How to Read the Bible as Literature: . . . and Get More Out of It

by Leland Ryken

  Points of Exaggeration or Unrealism in the Parables

  I have said that the parables are realistic rather than fantastic or supernatural, but there is often an element of exaggeration or improbability in them. There are “cracks” in the realism that tease us into seeing more in them than the surface story would call for. For all their verisimilitude, the parables have an element of arresting strangeness. We think of such details as a hyperbolic hundredfold yield of grain (though not all commentators agree that this is an exaggeration), or the Samaritan’s lavish generosity to an unknown victim, or the Oriental father’s running to his son and then bestowing such unrestrained luxury on him.7

  The Artistic Excellence of the Parables

  My discussion thus far has focused on how the parables are told and has been an implied plea to relish the parables as masterpieces of popular or folk storytelling. The parables represent the beauty of simplicity, and they can be enjoyed first of all as examples of narrative art. They can be analyzed for their pleasing narrative qualities of lifelike and vivid realism, for their skill in arousing the narrative curiosity to discover what happened next and how it all turned out in the end, for their skillful conciseness in which every detail counts, for the universal character types that are part of our own life, for the archetypal patterns, for the element of strangeness that teases us (as riddles do) to discover what the story is “getting at,” and for “a structure and balance of narrative form which can scarcely be accidental.”8

  The Parables Are More Than Stories

  But of course we do not read the parables only as stories. There are several reasons why we cannot rest content with the surface level of the narrative. The stories are too simple to satisfy us at a purely narrative level. The “cracks” in the realism hint at a meaning beyond the literal. Some of the details already had symbolic meanings in Jewish analogues (e.g., sowing = teaching, seed = word, the owner of the vineyard = God). Most conclusively of all, we have Jesus’ own recorded interpretations of the parables of the sower (Matt. 13:18-23) and the wheat and the tares (Matt. 13:36-43), which show that the parables have a meaning beyond the narrative level. The parable is a story that means what it says and something besides, and in the parables of Jesus that something besides is the more important of the two.

  Are the Parables Allegorical?

  How, then, can we go about finding the intended meanings in a parable? My answer is much less unfashionable now than it would have been a decade or two ago: by treating the parables as allegories. I am not, to be sure, calling for a return to the arbitrary allegorizing of the Middle Ages. I have in mind the kind of allegorical interpretation that Jesus himself gave to the parables of the sower and the wheat and tares, namely, translating at least some of the details of the story into a corresponding other meaning and then deducing themes and applications on the basis of those symbols.

  I am well aware that many biblical scholars have deeply ingrained objections to calling the parables allegorical. I would hope that all of my readers would give an openminded hearing to what I say in the next several pages and in the appendix. Literary scholars do not share the aversion of biblical scholars to allegory. They acknowledge only one literary classification (allegory) for stories in which a substantial number of details have a corresponding “other” meaning.

  A literary critic, therefore, is at once inclined to ask questions like these: Why should we deny to the parables the literary classification that we apply to the same type of literature when we encounter it outside of the Bible? What substitute literary term can possibly be invoked for stories in which numerous details stand for a corresponding person, thing, or quality? Why would we create a confusing literary situation by avoiding the term allegory simply because the concept is capable of abuse?

  To think of the parables as being either allegorical or not allegorical is already to confuse the issue. What we find in the parables is a range of degrees to which the narrative details are allegorical. The idea of an allegorical continuum proposed by Northrop Frye is the most useful framework for analyzing what we actually find in the parables.9

  According to Frye’s scheme, any work of literature can be placed somewhere on an allegorical continuum. He describes that continuum thus:

  Within the boundaries of literature we find a kind of sliding scale, ranging from the most explicitly allegorical. . .at one extreme, to the most elusive, anti-explicit. . .at the other. First we meet the continuous allegories, like The Pilgrim’s Progress . . . . Next come the poetic structures with a large and insistent doctrinal interest, in which the internal fictions are exempla, like the epics of Milton. Then we have, in the exact center, works in which the structure of imagery, however suggestive, has an implicit relation only to events and ideas, and which includes the bulk of Shakespeare. Below this, poetic imagery begins to recede from example and precept. . . .10

  We can visualize the continuum something like the diagram on the next page. The great advantage of this model is that it does not force us into a “great divide’’ approach where a story is either allegorical or not allegorical. Instead, we can gauge the degree of allegory in a work.

  Degrees of Allegory in the Parables

  The parables of Jesus range over the left half of the allegorical spectrum. In parables like those of the sower and the talents we translate virtually every detail into a corresponding meaning. Moving a notch to the right, we have the parable of the prodigal son in which, for example, the father is God and the elder brother represents the Pharisees and scribes, but in which we do not allegorize such details as the prodigal’s money, the harlots, the pigs, or the shoes that the father gives to his repentant son. In the middle we can place the parable of the good Samaritan, where the story as a whole embodies the moral meaning.

  Decline of the Anti-Allegorical Bias in Biblical Scholarship

  But doesn’t an allegorical approach to the parables run counter to what everybody learns in seminary and Bible courses? This may have been true until recently, but the anti-allegorical bias is on its way out and has, in fact, been questioned for a long time. “Certain of the parables cry out for an allegorical interpretation of their details,” writes a noted biblical scholar.11 “The parabolic narratives are never wholly free from allegory,” writes another, adding that “the difference which should be emphasized is between a story which in itself is allegorical and the arbitrary allegorization of one which is not.”12 “Parable and allegory. . .are partial synonyms,” writes a third biblical scholar as he dismantles Jülicher’s influential theory that none of the parables is allegorical, and he, too, makes a distinction between allegorizing (“to impose on a story hidden meanings which the original author neither intended nor envisaged”) and allegorical interpretation of texts in which the details were intended to convey a corresponding set of meanings.13

  Most conclusive of all is the study of a biblical scholar who devised a simple scheme for determining the allegory content of the parables in the synoptic Gospels.14 As he went through the parables, he listed the main details in each story and then counted how many of them have a corresponding “other” meaning (e.g., sower = evangelist, seed = word, etc.). His conclusion should settle the issue of how allegorical Nţhe parables are: the allegory content of the parables m the Gospel of Matthew is 82 percent, those in Mark 75 percent, and those in Luke 60 percent.15

  Guidelines for Interpreting Parabolic Details

  What guidelines do we have for interpreting the details in a parable? One signpost is the surrounding context in the Gospel narratives. If the narrative lead-in to the parable of the prodigal son (Luke 15:1-2) alerts us that the parable is Jesus’ reply to the Pharisees’ and scribes’ complaint that Jesus “receives sinners and eats with them,” then it is plausible to see the prodigal as a representative of “sinners,” the father who forgives him as a symbol of God and Christ, and the unforgiving elder brother as a picture of the Pharisees and scribes.

  Another signpost is details in the parables that h
ad an established Hebraic (usually Old Testament) meaning: God as father or owner of a vineyard or master, seed as God’s Word, sowing as teaching, and so forth. Other details rather automatically call to mind the familiar teachings of Jesus or of New Testament writers: the banquet or marriage feast is a picture of salvation, the master’s return after a long journey (Matt. 25:19) suggests Christ’s second coming, the father’s forgiveness of the prodigal cannot be anything other than God’s forgiveness of sinners, and the employer’s payment of his workers is a judgment that calls to mind the final judgment at the end of history.

  The One-Point Rule Challenged

  Another long-established rule of parable interpretation that is under increasing attack is that parables can have only one main point. This is an extremely arbitrary rule of interpretation and one that we do not otherwise impose on a work of literature. It is one of the glories of literature that it can embody a multiplicity of meanings even in so small a unit as a metaphor. How can the metaphor of God as father, for example, ever be reduced to a single meaning? The one-point approach of past biblical scholarship strikes at the very heart of a literary approach. As one literary critic exclaims, “No wonder there are six or eight one-point interpretations of the Sower currently put forth, each to the exclusion of the others!”16

  Multiple Themes in Parables

  Even when a parable has a single main point, why would we deny legitimate secondary or related themes? The context of the parable of the prodigal son (Luke 15:11-32) would lead us to look for the main point in the satiric attack on the elder brother, who stands for the Pharisees and scribes who occasioned the parable. Is the only main theme that the Pharisees and scribes were wrong for not accepting repentant people into fellowship? Are there not, rather, a number of rich themes in this parable? Does it not give us insight into the nature of human life as a choice for or against God, into the nature of evil and selfishness, into the selfdestructive consequences of sin, into repentance as the first step to true satisfaction, into the nature of God as forgiving, into the nature of forgiveness as a genuine personal reconciliation, and into the joy that accompanies forgiveness? Surely we cannot ignore all of these themes simply because of an arbitrary rule that a parable can have only one main point.

  Why Some Parables Have More Than One Meaning

  Nor is the originally oral nature of the parables an argument against the notion that they can have multiple meanings. For one thing, biblical truth holds together as a system. In teaching a specific doctrine such as the certainty of final judgment, Jesus would naturally touch upon related doctrines that are part of the total picture, such as stewardship or the second coming or heaven or glorification. Furthermore, it is entirely possible for an audience listening to a story to make continuous connections between details in the story and a corresponding symbolic meaning, provided the story is not too complex. We should remember also that a parable was not intended to yield all of its meanings at once. As Archibald Hunter states:

  the Gospel parable is not always sun-clear. . . .The Gospel parable is designed to make people think. . . .And sometimes. . .it conceals in order to reveal. Seen thus, the parable is not so much a crutch for limping intellects (as so many illustrations are) as a spur to spiritual perception.17

  Liabilities of the One-Point Approach

  The one-point theory is something that we would do well to discard. As A. T. Cadoux long ago noted, that approach has produced two unfortunate results:

  The judgment for which the parable asks is likely to be sought for in one element of it only and is thus unduly simplified; and all other elements of the parable are regarded as. . .unnecessary ornament. . . .A parable is the work of a poor artist if the picture or story is a collection of items out of which we have to pick one and discard the rest.18

  Analogy or Comparison as the Basic Principle

  If we agree that the parables are designed to convey meaning, how should we go about interpreting what the stories mean? The basic principle of a parable is that of analogy or comparison. Literally the word “parable” means “to throw alongside.” This means that the literal level of the story has a corresponding meaning, either continuously or as a whole story. Amos Wilder writes that “there is the picture-side of the parable and there is the meaning or application.”19 The corresponding activity that this requires of a reader has been stated succinctly by Cadoux: “The parable elicits a judgment in one sphere in order to transfer it to another.”20

  The Fourfold Process: 1. Analysis of the Literal Story

  Once we have been alerted to the need to make such a transfer of meaning, the actual analysis of a parable falls rather naturally into a four-phase process. It begins with looking as closely as possible at the literal details of the story. Here is where we should apply all that I said about the parables as masterpieces of storytelling. If, as modern scholarship has taught us, the parables function partly as metaphors that have as a main thrust to shock our deep-level ways of thinking, then we need to let the shock at the literal level of the story sink in—shocks such as a good Samaritan, or outcasts being invited to a banquet while the respectable members of society are excluded, or all workers receiving a day’s wage regardless of how short a time they worked.21

  2. Interpreting Symbolic Details

  The second thing to do is determine whether any details in the story require a symbolic interpretation. In the parable of the good Samaritan, none of the details requires such an interpretation. In most parables, at least some of the details do. In either case, this is the point in one’s analysis to apply the idea of the allegorical scale or continuum discussed earlier.

  3. Determining the Theme(s)

  Having allowed the literal details to have their impact, and having interpreted the symbols, the reader next needs to determine the theme(s) of the parable. The rules for deciding what the parable is about are exactly the same as those for stories in general (see pages 33-73). Often the surrounding context in the Gospels already establishes an interpretive framework, but even in such instances the parable might have implicit themes beyond the one(s) suggested by the lead-in or concluding comment. In the parable of the talents, once we have interpreted the allegory (the master = God or Christ; the entrusted money = abilities, time, and opportunities; the master’s commendation and condemnation = the final judgment; and so forth), we then have to decide what themes are conveyed by this mixture of narrative and allegory. Using what we know about the doctrines of the Bible and the clues that are inherent in the very nature of this parable’s action, it is easy to interpret the parable as embodying ideas about stewardship or calling, the sovereignty of God as creator and judge, and the eschatological doctrines of the second coming and heaven/hell as the destination of people.

  4. Application

  Having identified the theme(s), there is, fourth, the matter of application. Granted that themes a, b, and c are present in a given parable, to whom, or how, did those themes apply in the specific context in which Jesus uttered them? And furthermore, how do those same themes apply today? As with other parts of the Bible, interpretation deals with the double question of what a parable meant then and what it means now.22

  SUMMARY

  The parables of Jesus are masterpieces of storytelling. We should first of all enjoy them in the same ways that we enjoy other stories. These simple stories are didactic in their purpose. Before they fully interest us or assume their true significance, we must usually attach a symbolic meaning to some of the details in the story, and we must always find one or more religious themes in them.

  Further Reading

  The most convenient starting point is the excerpts collected under “Parable” in The New Testament in Literary Criticism, ed. Leland Ryken (New York: Frederick Ungar, 1984). The sources cited in the foregoing footnotes are all profitable ones to consult. Much of the scholarship on the parables that has been touted as being a literary approach strikes me as the worst possible type of pedantry.

  1Literary Genius o
f the New Testament (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1932), 86.

  2For a particularly outstanding example of commentary that uncovers the Oriental verisimilitude of the parables, see the books by Kenneth Ewing Bailey: Poet and Peasant: A Literary Cultural Approach to the Parables in Luke(Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1976) and Through Peasant Eyes: More Lucan Parables (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1980).

  3Geraint V. Jones, The Art and Truth of the Parables (London: S.P.C.K., 1964), 113. This is one of the best literary studies of the parables.

  4Robert W. Funk, “Critical Notes,” Semeia 1 (1974): 188.

  5Jones, Parables, 124.

  6Jesus’ Parables and the War of Myths (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1982), 92.

  7For more examples, see Norman A. Huffman, “Atypical Features in the Parables of Jesus,” Journal of Biblical Literature 97 (1978): 207–20.

  8Jones, Parables, 120.

  9For Frye’s theory of allegory, see Anatomy of Criticism (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1957), 89–92.

  10lbid.,9l.

  11Raymond E. Brown, “Parable and Allegory Reconsidered,” Novum Testamentum 5 (1962): 36–45; reprinted in New Testament Essays (Milwaukee: Bruce, 1965), 254–64.

  12Jones, 105–9, 137–41.