John R. Donahue S.J. - The Gospel in Parable: Metaphor, Narrative, and Theology in the Synoptic Gospels

"Donahue presents the major parables in the Synoptic Gospels as representative of the particular theological themes of each writer.... This book contains striking insights into the meaning of individual parables along with suggestions for preaching the parables today."

-PHEME PERKINS

Boston College

"This is a superb book.... The work of a seasoned scholar who likewise possesses the heart of a pastor. It incorporates years of careful study and reflection; it is also eminently readable. Specialists will overlook it at their peril; pastors and seminarians will find it rich in scholarly insight and homiletical wisdom. It deserves a wide readership."

-JACK DEAN KINGSBURY

Union Theological Seminary, Richmond

"John Donahue not only helps us read the parables in the Synoptic Gospels with intelligence but demonstrates their usefulness in the preaching and the living out of their message. This book exudes profound scholarship as well as a readability that is not always common in the world of scriptural studies.... There is, in short, a keen pastoral edge to his work which nicely complements careful scholarship."

-LAWRENCE S. CUNNINGHAM

University of Nortre Dame

"... stimulating and suggestive.... This book makes a significant contribution to the study of the parables.... Preachers and teachers-especially those who follow the lectionary-will want to consult this book each time they discuss a parable."

-M. THoMAS NORWOOD, JR.

The Christian Century

"Donahue's excellent volume sets out 'to wed recent parable study to the results of redaction criticism of the Synoptic Gospels.' ... The result is a first-rate commentary on the parables of the Synoptic tradition, which incorporates a survey of recent scholarly opinion with personal, often very helpful insights."

-SCHUYLER BROWN

Interpretation

JOHN R. DONAHUE, S.J.

In Memory of

Margaret Ryan Donahue 1897-1987 and Raymond Joseph Donahue 1900-1985

ix

1. How Does a Parable Mean?

2. The Parables of Mark

3. The Parables of Matthew

4. The Parables of Luke

5. The Gospel in Parable

Not another book on the parables! So exclaimed a colleague, himself the author of a fine book on the parables, when I mentioned that I had the present work in mind. During its gestation, I felt often that his exclamation was a prediction. Still, behind his surprise was a well-grounded sense that there was no dearth of excellent studies of the parables (see Bibliography).

Yet the parables, like all great literary and artistic works, are ever old and ever new and resist capture by any one movement or period, not to say by any one book. This work arose from a concern that an area of parable study remained relatively uncharted. For the past century the parables have served as the royal road to the life, teaching, and self-understanding of Jesus. Their primary literary context, however, is their location in the different Gospels. My purpose is to wed recent parable study to the results of redaction criticism of the Synoptic Gospels. From my work with the parables over a number of years, my conviction is that they offer a Gospel in miniature and at the same time give shape, direction, and meaning to the Gospels in which they are found. To study the parables of the Gospels is to study the gospel in parable.

The subtitle of my study is in debt to Paul Ricoeur's description of the parables as a combination of the metaphoric process and the narrative form (see below, pp. 10-11). My initial chapter takes its title in conscious echo of John Ciardi's wonderful book How Does a Poem Mean? I first used this too many years ago for an undergraduate class in Latin poetry, with the hope that the students would see Horace as something other than a thicket of difficult grammar. In seeking to ask how a parable means, I offer a survey of recent reflection on parable, metaphor, and narrative. In the central chapters my method is to study the parables as texts-but as texts in the literary and theological context of a given Gospel. The final chapter, virtually an epilogue, tries to draw together different threads and to offer suggestions for proclaiming the parables today. Commentary on the texts of the parables makes up the bulk of the work. My plea is that readers work with the Bible at hand. Whether readers agree with my suggestions is far less important than their own engagement with the biblical images and texts.

This work has arisen from years of teaching the parables primarily to students in training for ministry to different Christian communities, and also from giving a great number of workshops on the parables. To teach the parables for over a decade is to realize their power to challenge and fascinate people. Students from the most varied backgrounds and with wide differences in formal training in biblical studies can raise probing questions and make original suggestions. Much that I presume to claim as original arose from dialogue with students, especially those at the Vanderbilt Divinity School and the Graduate Theological Union. To them I feel a great debt of gratitude. My hope is that this work will be of value for people in training for ministry, for those in the active ministry, and for all who are caught up in the world of the parables.

While attempting to mediate the results of exegesis to a group larger than biblical specialists, I have tried to remain faithful to the canons of exegesis. The lengthy Bibliography, limited for the most part to titles available in English, represents an attempt to acquaint readers with important books and articles on the parables.

Like all who study the parables, I have been influenced by the seminal work of Joachim Jeremias and the creative discussion in the United States since the late 1960s associated with names like J. Dominic Crossan, Robert Funk, Norman Perrin, Amos Wilder, and Dan 0. Via-all of whom gave a new direction to parable study. Recent works by Kenneth Bailey, Madeleine Boucher, Jan Lambrecht, Pheme Perkins, and Mary Ann Tolbert have also been stimulating and helpful. When teaching the parables, I urge students to engage many different works and perspectives. My own work is an invitation for readers to learn as I did from these authors.