Luke 19 in the light of history

[hithesh]

"it woke him up to the reality and took his mind off his meanness. The good was in him the same as it was in the warden and the District Attorney, but it had to be brought out by the warmth of love which I showed" ~ Annon Hennacy

and we will perhaps return to this later.

In Luke 19, there is the "Parable of the Talents", which I am sure many here are familiary with. I'm sure we have been taught, or have understood the passage in a particular way, where the King in the Parable is representive of Jesus. But I want to make the case, and prove this is not so.

The King Jesus is speaking about is not a "good" king, but Herod Archeulus and the message is more about oppression and suffering than it is about using our talents and accruing interest wisely.

Allow me to present my case:

Luke 19:

So he said, "A nobleman went off to a distant country to obtain the kingship for himself and then to return.
[...]
His fellow citizens, however, despised him and sent a delegation after him to announce, 'We do not want this man to be our king.'

History:

After the death of Herod the Great, his son Archelaus traveled to Rome to receive the title of king. A delegation of Jews appeared in Rome before Caesar Augustus to oppose the request of Archelaus. Although not given the title of king, Archelaus was made ruler over Judea and Samaria.

The NAB makes a note of this, but they are not sure how to understand it, particullary when Luke talks about the Jews expecting the Kingdom of God to arrive at any minute, but what they might not have understood is that the Jews were expecting the Kingdom, for other reasons:

Luke 19:

he proceeded to tell a parable because he was near Jerusalem and they thought that the kingdom of God would appear there immediately

History:

There was a riot in the city of Caesarea the Roman governor required reparations to be paid. The Jewish inhabitants of Caesarea had apparently gotten angry over the relationships with their gentile neighbors and had gone on a rampage. The governor wanted them to pay for the damages. When they refused he went to Jerusalem and demanded the money to come out of the temple treasury and that was the spark that ignited the first revolt. Unfortunately he didn't count on the level of popular sentiment that had been growing. He thought he could bluff his way in with only a few troops and he was run out of town very quickly. When he called for reinforcements and tried to march on Jerusalem again he was ambushed on the way and apparently the Jewish insurgents thought this was a sign that God was in fact ready to deliver them from Roman rule, that this was the coming of the kingdom"

and the final part:

Luke 19:

"For the days are coming upon you (Pharisees) when your enemies will raise a palisade against you; they will encircle you and hem you in on all sides.

They will smash you to the ground and your children within you, and they will not leave one stone upon another within you because you did not recognize the time of your visitation."

History:

"Before (Herod Archelaus) setting out, he quelled with the utmost cruelty a sedition of the Pharisees, slaying nearly three thousand of them"

As he drew near, he saw the city and wept over it, saying, "If this day you only knew what makes for peace--but now it is hidden from your eyes.

I won't provide my understanding of the passage right now, as well as for Matthew 25, where the parable appears again slightly altered, but I was curious to see what everyone thinks so far?

(I understand that this is perhaps, not the thread, for this, but I am sure everyone here knows, that it's quite hard to ask the average christian to think of scripture differently from what has been accepted for years of Sunday School, and pulpit messages. I figure in room of Christians who value reason and evidence, I could get some serous input)

 

[LewisWildermuth]

Pretty interesting so far.

I look forward to seeing more and doing some study myself.

 

[gluadys]

I won't provide my understanding of the passage right now, as well as for Matthew 25, where the parable appears again slightly altered, but I was curious to see what everyone thinks so far?

We constantly conflate our modern definition of "talent" with that of biblical times when it was just a large sum of money. We also do not take into account some of the differences in banking and trade in the first century. For example, there was no compound interest yet, as the mathematics for it had not yet been developed. I expect also that there was nothing resembling a stock market.

Are you familiar with Ched Myers interpretation of this parable? You are beginning much as he does. I'll wait to see the outcome rather than giving anything away prematurely.

 

[crawfish]

Thanks for posting!

I'd like to hear more.

 

[hithesh]

"You will keep on hearing, but you will not understand;
you will keep on seeing; but you will not perceive;
for the heart of this people has become dull,
with their ears they scarcely hear.
and they have closed their eyes
otherwise they would see with their eyes
hear with their ears
and understand with their heart and return
and i would heal them."

David saw, and he was healed, only after he saw himself in Nathan's parable:

God tells Nathan to talk to David; when he came to him, he said: "Judge this case for me! In a certain town there were two men, one of them was rich, and the other was poor. The rich man had flocks and herds in great numbers. But the poor man had nothing at all except one little ewe lamb that he had bought. He nourished her, and she grew up with him and his children. She shared the little food he had and drank from his cup, and slept near him. She was like a daughter to him.

Now, the rich man was soon to receive a visitor, but he did not want to take from his own flocks and herds to prepare a meal for this soon to arrive wayfarer. Instead he took the poor man's ewe lamb, and made a meal of it for his visitor."

Upon hearing this, David became very angry with this man, and he said to Nathan: "As the LORD lives, the man who did this deserves death! He shall restore the ewe lamb four-times-over, because he did this and had no pity."

Then Nathan said to David: "You are the man!

Something, is changing.

In Luke 19 we have a King, sold to you by corrupt doctrine, as "the King is Christ", and it has been told to you that the money he exploits from his servants is symbolic for how we should use our talents.

But today for those who wish to see, and hear, judge what is true:

"It was one of those days that a teacher lives for. My class and I were reading biblical interpretations by African biblical scholars and for our closing reflection we were reading and pondering the parable of the talents in Matthew 25 and Luke 19. That's when it happened. One of my students, Donald, who is from Sierra Leone, suddenly said, "Wait a minute! This parable doesn't say anywhere that the king is God. It doesn't say that this is even a parable of the kingdom. In fact, this king describes himself as a harsh man, who takes what he doesn't deposit and reaps what he doesn't sow . What if the hero of this parable is actually the slave who doesn't invest his money?"

Ched Myer's interpretation (thanks to Glaudys):

"The notorious parable of the talents (pounds) shows how Sabbath perspective as an interpretive key can rescue us from a long tradition of both bad theology and bad economics (Matthew 25:14-30; Luke 19:11-28). This story has, in capitalist religion, been interpreted allegorically from the perspective of the cruel master (= God!), requiring spiritualizing gymnastics to rescue the story from its own depressing conclusion that haves will always triumph over the have-nots (Matthew 25:29). But it reads much more coherently when turned on its head and read as a cautionary tale of realism about the mercenary selfishness of the debt system. This reading understands the servant who refused to play the greedy master's money-market games as the hero who pays a high price for speaking truth to power (Matthew 25:24-30)—just as Jesus himself did."

 

[hithesh]

In Matthew 25 we also have the parable of the sheep recieved by our Lord for tending to the least,
and the Goats who were rejected for not doing so.

We can see how this Noblemen would be a Goat.

But let's move on to bit more sacred territory, "The Parable of the wise and foolish virgins" of Matthew 25.

If we were to really think about this parable, would we see the wise virgins as goats or sheep?

Now, I'm going to point out something curious in the parable:

In the parable both the wise and foolish virgins became drowsy and fell asleep, but when Jesus finishes the parable he sums up the moral as " Therefore, stay awake."

The virgins were not the only ones Matthew describes in his gospel, as drowsy and falling asleep, in Matthew 26 it's the disciple "who could not keep their eyes open, and fell asleep", and Christ rebukes them and tells them to "stay awake".

And the last one:

"But the wise ones replied, 'No, for there may not be enough for us and you. Go instead to the merchants and buy some for yourselves."

When it was evening, the disciples approached him and said, "This is a deserted place and it is already late; dismiss the crowds so that they can go to the villages and buy food for themselves."

(Jesus) said to them, "There is no need for them to go away; give them some food yourselves."