The Parables after Jesus: Their Imaginative Receptions across Two Millennia

by David B. Gowler

Overview

Over the centuries, some interpreters have attempted to explain what parables mean. Other interpreters have endeavored to articulate what parables do—how they "work" rhetorically or poetically. With the parables of Jesus, however, more is required, because Jesus' parables have always demanded a response from readers or hearers. Interpreters, therefore, should also seek to ascertain what parables want, because the parables of Jesus not only stake claims and demand responses; they also challenge their hearers to act. This challenge reverberates across the centuries, calling us continually back to the texts to discover anew what these distinctive and wonderful stories show us about what it means to be human and the ways in which Jesus urges us to follow God in word and deed.

The Parables after Jesus is the first book to explore in a comprehensive way the "afterlives" of the parable tradition—how people have interpreted, been influenced by, and applied Jesus' enigmatic and compelling parables in a multitude of ways, perspectives, eras, contexts, and media. Interpretation is never a solitary endeavor, for each interpreter stands on the shoulders of previous interpreters, continually in dialogue with other interpretations, past and present. Gowler's reception history discusses more than fifty imaginative receptions of Jesus' parables, selected from two millennia of parable interpretation—from those who have dominated discussions to often ignored or suppressed voices. From this we see how the use of Jesus' parables affects society and culture and how powerfully parables have challenged—and continue to challenge—people's hearts, minds, and imaginations.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781481314114
Publisher:	Baylor University Press
Publication date:	12/15/2020
Pages:	320
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.92(d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

David B. Gowler is the Pierce Chair of Religion at Oxford College of Emory University and Senior Faculty Fellow, The Center for Ethics, Emory University. He is the author of several books, as well as dozens of articles, book chapters, and book reviews, and is the editor or coeditor of over thirty books. His books on the parables include What Are They Saying about the Parables? and, as co-editor, Howard Thurman: Sermons on the Parables.

Table of Contents

List of Illustrations
Preface
Abbreviations
Introduction
1. The Afterlives of Jesus’s Parables in Antiquity (to ca. 550 CE)
Irenaeus
The Gospel of Philip
Clement of Alexandria
Tertullian
Origen
John Chrysostom
Augustine
Macrina the Younger
Ephrem the Syrian
The Good Shepherd in Early Christian Art
Oil Lamp
Roman Catacombs
Dura-Europos House Church
Illuminations from the Rossano Gospels
Byzantine Mosaics, Christ Separating Sheep from Goats, Sant’Apollinare Nuovo (Ravenna, Italy)
Romanos the Melodist
2. The Afterlives of Jesus’s Parables in the Middle Ages (ca. 550-1500 CE)
Gregory the Great
Sahih al-Bukhari
Wazo of Liège
The Golden Gospels of Echternach
The Laborers in the Vineyard
The Wicked Tenants
The Great Dinner
The Rich Man and Lazarus
Theophylact
Hildegard of Bingen
Chartres Cathedral
Bonaventure
Thomas Aquinas
John Gower
Antonia Pulci
Albrecht Dürer
3. The Afterlives of Jesus’s Parables in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries
Martin Luther
Anna Jansz of Rotterdam
John Calvin
John Maldonatus
William Shakespeare
Domenico Fetti
George Herbert
Roger Williams
Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn
John Bunyan
4. The Afterlives of Jesus’s Parables in the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries
William Blake
Søren Kierkegaard
Frederick Douglass
Fanny Crosby
Leo Tolstoy
John Everett Millais
Emily Dickinson
Charles Haddon Spurgeon
Adolf Jülicher
5. The Afterlives of Jesus’s Parables in the Twentieth and Twenty-First Centuries
Thomas Hart Benton
Parables and the Blues: Rev. Robert Wilkins
Flannery O’Connor
Martin Luther King Jr.
Godspell
Two Latin American Receptions
The Peasants of Solentiname
Elsa Tamez
David Flusser
Octavia Butler
Thich Nhat Hanh
Conclusion: What Do Parables Want?
Appendix: Descriptions of the Parables Cited in the Interpretations
Works Cited
Scripture Index
Subject Index

What People are Saying About This

Mikeal C. Parsons

For most of its history, parable research has, perhaps rightly, focused on the composition history of Jesus's parables from the oral period in which they were spoken to their placement in the Christian Gospels. David Gowler has studied, taught, and written about the parables for many years, and in this fascinating study he has trained his eagle eye on the latter part of the parables' 'career'—the impact of their afterlife on the literature, music, and art that stand as heirs to this remarkable corpus of stories. Arranged chronologically, Gowler's study spans two thousand years of reception. This treasure trove belongs in the library of anyone interested in the ways Jesus's parables have challenged our hearts, minds, and imaginations, and it confirms that the world the parables has produced is no less interesting and complex than the world that produced the parables.

Matthew L. Skinner

If the parables stimulate your mind, feed your soul, upset your values, and occasionally confuse you, you’re in good company. Exegetes, poets, hymn writers, allegorists, social reformers, novelists, and painters feature in this brisk tour through two thousand years of parable interpretation, often urging readers to see more in the parables or to view them through a different set of eyes. As a knowledgeable guide through a lively history, David Gowler highlights the evocative interpretations that emerge when a parable encounters a fertile imagination.

Duane F. Watson

David Gowler invites us to participate in a two-thousand-year-old dialogue with those seeking to understand and implement the simple, yet often perplexing, parables of Jesus. Gowler has assembled fifty conversation partners from literature, poetry, hymns, the visual arts, and theater that span the Christian era. These voices hail from a broad and diverse range of historically, theologically, and culturally significant contexts. By entering into this dialogue, Gowler hopes that rather than find what we expect to find in the parables, we can take off our own interpretive blinders and come to a fuller understanding of the meanings and applications of the parables to our lives. He succeeds! The conversation in which he engages us here is truly an eye-opening and enriching experience.

Christine Joynes

This wonderfully engaging volume offers a rich array of insights, as the author introduces us to a chorus of diverse voices from a wide variety of media. David Gowler’s immense learning is expressed with superb clarity, making interpretations of the parables across two millennia accessible to all. Highly recommended.

Editorial Reviews

With The Parables after Jesus, David Gowler has provided contemporary readers with resources necessary to respond to what the parables want, with an answer that 'involves both understanding and action.' For this gift of erudite scholarship that culminates in a challenging call to action, we are in David Gowler’s debt once again.

Review of Biblical Literature - Mikeal C. Parsons

Gowler has once again contributed a valuable work to the growing field of reception history and biblical studies. It is especially important to note that he sees this work as an 'introduction,' a 'starting point' and 'stimulus for further discussions,' and as such it certainly accomplishes this task.

Zechariah Eberhart