T H E PARABLES OF JESUS are commonly assumed to be simple stories, told in an engaging manner and easily understood by almost everyone.
People can still be heard to say, "Give us only the parables, and the Christian religion will be more readily welcomed, more quickly understood, and more easily assimilated."
But Jesus' parables, while seemingly simple in their story lines, set before their modern readers a number of complex and significant challenges: challenges having to do with
(1) Jesus' purpose in telling these parables,
(2) how they were used by the canonical evangelists in their Gospels, and
(3) the depth and breadth of meaning that they possess — but also, and probably more important,
(4) our being awakened anew to the radical message that they proclaim.
The word "parable" (parabole) appears forty-eight times in the Syn- optic Gospels (seventeen times in Matthew, thirteen in Mark, and eighteen in Luke).
It is entirely absent in John's Gospel and is missing in the rest of the New Testament as well, except for two uses in Hebrews 9:9 and 11:19 that are without importance for a discussion of Jesus' parables.
The word has various shades of meaning in the Synoptic Gospels and can be understood to refer to a number of ways in which Jesus both taught and ministered.
John's Gospel, however, presents Jesus as speaking in extended discourses, not in sayings or parables, though parabolic forms may underlie some of the Johannine discourses (e.g., 10:1-5; perhaps also 3:29; 8:35;11:9-10, and 12:24).
What follows in this book are thirteen articles written by thirteen first-rate New Testament scholars that attempt to understand the parables of Jesus as portrayed in the Synoptic Gospels on their own terms and to set out the challenge of their teachings anew — all the while profiting from the great amount of study that has already transpired and seeking to use the tools of contemporary New Testament scholarship in a responsible manner.
The articles build on the scholarly expertise of their respective authors. But they are presented in a manner that is intended to be under- stood by intelligent lay people, theological students, and ministers.
Each article has a Selected Bibliography of no more than sixteen entries for further study, with many of the works cited being foundational for the article itself.
All of the articles, however, are devoid of discussion-type footnotes which either interact with competing positions or bring in subsidiary materials.
Even documentary-type footnotes are held to a minimum, and then only set in abbreviated form in parentheses in the text when felt to be absolutely necessary.
