Sermon Tone Analysis

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The Parables of Jesus

!! Class #1

!! Introduction and Parables of the Triple Tradition

Before getting down to the actual analysis of the literary form of parable, I would like to begin with a contemporary piece of music that illustrates the meaning of parable that I will be presenting.

It is the Irish rebel song, “Four Green Fields.”

Some of you may have heard it, but I would suspect that many have not.

That makes it a good candidate for this exercise.

(Hand out the words, and play the tape of “Four Green Fields”)

Can anyone tell me what this song is about?

Can anyone tell me what this song means?

[Continue discussion] What is the point of the Song?

[continue discussion] In the song, we have seen that the situation of a woman with four fields has been used to illustrate the contemporary situation of Ireland.

The woman is Ireland, the fields are the four provinces of Ireland, one of which is in bondage.

The sons are the Irish people who have fought, and will continue to fight to release the province in bondage and allow a united Ireland to rise once again.

To those who know the secret of the parable, this can be a very powerful, and very emotional song.

To those who do not, it is simply a nice little song.

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The Literary Form of Parable

That is precisely what a parable does it takes something which is ordinary and commonplace and uses it to illustrate something which is hidden or unknown.

That is precisely the meaning of the Greek word from which the English parable comes—parabolh\.

The Greek preposition, para\ means beside, and the Greek verb ba~/llw means to throw, or more gentilely, to put.

Hence parabolh~/ is a putting, or a placing of two things beside each other for the sake of comparison, or illustration.

There are thus three components to a parable—a) the unknown that is being illustrated known in German as /Die Sache/ “the matter (to be explained)”, b) the known that is compared to it for illustration known in German as /Das Bild/ “the picture” (which illustrates).

And the point of comparison, known as the /tertium comparationis/ which is the point of communality between the “matter” and the “picture”.

In other words, the /tertium comparationis/ is the meaning of the parable.

Thus we can say that a parable “is a recounting of a common incident from daily life in a concise, figurative form to illustrate a truth.”

In our lyric example, the matter, /Die Sache/ would be the situation of Ireland vis-à-vis England and the current situation of the North.

The picture, /Das Bild/, would be the woman with four green fields.

The /tertium comparationis/ would be the desire for a United Ireland brought about by the song.

In ancient rhetoric, as well as English grammar comparisons have taken two forms, the simile and the metaphor.

In a simile one thing is compared to another through the expressed term of comparison “as”.

Jesus sends his disciples out “as lambs in the midst of wolves.”

(Luke 10:3) Or from ancient literature.

“Achilles rushed on like a lion.”

In both of these examples, the two things being compared are explicitly named, (disciples~/lambs), (Achilles~/lion).

There can be no error in interpretation.

Lambs can expect trouble when they wander into a pack of wolves.

Thus, Jesus’ disciples can expect trouble when they go out on the mission.

A lion is quick, strong and ferocious.

So also is Achilles as he rushes into battle.

The second form of comparison in the metaphor from the Greek, metaferei=n, to carry over or across.

In a metaphor the qualities of one thing are ascribed to another without explicit comparison.

Again from the Jesus tradition, “You are the salt of the earth,” “You are the light of the world” referring to the disciples.

Or from the classical tradition, in speaking of Achilles, the text would say “a lion rushed on”.

IN the metaphor, two things are compared but only one is named.

The hearer must know the missing term of comparison in order to grasp the meaning.

Without the proper contextual information to fill in the second term, the metaphor becomes a mystery.

Hence, a metaphor needs to be deciphered.

Another way of looking at the parable would be to say that it is an extended simile.

Note that many of the Gospel parables are introduced with the formula, “…the kingdom of heaven is like….”

The object of the parable’s comparison is not a single word but rather the entire situation that is envisioned, a farmer sowing seed, a merchant in search of fine pearls, a mustard seed, a king who settles accounts, etc.

In each of these situations, a comparison is made.

But it would wrong to say that the kingdom is like a king.

Rather the parable compares the kingdom of God to the process of generous forgiveness exhibited by the king who settles accounts.

It has been understood by parable interpreters that a parable as an extended simile would have one and only one point of comparison.

Thus, the parable requires that one take the central idea or dominant theme from the known or familiar picture and apply it to the comparable matter that up to that momen was unclear to him.

If a parable is an extended simile, then an extended metaphor would be an allegory.

An allegory has as many points of comparison as it has metaphors.

Thus an allegory must be decoded.

As with a single metaphor, one need a key to decipher the meaning in order to express the meaning non-allegorically.

Parables thus have a single point of comparison, /tertium comparationis/ while allegories have many.

The only problem is that both the New Testament and the early church have tended toward interpreting Jesus’ parables as though they were allegories.

Let’s take a quick look at Augustine’s interpretation of the parable of the Good Samaritan

/A certain man went down from Jerusalem to Jericho; / Adam himself is meant; /Jerusalem/ is the heavenly city of peace, from whose blessedness Adam fell; /Jericho/ means the moon, and signifies our mortality, because it is born, waxes, wanes, an dies.

/Thieves/ are the devil and his angels.

/Who stripped him/, namely; of his immortality; /and beat him/, by persuading him to sin; /and left him half-dead/, because in so far as man can understand and know God, he lives, but in so far as he is wasted and oppressed by sin, he is dead; he is therefore called /half-dead.

/The /priest/ and the /Levite/ who saw him and passed by, signify the priesthood and ministry of the Old Testament which could profit nothing for salvation.

/Samaritan /means Guardian, and therefore the Lord Himself is signified by this name.

The /binding of the wounds /is the restraint of sin.

/Oil/ is the comfort of good hope; /wine/ the exhortation to work with fervent spirit.

The /beast/ is the flesh in which He deigned to come to us.

The being /set upon the beast /is belief in the incarnation of Christ.

The /inn/ is the Church, where travelers returning to their heavenly country are refreshed after pilgrimage.

The /morrow/ is after the resurrection of the Lord.

The /two pence/ are either the two precepts of love, or the promise of this life and of that which is to come.

The /innkeeper /is the Apostle (Paul).

The supererogatory payment is either his counsel of celibacy, or the fact that he worked with his own hands lest he should be a burden to any of the weaker brethren when the Gospel was new, though it was lawful for him “to live by the gospel”[1]

As one can see, there is a multiplicity of metaphors in this allegorical interpretation of Augustine.

For the most part, we shall be looking at the parables seeking a single point of comparison, rather than looking at them allegorically.

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The Synoptic Problem

Having looked at the literary form of parable, one more introductory point remains before we can launch into the Parables of Jesus.

That is the relationship between the Gospels of Matthew, Mark and Luke, which is known in scholarship as the “Synoptic Problem.”

Let’s first take a look at this word Synoptic.

It comes from two Greek words, the preposition su

meaning ‘with’, or ‘together’, and the verb o(ra~/w which means to ‘look’ or to ‘see.’

Hence Synoptic means looking or seeing together.

This refers to the practice of many scholars since the 17th century of producing a text in which the Gospels of Matthew, Mark and Luke are laid out in parallel columns.

Such a text is known as a “synopsis” not because it is a summary, but because you can see the texts of the three Gospels together.

When they are laid out in this manner, one discovers striking word-for-word similarities in the Gospel text.

This raises the question of the literary relationship between these three texts, a question known as the “Synoptic Problem.”

Put plainly, was one of the Gospels a source for the other two?

Or was there a common source which was utilized by the authors of all three?

The arguments that have been put forth in solution to the “Synoptic Problem” are intricate and complex.

For our purposes here, I will present some basic threads of argument.

The arguments in favor a common source such as a primitive version of Matthew in Aramaic are at most conjectural and as such, I will not present them here.

!!!! Matthaean Priority     

The other possible solution is that one of the existing gospels is the source for the others.

Two possibilities have emerged—Matthew and Mark.

The argument for Matthaean priority has been strong since the time of Augustine who was its first proponent.

In contemporary scholarship it is held by W.R. Farmer, Bernard Orchard, and C.S. Mann who draw heavily upon the arguments of J.J. Griesbach.

One of the primary arguments in favor of Matthaean priority is the explanation of what have come to be known as minor agreements, i.e. texts in the triple tradition (Matthew, Mark, and Luke) where Matthew and Luke agree against Mark.