Skipping Stones and Telling Parables (Devotional posting)

Skipping Stones and Telling Parables

There once was a kindly aged Biblical Greek instructor that I was quite fond of. I'm not good with languages and he made the process of studying the subject bearable and at times reasonably pleasant. He had a good demeanor about him (He actually reminded me a lot of a friend from adolescence and early adulthood). And along the way in studying, he was always good at giving some of the background context to whatever we happened to be studying that day.

On one day we got to the subject of parables. In particular, we talked about the etymology of the word parable. At that time, I had attended church for most of my life. Logging in probably at least 25 years of church attendance, and with that easily 11 years of parochial school attendance that was filled with chapel meetings and Bible stories and studies, not to mention years of Sunday school and Catechism classes yet I had never heard the background of this term.

I had always assumed that it would mean something like. "parallel truth" or "parallel relationship" etc. But the etymology was a bit different than that. It came instead by the habit of travelers. As they got bored they looked to amuse themselves and pass the time. They would start to skip stones along the path they trod. (The literal meaning of parable).

It's kind of funny growing up.... I'm not sure if its left over Victorian values, or some other element of Germanic cultural influence on my father's side, but my parent's (who are very devout Lutherans) seemed very concerned with speaking out against what they considered as "nonsense". They were very concerned with too much day dreaming and if people spent too much time doing seemingly frivolous activities. And yet here we go, one of the metaphors used to communicate profound spiritual truth about the Kingdom of God comes from a seemingly frivolous activity.

prodromos said:

I'm afraid I remain skeptical of his etymology. It sounds like something that could have easily been made up. Bored travellers skip stones along their path, not parallel to their path, so I suspect they would have arrived at a different word to describe their activity.

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It seems to have checked out over the years, if you do word searches online or look it up in other books, while your argument though is kind of like having a hunch without supporting evidence.

Also the etymology of the Latin word "trivia" is very similar to this.

mama2one said:

Why Did Jesus Speak in Parables?

Jesus spoke in parables
does anyone know if Jesus also skipped stones?

there's so much left out of the Bible!
I'd like to know things like this & more about HIS childhood

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The skipping stone thing is just suppose to have been on how the word came into existence in Greek. The prophets occasionally told parables in the Old Testament e.g. Nathan the prophet confronting David for adulatory with Bathsheba. And I'm guessing the rabbis picked that up and it became really popular. 2 Samuel 12 , Judges 9



STRONGS H4912:
† II. מָשָׁל noun masculineIsaiah 14:4 proverb, parable (of sentences constructed in parallelism, usually of Hebrew Wisdom, but occasionally of other types); — absolute מ׳ Ezekiel 17:2 + 20 times; construct מְשַׁל 1 Samuel 24:14; suffix מְשָׁלוֺ Numbers 23:7 + 8 times; plural מְשָׁלִים Ecclesiastes 12:9 + 2 times; construct מִשְׁלֵי Proverbs 1:1 + 3 times; —
1. proverbial saying, brief terse sentence of popular sagacity 1 Samuel 10:12; Ezekiel 12:22, 23; Ezekiel 18:2, 3; הַקַדְמֹנִי מ׳ 1 Samuel 24:14 proverb of the ancients.
2. by-word Psalm 44:15; Psalm 69:12; לְמָשָׁל וְלִשְׁנִינָה Deuteronomy 28:37;

H4912 - māšāl - Strong's Hebrew Lexicon (kjv)


This sort of thing also has parallels to the Memra of Aramaic and Syriac Christianity.