15 Matching Annotations
  1. Sep 2016
    1. Mark, with his usual severity, makes Jesus angry and disappointed, and also turns the insiders into outsiders. They cannot answer this riddle, any more than they could read the Parable of the Sower.

      Most of us would think of Mark as the conveyor of the parable for us to interpret, however, this article makes it seem more like everyone that wasn't Jesus had to first interpret the parables themselves before talking about them and writing them down. The interpretations conducted by Mark and Matthew were unavoidably influential on their writing method--they intruded on the parable. Thus, we are left with an already partially interpreted parable instead of the original.

    2. For example, he tells two stories about miraculous feedings. Any creative writing instructor would have cut one of them; but Mark's awkwardness can hardly be dismissed as accidental.

      Many people don't realize that there are two separate stories. --Nicole Whitlock

    3. By contrast later scholars ask only what kind of allegory one may expect the evangelists to have inserted into a story that was not in itself allegorical at all. Then they ask what the story meant in its original form, before the salvation allegory got attached to it.

      It is interesting how the meaning of a narrative changes over time to different audiences, but this does not change the original intention of the narrative. There can only be one true original intent. --Nicole Whitlock

    4. he is Adam, who has left Jerusalem, the heavenly city, for Jericho, the world. The Samaritan is Christ, the inn is the ChW'Ch, the promise to return the Second Coming.

      I never thought of the Good Samaritan parable in this way; I always assumed it was a straightforward explanation of what a neighbor was. --Nicole Whitlock

    5. you are virtually obliged to claim that the whole Marean passage is inauthentic or corrupt.

      This is probably hard for many theologians to swallow. --Nicole Whitlock

    6. The implica-tion is that the exclusion atises..nat from the speaker's inten-tion, but from the stupidity of his hearers'""so that theJ;>la.D,!c; .~ilieirs.

      How does this relate to the idea of the innocence of a child? If the hearers are unable to understand, it is not an intentional denial of the Word, but rather a lack of reasoning capability--like a child. Should it not still be the responsibility of the communicator, (Jesus) to either help them understand or forgive their innocence? --Nicole Whitlock

    7. instead of Mark's uncompromising exclusions -outsiders must stay outside and be damned -Matthew proposes some-thing much milder:

      I find it interesting that Matthew, one of the original writers, was already changing words around to fit his personal preference. --Nicole Whitlock

    8. he substitutes for hina the word hod, "because." This is a substan-tial change, involving a different grammar; Matthew replaces Mark's subjunctive with an ·indicative.

      This reminds me of the "misinterpreting Jesus" clip we watched week 2 --Nicole Whitlock

    9. In this altered form the theory no longer conflicts with the prefatory remark that Jesus was teaching the crowd, which seems inconsistent with his telling stotjes in order to ensure that they would miss the point.

      This concept was always taught to me in the baptist church when I was a child.

    10. hose out-side, like K and like us, see an uninterpretable radiance and die.

      This is so morbid and disheartening for a lover of wisdom and truth! --Nicole Whitlock

    11. the Good Samaritan, works hard to make the answer obvious

      This is more of what I think of when I hear the word "parable." I think of a complex idea such as "neighborliness" put into a simple story for the common folk. I guess one's definition of parable can be either like a metaphor, vague and complicated, or an analogy, simple and helpful. --Nicole Whitlock

    12. All require some interpretative action from the auditor;

      Although a riddle and a comparison both require some interpretative action from the author, One (a riddle) seems more like a game of wits and the other (a comparison) seems like you want the listener to reach their own conclusions and thus "certain knowledge" of the content. --Nicole Whitlock

    13. It means a placing of one thing beside another; in classical Greek it means "comparison" or "illustration" or "analogy." But in the Greek Bible it is equivalent to Hebrew mashal, which means "riddle" or "dark saying," but I gather it can extend its range to include "exemplary tale." Sometimes the Greek word is also used to translate hldah, meaning "riddle."

      If I were using a "comparison," "illustration," or "analogy," my intention would be to assist others in understanding my point--to aid in communication. If I were using a "riddle" or "dark saying" I believe my intentions would be less amiable. It is interesting how the word parable can mean such contrasting things. --Nicole Whitlock

    1. because no 2 things, can be more equal

      The symbol for equality is literally a picture of two equal lines. I have never thought about that before!

    2. Mathematical lunacy: for a short time the symbol for positive and negative was a moon. The equation above is -4 + 6 = 2 Photograph: Joe Mazur

      So interesting! That would get tedious in calculus proofs though!