Chapter 161 of 404

The Teller of Jewish Parables

Although some styles of rhetoric spanned numerous cultures, one sort of Jewish teaching style is fairly distinctively Jewish.²⁸ Greek animal fables are somewhat comparable, but Jesus’ stories are almost always about human (rather than animal) actors, and bear many traits reflecting their Jewish and often even rural Galilean flavor.²⁹ Although later Christians employed illustrations, they were usually the sort of illustrations characteristic of the Greek world, not the sort of story parables at home specifically in Jewish Palestine.³⁰

By normal historical standards, then, we should give special attention to parables in the Gospels as among the least debatable, most securely authentic elements of the Jesus tradition.³¹ In this section, I will spend more time showing Jewish elements in some of the parables than in discussing Jesus’ message, which has been amply done by others. For most Gospels scholars, however, it can almost go without saying that a major theme in many of the Gospel parables (and certainly in our first extant Gospel, Mark) is God’s kingdom, a theme that we will explore briefly later.

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