Listening to the Parables of Jesus

by Robert W. Funk, Bernard Brandon Scott, Edward F. Beutner

"What if the purpose or function of a parable is not to instruct but to haunt?" So begins Listening to the Parables of Jesus, edited by Edward F. Beutner, who suggests that, from time to time, even scholars scratch their heads in puzzlement over the yin and yang of Jesus' parables. This concise, well-edited book brings together insights from world-renowned scholars into the interpretation of parables. Lane McGaughy's opening essay provides high fidelity earphones that let readers hear the vivid and distinctive nature of the language of parable. Robert Miller offers an original treatment of two parables from the gospels of Matthew and Thomas, parables that he renames, "The Overpriced Pearl" and "The Treasure of Immorality." With his eye for narrative structure, film Director Paul Verhoeven identifies fault lines in Matthew's version of the Vineyard Laborers and proposes an alternative version in which the first will be first. In his essay on the Leased Vineyard, Brandon Scott demonstrates how rabbinic parables can illuminate the otherwise shadowy nooks and crannies of a dark parable of violence found in Mark's gospel. The final three essays describe the parables globally as artful language events as fulcrums, so to speak, upon which our understanding of the world gets overturned and undermined. According to Robert Funk, Jesus parables are a knothole in the cosmic fence through which we glimpse the world as Jesus saw it. In Listening to the Parables of Jesus, leading scholars of the parables help readers find the knothole. The rest is up to them.

120 pages, Paperback

First published October 15, 2007

About the author

Robert Walter Funk (July 18, 1926 – September 3, 2005), was an American biblical scholar, founder of the controversial Jesus Seminar and the non-profit Westar Institute in Santa Rosa, California. Funk, an academic, sought to promote research and education on what he called biblical literacy. His approach to hermeneutics was historical-critical, with a strongly sceptical view of orthodox Christian belief, particularly concerning historical Jesus. He and his peers described Jesus' parables as containing shocking messages that contradicted established religious attitudes.

Reviews

[Steven H · Rating 5 out of 5]

SHORT ESSAYS FROM ‘JESUS SEMINAR’ SCHOLARS INTERPRETING JESUS’ PARABLES

Editor Edward Beutner wrote in the introductory chapter of this 2007 book, “What if the purpose or function of a parable is not to instruct but to haunt? Keep this question in mind as you explore the individual essays in this book. Notice how from time to time its scholarly contributors scratch their heads in puzzlement over the yin and yang of Jesus’ parables…. Three final essays … describe the parables globally as artful language events… upon which our inherited or ‘default’ understanding of the world gets overturned and undermined. Even if at first hearing the parables might grate against our ears… studying the parables will redound to our advantage in the end exactly because they challenge our understanding and haunt our imagination with a vision of heretofore unimagined possibilities rather than merely saddling us with rote reiteration of the shopworn patterns of the past.”

Lane C. McGaughy observes, “Matthew, Marik, Luke, Q, and the Gospel of Thomas tell us that Jesus was a skillful teacher whose way of communicating with his hearers was highly unusual, even novel: he composed fictional narratives and brief comparisons called parables… The interpretation of Jesus’ parables has become a major preoccupation of Gospel scholarship since the nineteenth century attempt to anchor Christianity in an historically verifiable biography of Jesus proved impossible. The new quest of the twentieth century has thus turned to the words of Jesus in an attempt to relate the missionary preaching of the early disciples to the intention of Jesus’ proclamation. In the Gospels, the words of Jesus that are commonly recognized as being the most authentic are the parables. Thus the attempt to reconstruct the message of Jesus must take account of, if not begin with, the synoptic parables.” (Pg: 7-8)

Edward Beutner states, “I do not like to say that Jesus ‘preached’ or ‘acted’ in parables simply because I do not imagine that he put on little plays or vignettes in order to prove or demonstrate some non-parabolic point. I say he spoke or behaved in parables because I take him as one who construes the real world as evocative, interrogative, parabolic: a world that is itself not fixed, not self-referential, not even self-contained; but forever fresh and gesturing.” (Pg. 15) In another essay, he says, “The religious imagination of Jesus… reverberates unnervingly against the grain of our accustomed sense of things, and speeds like either death or medicine directly to the unguarded heart of much that we together assume.” (Pg. 33)

Bernard Brandon Scott explains, “Jesus Seminars on the Road (JSORs) provide for a significant interaction between the fellows and associates of the Jesus Seminar. Not only do we meet associates whose acquaintance we have made … at the fall and spring meetings, but hundreds of others learn of the Seminar’s activities… Following good biblical precedent, Westar [Institute] sends us out two by two…” (Pg. 21)

Edward Beutner suggests, “I want to argue for a link between these two … tragic heroes, Jesus and Hamlet. This exploration … clarifies the following questions… Why do tragic heroes exist at all; and why do we first anoint and then elevate them; and why do we celebrate them endlessly? Despite the world of differences between them, Hamlet and Jesus share an imaginative faculty… their depth of vision and fecundity of expression have exercised so firm and durable a hold on human consciousness that from their own day to the present they have both been understood as our permanent contemporaries. Both Jesus and Hamlet are tragic heroes whose power to transform their listeners derives not from any staginess in their few external exploits, but from the profound generativity of their every abundant utterance.” (Pg. 83-84)

Robert W. Funk asserts, “The theme of Jesus’ public discourse was the kingdom of God or God’s domain. God’s domain was that region or sphere where God’s dominion was immediate and absolute. Jesus believed God’s reign to be present, but not discernible to ordinary eyes… Jesus always talked about God’s reign in everyday, mundane terms---dinner parties, travelers being mugged, truant sons, laborers in a vineyard, the hungry and tearful. His language was concrete and specific. He did not cite and interpret scripture. He never used abstract language. He made no theological statements… Jesus did not have a doctrine of God; he had only experience of God.” (Pg. 89-90)

This book will appeal to those who accept ‘critical’ views about Jesus.