Eschatology and the Parables By
I. Howard Marshall This lecture was delivered in Cambridge on 6 July, 1963 at a meeting convened by the Tyndale Fellowship for Biblical Research [p.5] In any attempt to understand the teaching of Jesus as recorded in the Synoptic Gospels, a consideration of the parables must take an important place. This is demonstrated not merely by the plethora of critical study and popular exposition to which the parables have given rise,1 but above all by the place which the parables occupy in the Synoptic tradition. According to A. M. Hunter roughly one third of the recorded teaching of Jesus consists of parables and parabolic statements.2 There are some forty parables and twenty parabolic statements (to say nothing of the many metaphorical statements) in the teaching of Jesus, and they are found in all of the four sources or collections of material commonly distinguished by students of the Gospels.3 Further, there is abundant evidence of Palestinian background and Semitic speech in the parables. So sceptical a critic as R. Bultmann can say that ‘the main part of these sayings (sc. the tradition of the sayings of Jesus as a whole) arose not on Hellenistic but on Aramaic soil’,4 and this verdict applies especially to the parables. The parabolic tradition is thus seen to be integral to the teaching of Jesus and to have a high claim to authenticity. Although the fact that Jesus used parables in his teaching is thus beyond contest, it is strongly denied by many scholars that the original wording and meaning of his parables is identical with what is actually recorded in the Gospels. Every preacher knows the temptation to re-tell the parables in his own words and thus, consciously or unconsciously, to say more or less than is recorded in the Gospels, and there is plenty of evidence that [p.6] the parables have been misunderstood both in modern times and the patristic era.5 What many modern scholars contend is that the parables have been the subject of erroneous and biased exposition ever since they left the lips of Jesus, so that our written accounts in the Gospels already show the effects of this misunderstanding of the mind of Jesus. The attempt has 1
See the lengthy bibliography in J. Jeremias, Die Gleichnisse Jesu5 (Göttingen, 1958). (The English translation of this revised edition of his book, The Parables of Jesus [London: SCM Press, 1963], was not available at the time of writing this lecture.) 2 Interpreting the Parables (London, 1960). I should like to express here my deep indebtedness to Professors Hunter and Jeremias for their stimulating teaching and personal kindness to me as a student in Aberdeen and Göttingen, although I find myself adopting different conclusions from them at various points in this monograph. 3 The allocation of parables is roughly as follows: Mk. 6; Q 7; M 11; L 18. It must be stressed that these figures are only approximations, since source criticism is inevitably subjective in its conclusions. 4 Die Geschichte der Synoptischen Tradition4 (Göttingen, 1958), p. 179; cf. M. Black, An Aramaic Approach to the Gospels and Acts2 (Oxford, 1954), pp. 119-123, 139f., 141f. 5 M. F. Wiles, ‘Early Exegesis of the Parables’, in Scottish Journal of Theology (SJT), XI, 1958, pp. 287-301; H. Montefiore (with H. E. W. Turner), Thomas and the Evangelists (London, 1962), pp. 40-78.