Early Exegesis of the Parables
The last fifty years have seen revolutionary progress in the work of the interpretation of the parables of Jesus. This progress has been made possible primarily by the final discarding of the allegorical method and the repudiation of ‘the centuries of distortion and ill-usage that the parables have...
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| Format: | Electronic Article |
| Language: | English |
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| Fernleihe: | Fernleihe für die Fachinformationsdienste |
| Published: |
Cambridge Univ. Press
1958
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| In: |
Scottish journal of theology
Year: 1958, Volume: 11, Issue: 3, Pages: 287-301 |
| Online Access: |
Volltext (lizenzpflichtig) Volltext (lizenzpflichtig) |
| Summary: | The last fifty years have seen revolutionary progress in the work of the interpretation of the parables of Jesus. This progress has been made possible primarily by the final discarding of the allegorical method and the repudiation of ‘the centuries of distortion and ill-usage that the parables have suffered through allegorical interpretation’.1 Exegesis of the parables in centuries before the present might seem therefore to be of purely antiquarian interest. Nevertheless it seems worth while attempting to discover whether there may not be some light to be gained from the way in which the parables were understood by those who stood nearest to them in point of history. This study is therefore devoted to the interpretation of parables in the ante-Nicene fathers.The way in which anybody interprets the parables will largely be controlled by the answer which he gives to two prior questions—namely: What constitutes a parable? and Why did Jesus use the parabolic method? There is not much direct discussion of these issues. Origen defines a parable as ‘an account of an event which did not literally take place, but which, could have done so. It is a figurative representation of certain things by virtue of their correspondence to the things spoken of in the parable.’ He distinguishes it from a fable (αἴνιγμα) where the event spoken of is something which could not conceivably have happened in real life.2 |
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| ISSN: | 1475-3065 |
| Contains: | Enthalten in: Scottish journal of theology
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| Persistent identifiers: | DOI: 10.1017/S0036930600007900 |