Parables Unplugged: Reading the Lukan Parables in Their Rhetorical Context

For far too long, Lauri Thuren argues, the parables of Jesus have been read either as allegories encoding Christian theology—including the theological message of one or another Gospel writer—or as tantalizing clues to the authentic voice of Jesus. Thuren proposes instead to read the parables “unplugged” from any assumptions beyond those given in the narrative situation in the text, on the common-sense premise that the very form of the parable works to propose a (sometimes startling) resolut...