THE SYNOPTIC PARABLES

Eschatology and the Parables

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, but above all by the place which the parables occupy in the Synoptic tradition. According to A. M. Hunter roughly one t...

The Parables of Jesus in Recent Study

I. THE TRADITION OF ALLEGORICAL INTERPRETATION The history of parabolic interpretation can be divided into four relatively distinct periods. During the Period of the Early Church (to 540) a tendency toward allegorical interpretation was firmly established. Despite certain protests the three-fold method of allegorical interpretation championed by Origen dominated the exegesis not only of the par...

The Synoptic Problem

First, it cannot explain the differences among the writers—unless it is assumed that verbal differences indicate different events. In that case, one would have to say that Jesus was tempted by the devil twice, that the Lord’s Supper was offered twice, and that Peter denied the Lord six to nine times! In fact, one might have to say that Christ was raised from the dead more than once if this were...

Constitutional Law and the Teaching of the Parables

NiNe Rules to Guide iN the iNteRpRetatioN of paRables