The Sower Mk 4:1-20
Questions: Is this a parable of Jesus? If so, what would He have been trying to say to His listeners? (Sitz in Jesus) Has the Early Church adapted it? What might it have meant for Early Christians? (Sitz in die Kirche) How has the Evangelist used the Parable within the whole scheme of the Gospel? (Sitz in Evangelium)
Responses - Form Critics
Jeremias and Dodd attribute vs 3-9 to Jesus. Sitz im Jesus is his apparent failure to get his message across, and to elicit faith, even from his disciples. Jesus, however, is full of confidence that the Word of God will not return to Him empty (Isa 55). God will cause a harvest beyond all reasonable expectation.
Vs 10-12 - present major problems for Jeremias and Dodd. They imply that the message is CONCEALED in parables deliberately. Conflicts with Form Critical belief that parables were intended to CLARIFY the message, not obscure it.
Dodd and Jeremias’ solution is to explain away vs 10-12 AND the following allegorical interpretation as later additions to the parable by the Early Church. (Sitz in die Kirche)
Jeremias suggests that vs 10-12 are a MISPLACED and MISTRANSLATED saying of Jesus placed here to introduce the interpretation (vs 13-20). This interpretation was created by the Early Church in the retelling of the parable, to explain why Jesus’ message failed to inspire faith among the Jews of His time resulting in their rejection of Him.
Dodd justifies this view of the interpretation by stating that it seems stylistically different from the rest of the parable, and shifts the emphasis of the parable from the bumper harvest to the varying responses of those who hear the message of the Kingdom.
Redaction Critics
Redaction Critics do not deny that this parable MIGHT have originated with Jesus, but they are much more interested in why it appears in its present form within the gospel context - in this case, Mark. (Sitz in Evangelium). For this reason, John Drury, believes that verses 1-20 must be considered as a whole.
Vs 10-12 therefore are a key to understanding the purpose of the parable. Taken from Isa 6:9-10, they are part of an OT tradition that ‘insiders’ will understand the things of God which are, by their nature, obscure to those outside God’s will. Parables in the OT, he claims, obscure and even harden the heart of outsiders.
This, he believes, is compatible with the Marcan theme of a secret Messiah. Jesus, the messiah, is portayed in a private situation, privately revealing to them, what will not be made public to all until the Roman Centurion speaks beneath the cross of the dead Jesus ‘Truly this man was the Son of God’. (Mk 15.39) For Mark, Drury says, all leads inevitably to the cross.
Drury sees The Sower as an allegory within an allegory. Properly understood, it is the story of what will happen to Jesus. The birds taking away the seed refer to Satan undermining Peter’s faith. (Mk 8 27-33) He rejects Jesus again, under pressure just like the shallow rooted plant withering away. (Mk 14:66-72). But the seed which falls to the ground and is buried, springs up to life and bears a huge harvest.
A Different View
In ‘Jesus and the Victory of God’ NT Wright suggests a different scenario. He too links the picture of the seed with that in Isa Ch 55 vs 10-13, but is able to envisage the whole of Mk4 vs 1-20 within the life and ministry of Jesus. He suggests that Jesus saw his mission in the context of the Servant of Isa 40 - 62. The Servant would sow God’s Word, which would not return to Him void, but would ‘accomplish that which I purpose and prosper in the thing for which I sent it.’ True, difficulties would arise on the way, in the form of fear, unbelief and outright opposition, but in the end, a bumper harvest would ensue.
Wright explains vs 10-12 by suggesting that, given delicate political situation, which had led to the execution of John the Baptist by Herod, Jesus may well have decided to communicate the message of the Kingdom of God in terms which would have threatened an already unsteady Herod and led to his own immediate arrest. Wright suggests that although Jesus may well have been aware that suffering would be part of his Servant mission, He felt that this was not the correct time, and had therefore couched his Messianic message in terms which would not give his opponents cause to have him arrested.
The Unjust Steward Luke Ch 16 vv 1-13 Form Critics - Dodd
- Difficult to place in Sitz im Jesus - why would Jesus be praising the actions of the dishonest steward, who was deliberately currying favour with his employer's clients by reducing their bills?
- Luke has added summary teachings, probably sayings of Jesus which existed in isolation, and which were not originally associated with this parable, but which were placed there artificially by Luke's Community, demonstrating how this parable was used by the community to teach about the relationship Christians should have with money. (8b, 9, 11)
- v8a more difficult. Who can the 'Kyrios' (Master) be? Possibly refers to the Saduccee priests who 'kept in’ with Romans. But if it is Jesus, who is the master 'commending' servant, then, Dodd suggests, he can hardly be praising the steward for his dishonesty, rather for his quick-wittedness in responding to the crisis facing him. For Dodd, this makes the 'original' parable a 'Parable of Crisis' as Jesus confronts his Jewish listeners with the doom that will fall upon them, unless they take quick action to avoid it.
- Jeremias is also troubled by the ‘praising of dishonesty. Jesus’Parable, he suggests, ends at vs 7. In verse 8 His intention was to praise steward for timely action in face of crisis (Like Dodd). Jeremias suggests that 8b is a later elucidation of the parable for Early Church readers - that it is the children of this world who commend such behaviour in their dealings with each other. 'Children of light' should not conduct their relationships with each other OR with God in this way.
- 8b onwards consist of sayings of Jesus that had been preserved in isolation and are here added by Luke's Community to this parable for their own teaching purposes. What kind of attitudes to money, and financial integrity do you think that Luke's community was trying to foster amongst its members?
Critical comment of the Form Critical Position
The reasons (look them up) which Jeremias gives for separating 8a from 1-7 are very questionable.
Jesus was capable of using ‘shock tactics’ for making his listeners sit up - what about the Good Samaritan? He may well have been less interested in the morality of the characters in the story than the need to respond shrewdly in a crisis.
Redaction Criticism - John Drury
This parable appears only in Luke's Gospel, and has no parallels in the other Synoptics. Drury cannot, therefore, compare the contruction of the parable to any other written version of it. He can only attempt (a) to find parallels in EITHER storyline OR theme in other literature, such as Rabbinic literature, the Old Testament etc. He will also look at the context of the parable in the Gospel, and attempt to identify any theme running through the Gospel which is picked up in this parable.
Calls parable ‘crafty steward’ and agrees that here ‘moral principles take a back seat’. (P148) it As a redactionh critic, h e is anxious to establish some sort of a source for the content of the story, and suggests links with OT situations and characters eg Abraham in Gen 12 and 20. Specifically, he makes links with 2Kings 7 - the lepers finding the enemy camp deserted and risking stoning by going into city to tell king what they found. It was forbidden by the Torah for people suffering with leprosy to enter a city for any reason whatsoever. The message of the parable is that the crisis is so profound that it is the swift and effective response that is important, not the morality of the action.
(Of course the immorality of an accountant - that's what the steward was - falsifying his employer's accounts, strikes us rather more forcibly these days than the 'immorality' of a sick person going into a city from which they had been banned because of their illness! However, both actions were considered immoral in their time!)
Critical response to Drury
It doesn't seem to me that Drury's methods (see the first paragraph above) serve him well in the analysis of this one!
Is there really a link between these two stories - certainly in the substance there is none, and the supposed thematic linkage of a swift response to a crisis being better than none is tenuous too. Certainly, Abraham is not praised for trying to pass Sarah, his wife, off as his sister, so she can marry someone else to get him out of trouble! However, the faults with the method Drury employs to reach his conclusion does not necessarily invalidate his conclusion that the parable as it stands is actually a parable of crisis.
Rich Man and Lazarus - Luke 16 v 19-31
Again, this is a Lucan parable, with no parallels in the other Synoptics. Jeremias and Drury will, however, note similarities between it and a folk tale which, Jeremias claims, Jesus has referred to before in his parable 'The Great Feast'. The folk tale, about a tax-collector called 'Bar Ma'jan' is to be found in the Palestinian Talmud, and goes like this:
A rich tax-gatherer called Ma'jan had done many evil deeds. In the same city, lived a young. poor student of the Torah. They both died and had funerals on the same day. Ma'jan's was splendid. Work stopped throughout the city as the townspeople followed him to his final resting place. However, noone took any notice of the death of the student, let alone his funeral. Why should this be?
The answer is this .... Ma'jan had arranged a banquet to which he invited the city councillors - unsurprisingly, they refused to attend and eat with a tax-gatherer, and so, to show his contempt for them, Ma'jan invited all the poor, sick and beggars of the city to attend instead. As he presided over this magnificent charitable act, death overtook him, and all his evil deeds were forgotten by the people because of the good deed in which he was engaged at the moment of his death.
Now, one of the student's friends had a dream, in which he saw the fate of the two souls after their death. The student was in paradise, the garden of the King, enjoying its beauty and the richness of its vegetation and streams. The man who had been rich in his life, Ma'jan, was also standing on the banks of the stream, trying to reach the water, but unable to do so (a little like Tantalus in the greek myth).
The part that interests scholars in relation to the parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus is the second part, the fate of the two souls.
Form Critics - Jeremias.
Basic message is the imminence and certainty of judgement in relation to how we use what has been given us to better ourselves and our fellow humans. Jesus has adapted part of a folk tale, well known to listeners, in order to illustrate this point. The contrast between Lazarus, covered with sores, and the rich man, with so much to spare, and yet no eyes and a hard heart for the poor man at his gate could not be more stark. The Rich Man gave the beggar nothing, not even the scraps from the table passed over by those who had plenty. This lack of generosity, this keeping of his talents to himself reaps its reward in the afterlife! Despite his plea that he is a Jew, a relative of 'Father' Abraham, a plea acknowledged by Abraham in the story, his misuse of his riches has excluded him from eternal reward. He has enjoyed his 'reward' on earth in full, spending it all on himself, with no care for the beggar at his gate. Riches may have been a gift from God, a reward even, but even a cursory reading of the Torah would reveal that the responsibility to be generous came with power and money. However, Jeremias has pointed out that Jesus' audience may well have associated the rich man in His parable with Bar Ma'jan the tax collector, so the Rich Man in Jesus' story ending up in torment, separated from the good, would not, perhaps have been surprising.
On the other hand, it's important to appreciate that from a Jewish perspective, many of Jesus' listeners would perceive Lazarus as a sinner because of his miserable position which was a judgement from God. Jeremias comments ' ..(Lazarus' ) miserable condition would have indicated that he was a sinner being punished by God. Hence the sequel must have been wholly unexpected by the audience." Jesus' listeners would have been shocked to learn that Lazarus was spending the afterlife in the intimate company of the great patriarch Abraham. He has enjoyed a complete reversal of fortune!
But Jeremias sees the fate of the five brothers as the main focus of parable. They must take action before it is too late and judgement comes. The law and the prophets are speaking now. There will be no more signs. "He who will not submist to the Word of God, will not be converted by a miracle."
Redaction Critics - John Drury
Identifies the Lucan theme of Reversal of Fortune where those who are poor and despised in the world are valued and redeemed by God. This is a powerful theme throughout Luke's Gospel, introduced in the Magnificat (Mary's Song) in Ch 1. See also the famous story of Zaccheus, the penitent tax-collector in Ch 19. The Gospel will, indeed, be 'Good News for the Poor' (Ch 4 vs 16) Zaccheus and Lazarus are both poor in their own way, and neither can escape it. But the poor will see those who believe they are mighty and full 'put down from their seat' and 'the rich sent empty away.'
In Luke's Gospel, the rewards and punishments that form part of eschatological judgement appear to be operative at death. Jesus promises the penitent thief that he will be in Paradise that day with him. Death, particularly Jesus' own death, then becomes an eschatological event.
The context of the parable, suggests Caird, is as the climax of a series of teachings on use of opportunity. The Unjust Steward is commended for taking advantage of the opportunity he is given to retrieve the dire situation he encounters because of his dismissal from his job. The next verses on divorce and remarriage, Caird suggests, are about the opportunities that the Kingdom of God affords to avoid the hard-hearted attitudes that lead to divorce. This parable is about the use of power and money to further God's purposes for society or to create a pampered world for oneself.
Second part of the story should, Drury suggests, be interpreted as allegory. 5 brothers represent 5 books of law. Within that law is all that Israel needs to understand the truth about what God requires, and, it is implied, about the judgement that follows obedience - or otherwise, to God's Commands. The Rich Man may, perhaps, have been of the Sadducee party. The Sadducees, a small but powerful group within Judaism, from whose ranks the top officials in the Temple were drawn, had two distinctive beliefs. (1) They believed that the Torah contained all that was necessary to live in the way that God wanted. They therefore tended to reject the type of teaching which added to the demands of the Torah, in order to ensure that the Law was kept in its entirity. This teaching, being developed by Pharisee rabbis such as Gamaliel, Hillel and Shammai, later became the Talmud, and included such areas as Shabbat observance, purification rituals and dietary laws.
(2) They rejected the notion of life after death, believing that people received their rewards and punishments from God in this life. It is clear that the first part of the parable relates to the kind of behaviour expected from those who enjoy the benefits of power and money towards the less well off. It seems clear that the second part of the parable is intended to point out that the Torah teaches the reality of judgement. Scholars such as Drury would want to suggest that references to a resurrection from the dead are more likely to have stemmed from the post-easter pen of Luke than from the lips of Jesus. The Evangelist therefore has Judaism represented by Lazarus and the Five Brothers - Judaism, which has rejected Jesus, and His resurrection. This rejection of the truth of the resurrection by the Jews, was key issue that confronted Paul as he went about the Roman Empire, 'to the Jews first, then to th Gentiles.'
Wise and Foolish Maidens - Mt 25 v 1-13
The Talents - Mt 25 v 14-30
Sheep and Goats - Mt 25 v 31-46
Form Critics - remove these from Gospel setting and interpret them as separate, independent pericopae - even though two of them (Sheep and Goats and Wise & Foolish Virgins) only appear in Matthew! This is a good example to use in an essay of the way in which Form Critics treat the context in which pericopae are set within a Gospel as artificial.
Wise and Foolish Maidens - Dodd - A parable of crisis which leads to second coming of Christ. Dodd claims Jesus never taught this > parable originated with Early Church > exhortation to be ready for 2nd Coming. Popular Matthean expression ‘Keep watch therefore ...’
- Dodd concedes, however, that the message of crisis would fit in with his understanding of Jesus’ teaching on Kingdom of God.
Jeremias - accepts parable as one from Jesus (he suggests an answer to what some scholars saw as a problem, in the holding of the wedding at night)
- but, like Dodd sees it as a parable of warning of imminent eschaton. Early Church has changed Jesus’ cry for a response from all, to a warning to Early Church to be alert and prepared for 2nd Coming.
Form Crit Response to ‘The Talents' - Dodd - identifies parallel with Luke 19.12-27, (but doesn’t suggest this is a Q parable) This parable also appears in the apocryphal Gospel to the Nazarenes (Jeremias - Fenton calls this gospel The Gospel to the Hebrews). So maybe it is Q. Jeremias believes ('The Parables of Jesus' p 59) that the parable originates with Jesus, and that Matthaen version is closest to the parable as Jesus told it. However, he suggests that the Parousia context in which Matthew sets the parable (as, to a lesser extent does Luke) is an example of the way in which the Early Church/Evangelists USED PARABLES IN CONTEXTS WHICH JESUS DID NOT INTEND.
ie - Matthew links this parable with Wise & Foolish Maidens and the Sheep & the Goats as part of a series of parables on how Christ would judge his followers at His parousia. As scholars such as Jeremias and Dodd do not accept that Jesus would have taught about the Parousia at all, they attempt to suggest an alternative meaning within the Sitz in Jesus.
So within the Sitz in Jesus, Jeremias suggests that Jesus' listeners would have understood that He meant to teach about worthy and unworthy servants within the context of Israel, possibly referring to Pharisees as those who take the Law of God and ‘hide’ it from a needy world.
(Criticism of this view Scholars such as EP Sanders question whether Jesus’ relationship with the Pharisees was really as bad as the Gospels suggests, and so would oppose such an interpretation within the Sitz in Jesus )
- Church retained parable as a general warning to Christians to take their responsibilities seriously.
The Sheep and Goats - Dodd says little about this - after all it has Jesus presenting a traditional Jewish futurist eschatology, a picture Dodd wants to reject! Suggests that Vs 40 and 45 were expanded by Early Ch. to give vividness to reality of Judgement.
(Little to support this view even if these 2 verses do have parallels in Mk. Why shouldn’t Jesus have expanded on this theme)
Jeremias is prepared to accept it as being from Jesus, because he believes he can identify a 1st Century Palestinian context - the custom of shepherds dividing sheep from goats at night. Goats need protection and shelter at night, but sheep don’t because of their fleece.
He identifies a frequent and common theme of Jesus - judgement. He sees the parable as an explanation of what will happen to the heathen. They are judged by how they respond to Christ as they encounter him in the needy.
Redaction Crit on the 3 Parables
Redaction Critics, taking account of the context of the material and the fact that these are ‘M’ parables, look for common links between the three parables, and attempt to identify themes within them, which might be linked with themes elsewhere in the Gospel.
Drury groups these under the heading of ‘Judgement on the Householder’. They deal with a Christian community expecting an imminent eschaton. Matthew follows Mark’s theme of ‘Watch, therefore, for you know not the day or the hour!’ The setting overlooking Jerusalem, heightens the sense of expectancy.
The Ten Virgins - The original source, says Drury, is Mk 2 v 19f. He’s created the parable by blending ‘the symbolism of bridegroom and attendants from Mark 2.19f ..... with the symbolism of the sudden arrival at midnight from Mk 13.35’. Drury p103 The point is that the Church will be judged, and must be prepared for the return of the heavenly bridegroom.
Drury compares this with Mk 13.34 and Mk 4.25. Reflects Matthaen concerns that the Church should be about its business and avoid laziness and complacency.
The Talents - Again, Drury identifies Marcan themes as source. Mk13.34 and Mk 4.25. Dire consequences for lazy Christians!
Sheep and Goats - Drury notes use of repetition to emphasize the message that the Son of Man will judge according to deeds done.
Drury suggests that Matthew is addressing the experience of a church of ‘mixed Christians’ - some committed and active, others complacent and lazy. The Eschaton will sort them out, and those who have not done their duty will be harshly treated. Beware!
The Great Feast - Mt 22:1-10; Lk 14:15-24
The main theme is of invitation to a banquet by a wealthy and powerful host and rejection of that invitation by his erstwhile guests. This theme is developed in different ways in the two gospels, and Matthew's version has what appears to be an addendum about a guest who does appear at the feast - but inappropriately dressed.
Source Criticism - observations
This parable is the only one YOU study which has a parallel in an apocryphal gospel. (apocryphal is the term that we apply to christian writings, usually about the life of Jesus or the apostles which didn't make it into the canon of the Church, ie, the New Testament, usually because the events recorded in it either don't add to the knowledge of Jesus in the 4 canonical gospels, contradict their message or simply aren't reliable enough.) The Gospel in this case, is the Gospel of Thomas, believed by scholars of the Jesus Seminar to be an early, useful and more or less reliable source, particularly for teachings of Jesus. It mainly consists of teachings and sayings of Jesus. Thomas' version is considerably closer to that of Luke than that of Matthew, suggesting that Luke's version is earlier than Matthew's, and possibly closer to any parable Jesus told on the subject.
There are 2 suggested parallels in Rabbinic Literature. The parallel with the story of the dinner given by Bar Ma'ajan the Customs Officer (tax gatherer) has already been suggested by Jeremias (see section on the Rich Man and Lazarus), and we'll return to this later. Drury suggests a parallel with a Midrash (story told to make a teaching point on a verse of Scripture) on Ecclesiastes 9:8 - 'Let your garments be always white, let not oil be lacking on your head'.
In this midrash, a king invites guests to a banquet and instructs them to get ready for it, but doesn't tell them when it's going to happen. The Wise Guests get ready and wait near the palace gate, trusting that the king knows what he's doing. The Foolish guests assume that they will notice when preparations for the party are ready and decide to wait until then before they get ready, but the summons comes at a time when they are unprepared, and they had to go along in their work clothes. The judgement from the king is that those who arrived prepared for the banquet would sit and enjoy it whilst the ones who came unprepared would have to stand by and watch the festivities in which they can have no part, as a punishment.
Although the Midrash Rabbah, in which this midrash appears, ascribes the parable to Rabbi Jehuda (d 217AD), Drury points out that the Babylonian Talmud suggests that an earlier Rabbi - Johanan ben Zakkai, who was teaching around 70AD, composed it. This would mean that if the date of 80AD for Matthew's composition is correct, then there is a strong possibility that Matthew would have been aware of it. We'll return to the implications of this later.
Dodd and Jeremias are both satisfied that the evangelists are recording a parable that was told by Jesus for his purposes, and that it is therefore worth attempting to establish a Sitz in Jesu for the parable, particularly in its earlier (ie Lucan) form. They also accept that the church communities have adapted Jesus' parable for their own needs (especially Matthew) and that it is possible to learn about the Sitz in die Kirche of the Matthaean and Lucan communities from it.
Drury (unsurprisingly) believes that the most is to be gained from comparing the Matthaean version with the Talmudic Midrash, to see what Matthew was trying to communicate to his church readership.
Sitz im Jesu? Sitz in die Kirche?
Jesus' main teaching point, according to Dodd, is that those 'righteous Jews who have been invited to the (Messianic) banquet will see their refused places being taken by those whom they consider to be outcasts and beggars religiously. Jeremias would agree with this, and, of course, if Jesus' hearers associated the parable with the story of Bar Ma'ajan, the publican, the 'twist in the tail' for Jesus' listeners would be the ultimate rejection of the original guests, for what decent Jew could accept an invitation to eat with a tax gatherer? Of course the invitation must be refused, and excuses sent. So their ultimate locking out of the feast, now clearly the Messianic Banquet, would have come as a shock. For this reason, Jeremias categorises the parable under the group headed 'It may be too late!'
Both Dodd and Jeremias claim that Luke and Matthew's versions have been used and adapted within their communities for particular purposes. Luke, for example, has 'added' another invitation to the original (Gospel of Thomas) version. This, they claim, refers to the Church's outreach to the Gentiles, and indeed redaction critics would observe that such a comment agrees with the theme of outreach to the gentiles that seems so much a part of Luke's approach to the gospel material.
However, when it comes to the Matthaean variant, much further from the 'original' as they would say, we have different comment from them. Dodd accepts that both parables are from Jesus, but that Matthew has adapted the parable to make points about Christology - the feast is a marriage for a King's Son - Jesus is the King of the Jews and the Son of God. The sack of the city refers to the judgement on the Jews, the sack of Jerusalem in AD 70 by the Romans, which Matthew's Jewish community interprets as the result of the Jews rejecting their Messiah. Dodd believes that the incident of the man without the wedding garment was originally a separate parable - after all, it does not appear in Luke or Thomas's version - and is a warning from the community not to accept gentiles into the church on 'too easy' a basis.
However, Jeremias believes that the Matthaean variation on the Feast should be interpreted allegorically - yes dears, a Critic using Form Critical method advocating an allegorical interpretation! You could use THAT to good effect in an essay on how the parables should be interpreted. The Matthaen characters are as follows: The King = God; the King's Son = Jesus, Messiah and divine Son of God; The servants ill-treated = the prophets sent by God and rejected by the Jews; Feast = Messianic Banquet, wedding feast of the Messiah with his 'bride' Israel; inspection = eschatological judgement; outer darkness = hell.
Thus the whole parable of the feast becomes a metaphor of God's plan of salvation for the human race through the Jewish people!
The parable of the Wedding Garment is a separate parable, to be considered separately and is also compared by Jeremias to the midrash of the wedding guests mentioned above. It is a parable of crisis 'it may be too late!', and Jeremias interprets the wedding garment to represent repentance - necessary for entrance to the kingdom.
Sitz in Evangelium?
The Redaction Critic, Drury is not primarily concerned with any Sitz im Jesu, but with how the evangelist has edited his source material to reflect what he wishes to say. He has little comment on the Lucan version apart from noting the addition of the second invitation, which he too attributes to the Lucan theme of mission of the Church to the Gentiles.
He really concentrates his remarks on the Matthaean version. Drury notes the context of the Matthaean parable - immediately after the 'Wicked Husbandmen' without which, he claims 'the marriage feast is not intelligible', and identifies the theme within the two as the rejection of the Messiah by Israel, and its consequence - rejection by God and the subsequent desctruction of Jerusalem by the Romans. The Jews will be replaced by Gentiles within God's scheme of salvation. The Church will replace Israel in what Drury calls the 'fundamental Christian historical myth.' The context, therefore, is that of eschatological crisis. The Jesus-events are themselves at least part of the eschaton, and will determine any future judgement events.
"Judaism was condemned, and Christianity authorized .." "That this should come up yet again is a reminder of the importance it had for Christians obsessively busy with establishing their own identy and authority, explaining how they stood furst in God's favour although they came last in his plan, how authority has passed form its traditional holders to those who responded to Jesus as God's Son."
The Parables in the Gospels John Drury
Drury compares Matthew's parable with the 'parallel' in the Midrash, noting the 'striking' similarities between them, despite some differences. Both, he suggests, are eschatological, about Israel, God, judgement and Doomsday,although Matthew's contains the element of the church which is naturally missing from Ben Zakkai's allegory. The Messianic context of the King giving a wedding feast for his son is also missing from the jewish midrash.
The parable is full of allegorical symbolism, similar to that of Jeremias above, and is, Drury claims borrowed - dependent upon the picture of Jesus as bridegroom as found in Mk 2:14 and Mt 9:15, and the book of Esther (see below). Both critics notice the apparently motiveless killing of the messengers bringing the invitations to the guests, but Drury links this element with the murder of the rent-collectors in the parable of the wicked husbandmen, and thus explains the reaction of the king in punishing them. The burning of the city is described by Drury as 'a remarkable intrusion into the story, motivated by nothing but historical allegory'. The Burning of Jerusalem, then, (which Drury assumes that Jesus cannot have foreseen or prophesied), becomes an eschatological event for Matthew to comment upon.
Those who accept the invitation are Christians " 'bad and good' as Matthew knew them in his imperfect church." Drury reminds his readers of the banquet given for the king and his high officials by Queen Esther at which the wicked Haman is exposed and judged.