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notes to pages 35-38 were used by Matthew and Luke . . . and that frequently the differences between the Matthaean and Lukan versions of the double tradition may reflect the impact of oral transmission upon the written version of Q with which each evangelist was familiar.” 153. See John P. Meier, A Marginal Jew: Rethinking the Historical Jesus (3 vols.; New York: Doubleday, 1991-2001), 1:124-29; Hultgren, The Parables of Jesus, pp. 430-40; Christopher M. Tuckett, “Thomas and the Synoptics,” NovT 30 (1988): 132-57; “Q and Thomas: Evidence of a Primitive ‘Wisdom Gospel’?” ETL 67 (1991): 346-60; Craig L. Blomberg, “Tradition and Redaction in the Parables of the Gospel of Thomas,” The Jesus Tradition Outside the Gospels (vol. 5 of Gospel Perspectives; ed. David Wenham; Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1985), pp. 177-205; Risto Uro, “‘Secondary Orality’ in the Gospel of Thomas?” FFF 9 (1993): 305-29; and my “The Gospel of Thomas: A Secondary Gospel,” SecCent 7 (1990): 19-38. Nicholas Perrin argues that Gos. Thom. is dependent on Tatian’s Diatessaron. See Perrin’s Thomas and Tatian: The Relationship between the Gospel of Thomas and the Diatessaron (Academia Biblica 5; Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2002).
Notes to “Parables in the Ancient World” 1. Despite Joachim Jeremias’s claim that Jesus’ parables are something entirely new in his The Parables of Jesus (2d ed.; trans. S. H. Hooke; London: SCM, 1972), p. 12. 2. The dispute between the date palm and the tamarisk, reproduced in ANET, pp. 410-11. Several other items should be mentioned from The Context of Scripture (3 vols.; ed. William W. Hallo and K. Lawson Younger, Jr.; Leiden: Brill, 2003): analogies of destruction in “The First Soldier’s Oath” for those who break oaths (1:165-67); a Hurro-Hittite Bilingual Wisdom Text with several parable-like stories, mostly of animals, but in each case an interpretation explicitly stating that the story is not about the animal or an object but a human (1:216-17) — these are the most obvious examples of parables from so early; a fable of the Heron and the Turtle (1:571-73); and disputation stories where two entities argue over which is greater (e.g., wheat vs. a ewe) (1:575-88). 3. Die Gleichnisreden Jesu, 2 vols. (Freiburg i. B.: J. C. B. Mohr, vol. 1, 1888; vol. 2, 1889), 1:94-100. See also Mary Ann Beavis, “Parable and Fable,” CBQ 52 (1990): 473-98; George W. Coats, “Parable, Fable, and Anecdote,” Int 35 (1981): 368-82. For a broader discussion of Hellenistic forms, see Klaus Berger, “Hellenistische Gattungen im Neuen Testament,” ANRW 25.2 (ed. Wolfgang Haase; Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 1984), pp. 1031-1432. 4. See the beginning of part two of the collection of Aesop’s fables in Babrius (Babrius and Phaedrus, LCL, p. 139) and also pp. xxvii-xxxiv. See Ronald J. Williams, “The Fable in the Ancient Near East,” in A Stubborn Faith: Papers on Old Testament and Related Subjects Presented to Honor William Andrew Irwin (ed. Edward C. Hobbs; Dallas: Southern University Press, 1956), pp. 3-26. 5. Joseph Jacobs, “Aesop’s Fables among the Jews,” The Jewish Encyclopedia (ed. Isidore Singer; New York: Funk & Wagnalls, 1906), 1:221-22. 6. In focusing on parables as prophetic tools I do not diminish their use and even their probable origin in wisdom literature. Prophets used the tools of wisdom thinking to shape their own message. 7. David Flusser (Die rabbinischen Gleichnisse und der Gleichniserzähler Jesus I: Das Wesen der Gleichnisse [Bern: Peter Lang, 1981], esp. pp. 17-19 and 146-48) even argues that one will not make much progress in understanding the parables by looking at the OT. He mentions
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EERDMANS -- Stories with Intent (Snodgrass) final text Thursday, December 06, 2007 4:41:29 PM
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