This study is undertaken against the backdrop of the polyvalence of parables and the resultant arbitrary conclusions reached by many interpreters of gospel parables. It is aimed to set guidelines towards plausible interpretations of these parables. It identified some factors that influence the understanding of the parables and thereby formulated principles for guiding the exegete to plausible conclusions. The genre
The contribution of this investigation lies in a canonical approach to gospel parables, and to set guidelines for plausible interpretation from such a stance. While it is recognised that earlier forms of parables, albeit in oral or written form, are of interest in historical critical investigations, the current study works with the forms of parables as embedded in specific gospel narratives.
Mark and Matthew assert that the parabolic mode of communication was central to Jesus’ teaching (Mt 13:34; Mk 4:34). However, understanding of these texts was widely divergent in early Christianity (Viljoen
Zimmermann (
Parables are enigmatic by nature and require explanation (Hultgren
This article therefore attempts to outline guidelines that would make interpretation of the gospel parables credible. However, brief attention will first be given to the definition of parable as well as to a model for understanding the parable genre as
The following is Zimmermann’s definition (
A parable is a short narrative (1) fictional (2) text that is related in the narrative world to known reality (3) but, by way of implicit or explicit transfer signals, makes it understood that the meaning of the narration must be differentiated from the literal words of the text (4). In its appeal structure (5) it challenges the reader to carry out a metaphoric transfer of meaning that is steered by co-text and context information (6). (p. 170)
This definition has implications for this article, and two issues will be raised briefly here in that respect. First, the narrativity of parables implies that there is at least one action sequence or change of status either reported or imagined (Zimmermann
Second, the metaphoricity of parables implies that a parable does not utilise meaning at the literary level of the text, but has ‘a “transferred” or literally “metaphoric” [
For biblical parables, in particular, the ‘image providing’ domain is usually constituted by the field of daily life and experience while the ‘image receiving’ domain is usually the religious or ethical sphere (Zimmermann
The
What is the metaphorical significance of parables? Snodgrass (
Sequel to the limits on transference of meaning from the ‘image providing’ domain to the ‘image receiving’ domain is the fact that no single parable does everything, and hence the warning that no parable should be forced to address issues not its concern. Otherwise, understanding will be distorted. According to Snodgrass (
Zimmermann (
Understanding parables is clearly not simple, uncomplicated, or uncontroversial … Parables are simply not clear or unambiguous. They neither follow the laws of philosophical or mathematical logic nor express simple platitudes. (p. 4)
By this he means that the interpretation exegetes make of a parable depends on the way they understand it. The second reason is due to exegetical methodology: ‘Methods are hermeneutical keys, each of which opens a different lock in order to achieve understanding’ (Zimmermann
In light of the above, this article recommends the following principles for parable exegesis:
Correlate parabolic and non-parabolic biblical material.
Interpret parables within particular gospel contexts.
Seek out the parable’s specific function in the teaching of Jesus.
Acknowledge the openness of parables.
Full-breadth analysis should be done on the parable.
Interpret what is given, not what is omitted.
Consider socio-historical background of the parables.
Pay attention to stock metaphors and symbols.
According to Snodgrass (
For instance, an interpreter can boost understanding of the parable of the unforgiving servant (Mt 18:21–35) by studying Jesus’ teaching on forgiveness, say, in Matthew 6:12, 14–15, and vice versa. Matthew 18:21–35 says in pictures what Matthew 6:12, 14–15 says in words. Matthew 6:12 teaches that the justification for asking forgiveness of God is that one forgives another
For if you forgive men when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive men their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins.
Conversely, the parable text addresses more than just
Snodgrass (
It is important to correlate parabolic and nonparabolic material in order to limit theories about the meaning of the parables. If the meaning suggested for a parable cannot be verified by nonparabolic teaching, it is unlikely to be true. (p. 140)
This postulation is apt. Parables are not independent of the rest of the canon; their interpretation therefore needs to consider the message of the canon in general, as well as that of other portions of the canon on the same subject matter.
In the second place, it provides multiple (or recurrent) attestation to some key themes in Jesus’ teaching, for example, kingdom, eschatology, forgiveness, et cetera. According to Snodgrass (
The coherence of parabolic and nonparabolic teaching on themes most of which are, if not unique, at least unusual, is significant, even foundational … This underscores the importance of the parables for understanding Jesus. (p. 140)
This claim apparently asserts that the gospel parables address motifs that constitute Jesus’ teaching in the New Testament. To that extent, interpretations that take the focus of a parable off this track are disputable.
Reinstorf (
The parables of Jesus as they feature in the Gospels are not loose, independent units, but form part of the greater message of each Gospel writer. The particular intent
Snodgrass agrees on the need to carry on interpretation of parables within specific gospel contexts. He (Snodgrass
The parables are stories used twice
Herzog II (
In a text-immanent approach to the reading of gospels, parables should be read in terms of the narrative and theology of the specific gospel where it is found.
According to Snodgrass (
Context is a determiner of meaning
Accordingly, he rightly counsels the interpreter to seek the meaning of gospel parables in the context of the teaching of Jesus, which he says is actually ‘the context of the parables’. In his (Snodgrass
If we cut the parables out of the context of Jesus’ teaching, we can make them mean anything, which is precisely what has happened in a number of studies … If we place parables in context of our choosing, we change them into something other than Jesus’s communicative intent. (p. 26)
In this light, one can ponder many of the interpretations of the parable of talents (Mt 25:14–30) in which it is often used as a text for discussion on financial (or business) investment; not to mention the literal understanding of ‘talents’ within a contemporary English worldview (Akpan
Parables are ‘open’ literary units. It is necessary, then, for the exegete of any parable text to realise from the outset that they are dealing with a text that can explode with ‘a surplus of meaning’ – to use the words of Lategan (
Taking any two parallel parables side by side, one notices that the evangelists did not use them in exactly the same way, for example, the parable of the lost sheep (Mt 18:10–14; Lk 15:1–7). Matthew uses the story to illustrate the need to be committed to the sustenance of little children in the Christian faith:
See that you do not look down on one of these little ones. For I tell you that their angels in heaven always see the face of my Father in heaven … In the same way your Father in heaven is not willing that any of these little ones should be lost. (18:10, 14)
Luke employs the story differently in the face of the dissatisfaction of Jewish religious leaders with Jesus’ interaction with ‘tax collectors and “sinners”’ (Lk 15:1), and concludes with the way heaven responds to the repentance of a sinner:
I tell you that in the same way there will be more rejoicing in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who do not need to repent. (v.7)
Such legitimate polyvalence, as seen between Matthew 18:10–14 and Luke 15:1–7 above, should make it easy to understand why Zimmermann rejects Jülicher’s single-point interpretation model. In his words:
No matter how ‘illuminating’ the imagined scene may appear to be at first glance, the process of transferral is anything other than unambiguous … The occurrence of transferal … implies inexplicitness for it is indeed pre-structured through transfer signals in the text and context.
It is also apt that Zimmermann (
Parables are narratives, notwithstanding that they are fictional. That being the case, every necessary element of narrative analysis is needed to understand them. For Snodgrass (
As earlier asserted, this is a call to deal with parables as narrative texts and structured communication to which the regular principles of narrative analysis apply.
In a similar fashion, Zimmermann (
Narrative analysis of parables, Zimmermann (
Regarding the metaphoricity of parables, the transaction between two dissimilar semantic fields, context-based access to meaning and the contributions of ‘external transfer signals, such as introduction (e.g. ‘The kingdom of God is like …’ [Mt 13:31, 33]) and conclusion (e.g. ‘So …’ [Mt 12:45; 13:49; 20:16]; ‘In the same way …’ [Mt 18:14]), are factors that must be taken seriously in order to get to the message of the parable (Viljoen
In the end, virtually nothing short of the analysis of any narrative text is done on parables. This principle, in fact, enhances the exegete’s consciousness that he or she is dealing with a narrative text, which, in turn, guides his or her choice of exegetical elements sought for from the text.
Attempt to read foreign ideas into biblical texts (called
If, for instance, an exegete probes what happened after the elder brother to the ‘prodigal’ son got his father’s explanation of the reason for celebration (Lk 15:32)
Such ‘filled-in’ details are not necessary for a parable to have meaning. The interpreter should therefore concentrate on information available in the parable text, and not presume to say more than it says. As Snodgrass mentioned before, the latter would certainly lead off tangent.
Parables are rooted in the reality of everyday life, but communicate their meaning when those social contexts are transferred into the religious domain. To that extent, a good number of the concepts found in the gospel parables are adopted from the social-historical context. One therefore needs to know the
Taking the parable of the good Samaritan (Lk 10:25–37) for instance, the mention of ‘Samaritan’ in the narrative world alerts one to antagonism (cf. Lk 9:53; Jn 4:4–9). However, the point of the story is not Jewish-Samaritan antagonism, but to drive home the message of good neighbourliness. When this ‘Samaritan’ is characterised as a good neighbour, it leaves the Jewish religious leaders (and community) in the narrative without excuse, should they for whatever reason fail to fulfil the command to love their neighbours as themselves (Lk 10:27b, 29).
Other concepts and processes whose socio-historical meanings are needed to enhance understanding of the parables when they appear, include Mammon (Lk 16:13), bread dough (Mt 13:33), loss of sheep (Lk 15:1–7), loss of a drachma (Lk 15:8–10), et cetera. Against the backdrop that ancient Jewish-Palestinian meanings and functions of concepts
Another window for gaining understanding of parables comprises stock metaphors and symbols. According to Zimmermann (
Language does not start from scratch or with a
This is, according to Zimmerman, equally true of metaphors, which ‘are extraordinary examples for the transformation of meaning’. However, he insightfully adds that, whereas a metaphor is constructed to explain a novel or unknown idea, ‘the metaphoric text requires a traditional fixed meaning to be used within a new communication situation’ (Zimmerman
So, for instance, when one comes across ‘vineyard’ in the parable of the unfaithful tenants (Mt 21:33–45) or ‘king’ in the parable of the feast (Mt 22:1–14), one wants to relate it to the linguistic culture of Israel. ‘Vineyard’ in the Old Testament refers to Israel as a nation (Is 3:14; 5:1–7; Jr 12:10), and this idea is carried over into the New Testament. ‘King’ refers to God, based on the stock symbolism in which ‘king’ referred to Yahweh (Nm 23:21; Is 33:22). Such knowledge of the narrative world immediately helps the reader to identify the characters in the narrative. The moment that happens, it is easy to understand the role of the character in the parable and how it may be interpreted in ‘the image-receiving domain’.
Linked to these principles, it is also important to highlight some pitfalls that need to be avoided if interpreting the gospel parables. The following five issues are raised:
Do not presuppose a parable’s form or meaning.
Do not seek to reconstruct the ‘original’ version of the parable.
Do not impose ‘real time’ and ‘logical time’ on parable time.
Do not interpret parables as historically factual events.
Do not allegorise parables or deny allegorical features where they truly occur.
Uninformed presuppositions with respect to parables can detract from their communicative intents. To guard against such detractions, Snodgrass (
Zimmermann’s discussion (
The point in this for the present discussion is that interpreters who are convinced by some classification scheme would want to place every parable in one or other class. The consequence of this would be looking for some specific characteristics that align with such a class, but which may after all not be realistic with the parable in question. Such an approach would likely impose a form, as well as a message on the parabolic text being investigated. In the end, a different parable would have been created from the text. It is best, then, to deal with gospel parables in a comprehensive way; that way, they can speak for themselves.
For Snodgrass (
Snodgrass (
When the parable is over, the narrative time is over. Thus to ask about events outside the story time … destroys the parable and demonstrates misunderstanding about how analogies and parables work. (p. 30)
Take for instance the parable of the wedding feast (Mt 22:1–14; Lk 14:16–24). The concluding plot in Matthew’s version is the judgement (Mt 22:14) of the man who did not wear wedding clothes (vv. 11–12). But it was supposed to be a story about a wedding feast, and after eliminating the odd participant, the qualified guests should have continued with the feast. However, the story does not say anything about how the feast went after the man was cast out, or if it went on at all. While this is curious, it is nonetheless not useful for the purposes of the story. An interpreter who stretches beyond the given ‘narrative time’ has stepped beyond bounds and should return to the point where the narrative stops.
The narrative claim of a parable is by nature both fictional and verisimilar (Akpan
In light of the above, any approach that describes the parable event as if it were a historically factual event is the wrong starting point and will not produce a plausible interpretation. In fact, this pitfall usually leads to the tendency to want to fill gaps in the story. Because the story is erroneously regarded as a historical account, the interpreter may want to ask what happened between one scene and another, and could even lay emphasis on such assumed details.
The parable of the rich man and Lazarus (Lk 16:19–31) can serve as a good example to illustrate this mistake. For the simple reason that personalities (angels, Lazarus, Abraham, prophets and Moses) and real places (heaven and hell) are named in the story, it has often been mistaken for a historical account and its interpretation consequently made to follow historical lines. For instance, in the course of this work, I heard a preacher explain the story at a funeral service with emphasis on the rich man’s wickedness. He alleged that the man’s wickedness even got transferred to his dog so that, instead of concentrating on the crumbs from its master’s table, the dog rather licked Lazarus’ sores with no rebuke whatsoever from its master. He also asserted that the rich man’s proper name was omitted due to his wicked disposition, quoting Proverbs 10:7 in support of the claim: ‘The memory of the righteous will be a blessing, but the name of the wicked will rot.’ By that interpretation, the rich man’s name was not worth preserving and therefore was omitted from the story so that it would not perchance be remembered. This and similar historically oriented interpretations can hardly be sustained.
In an allegory, every detail tends to have significance and is needed to achieve complete interpretation.
Caution against the allegorising of gospel parables does not, however, threaten obvious allegorical terms in some of them. However, while Jülicher completely repudiated allegory
Others have recognisable allegorical elements embedded in them such as the city that is destroyed in the parable of ‘the Marriage Feast’ (Mt 22:1–14), and the shepherd in the parable of ‘the Final Judgement’ (Mt 25:31–46). Still, Hultgren continues that others carry allegorical interpretations appended to them, for example the interpretations of the parable of ‘the Sower’ (Mk 4:13–20) and ‘the Dragnet’ (Mt 13:49–50).
Hultgren then insightfully advises that interpreters of the gospel parables should recognise and respect allegorical elements wherever they exist, but also be wary of arbitrarily assigning allegorical meanings to symbols or figures within the text. Reinstorf (
This article concludes that not all interpretations of the gospel parables are plausible. Although the parables lend themselves towards polyvalent interpretation, openness does not validate arbitrary interpretations. Gospel parable interpreters therefore need to take seriously methods and principles that limit multiplicity and enhance credibility of meanings of the parables. The principles as set forth above, constitute a helpful contribution to this goal. It needs also to be stated that the principles as identified above, simultaneously complement and countercheck one another, and therefore need to be holistically accounted for. That way, they will boost the confidence of interpreters, as well as limit the excesses that come with parable interpretation.
The authors declare that they have no financial or personal relationships that may have inappropriately influenced them in writing this article.
A.M.A. and F.P.V. contributed equally to the design and implementation of the research, to the analysis of the results and to the writing of the manuscript.
This article followed all ethical standards for research without direct contact with human or animal subjects.
This research received no specific grant from any funding agency in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors.
The authors confirm that the data supporting the findings of this study are available within the article.
The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of any affiliated agency of the authors.
John included none of these parables. Instead, he portrays Jesus as making use of παροιμία [figures], for example the image of the sheepfold (Jn 10:1–6), the door of the sheepfold (7–10), the good shepherd (10:11–18), and the vine and the branches (15:1–8).
In a three-part teaching serial, an online interpretation of the Parable of the Talents (Tompkins
Zimmermann’s definition is based on the fact that parables for the modern reader are available in a textual form. However, it should be noted that this definition would not comply with the first hearers of the parables.
In the time of Jesus, religion was not a separate social institution, but intertwined with politics and the economy.
For example, Van Eck (
It is often argued that, when reading the gospels as narratives, it should be read a-historically with a text-immanent approach (Viljoen
This article does not, however, assume with Snodgrass that the gospels records are Jesus’
As mentioned before, it should be noted that much of the parabolic and nonparabolic material are interpretations of the different evangelists, which might differ in certain cases.
In many cases, parables are framed by introductions (προμηθία [forethoughts]) and conclusions (ἐπιμηθία [afterthoughts]) that provide evaluations and interpretations. Although some of these introductions and conclusions may have formed part of an original story, others were added by the evangelists (Viljoen
The challenge with this assertion is the proposed search for authorial intent. This can hardly be achieved. However, if parable researchers limit themselves to the communicative intent discernible from the text itself, Reinstorf’s argument can be said to be both fitting and realistic.
That the parables were used ‘twice’, should be understood as capturing the transition between Jesus’ use and the evangelists’ (canonical) use. Jesus, himself, might have used any given parable more than once, and between him and the evangelists, and even after the evangelists, the same parable could have been used at least once more. However, in terms of the oral tradition, a parable could have been used multiple times in multiple contexts.
A text-immanent approach examines the gospels as literary units (Viljoen
This should be understood as the ‘voice’ of Jesus as available in the gospels; not a historical-critically reconstructed ‘voice’ (see Van Eck
According to Zimmermann, ‘narrative time’ is ‘the time taken to narrate the event’, while ‘narrated time’ is ‘the time it takes for the events in the narrative to transpire’.
It is often argued that, when reading the gospels as narratives, it should be read as historically with a text-immanent approach (Viljoen
The meaning of these concepts in the narrative world could differ from their meaning within the environment in which the text originated that adds to the complexity to interpret them.
Zimmermann (
With a historical critical investigation earlier, layers and variants of parables will form a valid field of investigation.
For this reason, Zimmermann (
Zimmermann (
Biblical examples of an allegory include ‘The Song of the Vineyard’ (Is 5) and the Contrast between the Freewoman and the Bondwoman (Gl 4:22–31).
In Augustine’s scheme, the man is Adam; Jerusalem the heavenly city; Jericho, the moon (representative of morality); the robbers represent the devil and his angels: they strip the man of his immortality and beat him by persuading him to sin; the priest and levite represent the priesthood and ministry of the Old Testament; the good Samaritan is Christ; the binding of the wound is the restraint of sin; the oil and wine are the comfort of hope and the encouragement to work; the donkey is the incarnation; the inn is the church; the next day is after the resurrection of Christ; the innkeeper is the Apostle Paul; and the two
According to Reinstorf (