and in the clarification of the parables. The secret of who he was is only broken at three points in Mark (1:44-45; 7:24.36; 14:62). That said, a strong case has been made for the secrecy motif being earlier than Mark by Charles Carlston, The Parables of the Triple Tradition. Philadelphia: Fortress, 1975).
      Cordially,
      Charlie

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  3. Hi Charlie, you wrote above:

    "I personally have no idea what Jesus intended to do with his parables. At one time I (along with others) thought there were few who used parables/stories in the ancient world. But now I know from research done by James Breech ("The Silence of Jesus") and a team of graduate students that there are many such similar stories in the ancient world. Jesus was not really unique in that regard."

    Does it make a difference whether or not Jesus was unique in his story telling practices? Apparently it makes him more like his fellow humans. Still, would it not be true that different persons might have different reasons for telling stories.

    I usually "tell a story" around a meal when the family gets together for holidays. I usually "borrow" the story, poem, etc. from someone else, but I engage in this practice as the "duty" of a father to nurture his family in realities beyond their immediate lives.

    Isn't "having no idea what Jesus intended to do with his parables" somewhat of an exaggeration since we have all-of-these-Jesus-words in the context of all-of-these-gospel-words? How can one possibly refrain from forming an opinion? How could there not be clues within the stories about Jesus' intention?

    Gene Stecher
    Chambersburg, Pa.

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    1. Good New Year's Eve Gene,
      You raise an interesting question: are "there clues within the stories about Jesus' intentions [in telling the stories]"? If there are "clues," it seems to me they would have to be at the level of the plots (i.e., the whole story). And whatever is posited as the clue must necessarily be clearly objective so that all could appreciate the clue at the level of the plot in such a way that the clue-finder could not be accused of a particular reader' response--that is to say, that it is a clue only to that particular reader.
      Cordially,
      Charlie

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  4. Using Dodd's description of parables as metaphors or similes (comparisons), using comparisons is the most effective instructional strategy, with an average effect size of 1.61 (very high), with an average percentile gain of 45 (from Marzano, Classroom Instruction that Works, p. 7). I think the authors of the synoptic gospels understood this long, long ago without the use of meta-analyses and statistics. That is largely how eveb toddlers learn. They were not written to obfuscate.
    Dennis Dean Carpenter
    Dahlonega, Ga.

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    1. Season's Greetings Dennis,
      I would think that comparisons work best when the story-teller is around to make sure the group understands the application that s/he intends to group to get. Our problem with the parables is that all we have are the stories with no applications from Jesus that we can verify came from him. All the applications in the gospels are a generation or two and a culture world later than the time of Jesus.
      Cordially,
      Charlie

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  5. Hope you're having a great celebration, too, Charlie. I always tried to lead the person or group to an understanding on his or her own. I see in much of the gospels a parable, then a parable explained by the author.

    I don't know whether any of the longer parables would have had the same form as original, if they supposedly originated with Jesus. Are there mnemonic devices within them or a form (like the Mishnah) that would have aided memory to recall them? In Robert Alter's translations of books of the Tanakh, he points to the wordplay - puns and the like - found in, for instance, Genesis.
    Dennis Dean Carpenter
    Dahlonega, Ga.

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  6. Hi Dennis,
    An interesting thought: mnemonic devices in the parables. For whom would these devices have worked? For Jesus? Those who heard the stories, collected them, and passed them on? The evangelists? Probably if there are mnemonic devices in the stories they would have been there for those trying to remember them and pass them on in oral collections. Such devices (if such there were) would have served to have triggered the memory for the next story and so on to the end of the list. But that would not put us closer to how Jesus himself remembered his stories, unless he told a group of them at one time. And that would work against the idea that parables were used to provoke thought.
    Cordially,
    Charlie

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    1. I'm just trying to understand how parables of some length (for instance the Samaritan, Dishonest Servant, Vineyard Workers and Prodigal Son), if not the creation of the authors, would have survived a generation or perhaps two in any kind of form similar to an original, probably also going from Aramaic to Greek. I realize that your examples were from Mark, but I was looking at the more general title of the blog. I might, however, have a partial answer, if I can stretch my Swiss cheese brain slices, by looking at "sound mapping" as presented by Lee & Scott and see if I can find a clue there... Still, that would just tell me how the writers arranged it to facilitate memory from hearing it.

      If the parables like I mentioned above were first transmitted orally, I'm not certain that "oral tradition" is as stable as one might think, because it is a performance which would change with factors like the make up of the audience, the "bent" of the storyteller, subtleties in language, and so forth. (I think I am "channeling" Joanna Dewey but I don't see that Seminar Paper right now.)

      Thanks,
      Dennis Dean Carpenter
      Dahlonega Ga.

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    2. Good afternoon Dennis,
      Your first paragraph: I had the same question and addressed the stability/instability issue of the parables in the epilogue of my recently published book: Parabolic Figures or Narrative Fictions (Cascade: 2016), 251-66 "Pondering the Plots of the Parables of Jesus."
      Second paragraph: I agree that oral tradition is not stable but the issue is the degree of instability. But there are no sources that will enable us to determine the degree of instability of the Jesus tradition in the oral period. In the Epilogue of the above book I compared the written versions of the same parable to determine the relative stability/instability of the parables in transmission in the written phase of their existence. The written plots of the parables were comparatively stable in transmission in the literary phase. This suggests the same might hold true for the plots of the parables in their oral phase.
      Cordially,
      Charlie
      Cordially,
      Charlie

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  7. Hi Charlie,

    Just ordered Parabolic Figures or Narrative Fictions. Very much looking forward to reading it, especially the Epilogue.

    Thought I'd take a look at the mustard seed. The written versions do seem quite stable. It seems to me that even in the oral world it would have key memorable words: kingdom, mustard seed, small, large, birds nesting.

    Mark 4:31 The kingdom of God is like a mustard seed...smallest of all the seeds on earth...when sown...becomes the greatest of shrubs...birds make nests in its shade.

    Matt 13:31 The kingdom of Heaven is like a mustard seed...smallest of all seeds...someone sowed in his field...became greatest of shrubs, a tree ...birds make nests in its branches.

    Luke 13:18 The kingdom of God is like a mustard seed...(?)...someone sowed...became a tree...birds nested in its branches

    Thomas 20:2 The Kingdom of Heaven is like a mustard seed...smallest of all seeds...prepared soil... large plant... shelter for birds.

    Gene Stecher
    Chambersburg, Pa.

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    1. Hi Gene,
      On this particular story I decided by comparing all four versions that it was a story of six structural elements. All four versions shared in order (sometimes the order of elements are shifted) three of the structural elements.
      Cordially,
      Charlie

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  8. Good snowy afternoon Gene and Charlie,

    I don't know whether this adds to the discussion or not, but I was very interested in the changing location of where the mustard seed was planted... I wanted to know if either of you have heard this explanation before. I just happened to listen to a teaching by Rabbi Skobac a few weeks ago on Matthew 13 and he pointed out the changing locale of where this seed was planted. In Mark chapter four, it is planted in the ground. Matthew recasts it in chapter 13 as being planted in a field. And in Luke it is planted in a garden. (Rabbi Skobac did not mention Thomas) Which he says is interesting because the Mishna (sp?) tractate 3, chapter 2, teaches that it is prohibited to sow mustard seeds in a small patch of land or in a garden. Matthew, being the most familiar with (at least purported to be so, according to church tradition) with traditional Jewish teaching, doesn't make the mistake of having these mustard seeds planted in a garden but has them planted in a field.

    The traditional way Christian commentaries interpret the lesson of this parable is that non-Jews will be a part of the Messianic age to come.

    Just wondering if either of you have read this distinction between field, ground, and garden and the connection to the "MIshna" tractate.


    Thank you! Elizabeth

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    1. Good Morning Elizabeth,
      It is comparatively well known bit of data for those who worry with the critical study of parables. See Joachim Jeremias, The Parables of Jesus (Translated by S. H. Hooke from the German 6th edition: SCM Press, 1963), page 27, note 12.
      Cordially,
      Charlie

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