Chapter 164 of 404

Parable Settings in the Gospels

Some scholars suggest that some of the parable settings may have been transmitted along with the traditions to which they were attached.⁵⁸ In rabbinic parables one might expect an attribution and an application, but rarely a description of the setting in which the teaching was uttered; still, rabbinic analogies may break down here, since rabbinic texts usually stress the rabbis’ teaching more than their person, whereas the gospel tradition is interested in both. It is thus possible that Jesus may have spoken many parables on specific occasions mentioned in the Gospels. An inductive approach would test this best, and one such study concludes that Synoptic writers almost invariably claim the same audience for the same parables, with but two exceptions that could conceivably represent different parables.⁵⁹ Some settings also make good local sense; like a cove near Capernaum, many natural acoustic settings existed in Galilee that would enable thousands to hear the voice of someone properly positioned.⁶⁰

At the same time, it is likely that Jesus spoke parables in a variety of settings (e.g., Mk 3:23; 4:2; 7:15, 17; 12:1; 13:28), and many of his parables were collected into arrangements like those in the Gospels. Parables tend to occur in bunches in later Jewish texts as well.⁶¹ Neither the Gospels nor their sources were under obligation to report the occasions on which Jesus told parables, and ancient writers had considerable freedom to rearrange material to fit their purposes.⁶² Also some parables scholars note that, “Like the gospel parables, the same rabbinic parable may appear in different contexts far removed from one another.”⁶³

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