21
By
Roberto
D. Badenas
Euro-Africa
Division
530-03 Institute for
Christian Teaching 12501 Old Columbia Pike Silver Spring, MD 20904
USA
Prepared
for the
31st
International Faith and Learning Seminar
held
at
22
"The parable is, has been and always will
be,
the
language of the wise for speaking to the
simple,
and
the langage of the simple for speaking to the wise…"[1]
Jesus conveyed some of
his most interesting teachings through parables, although there were many other
means of communication in his days, apparently more direct and conventional. It
has been calculated that about one third of Jesus’ teachings transmitted in the
synoptic gospels have come to us in the form of parables.[2]
The teaching of Jesus is so much related to parables, that when the word
"parable" is mentioned many associate it immediately with Jesus and
the Gospels. However, the parable (called
in Hebrew mashal), is quite a commun genre
in rabbinic wisdom and oriental literature, largely widespread through all
times, milieux and cultures around the world.
Why did Jesus choose
this particular literary genre of "parable" to convey some of His
most important messages?
My
essay has two aims:
1. To find the main reasons of this choice, through an analysis of
the parables taught by Jesus, paying attention both to their content and to their
narrative structures.
2. On the basis of this model, to set a pattern for an eventual use
of parables in religious education in our days.
While I seek to integrate
faith through parables in my own teaching, I hope that my study will be
valuable for those who, like me, work in the not so easy task of the religious
education of youth and young adults, in a secularized society, where fiction plays
such an important role.
To know the genre of a
document is the first step to understanding it. Each genre, by its own nature,
requires a different reading approach. We do not read in the same way an
article in a law code and an article in a newspaper. We do not read in the same
way a page of history and a poem.
23
The term "parable"
has been largely defined as a "short simple story from which a moral
lesson may be drawn"[3]. This is why it is commonly applied to
different literary genres, ranging from the tale and the fable to the allegory
and the myth. In fact, many do not see a true difference between them, and they
easily confuse these different forms.
But if we want to be more precise, we soon find that the parables of
Jesus are quite different, and a little more difficult to define.[4]
a) Some associate the gospel parable with the fable.
The fable is a short "fictitious
story meant to teach a moral lesson"[5]. This is the way in which fables were
traditionnally used by the Greeks, the Romans, the Arabs, and their cultural
heirs. The Bible also contains a few fables like "The Trees and the
Bramble" (Judges 9:8-15), or "The Thistle that Wanted to Marry the
Cedar's Daughter" (2 Kings 14:9).
The main intention of the fable is to criticize human weaknesses. This is done indirectly, for example, by
means of intelligent reflections of talking plants or animals.
But this is not the case with the gospel
parables. In them, plants or animals – the tares, the mustard tree, the lost
sheep or the fish in the net – never express their feelings or opinions. Only
human beings talk. And besides that, very few gospel parables could be classified
under the category of moralizing literature.
b) Others have tried to relate the gospel parable
with what the Greeks called myth.
The myth was a legendary story designed to
illustrate or explain realities difficult to grasp in rational terms, such as
the phenomena of nature, the origin of humankind, or the religious roots of a
people.[6]
Thus, for example, in order to point out the danger of self-love, the ancient
Greek liked to refer to the myth of Narcissus – the beautiful youth who, after
Echo’s death, is made to pine away for love of his own reflection in a spring. He ended up drawning and being changed into a
flower, always trying to embrace its own image. The didactic interest of the
myth is not in its historical value, since there is none, but in its permanent existential
truth.
24
Although most of the parables also underline permanent truths,
their style is completely different from the myths. There is in fact nothing
mythic or legendary in losing a coin, or in finding weeds in a field of corn.
These are everyday realities that have little in common with myths.
c) More often the parables have been associated
with allegories.
Allegories are narratives "in which
people, things, and happenings have a hidden or symbolic meaning".[7]
The Old Testament contains many allegories.
One of the best known is the allegory of the vineyard (Isaiah 5:1-7), where
the vineyard represents
For many centuries, the gospel parables
were regarded as allegories, and interpreted accordingly. But this view was refuted by Adolf Jülicher
at the end of the nineteeth century, and the best studies produced after him
agree that parables are something different from classic allegories.[8] In fact, although the parables may also have
allegoric elements, there is a key difference between the two in the fact that
allegories are usually static, while a parable is always a story, even if it is
often very short and simple, culminating in an unexpected end.
Although the parables of Jesus may seem
close to the tale, the fable, the myth and the allegory, and certainly have
something in common with them, they have their own peculiarities that make them
somehow unique.
25
d) This is why attention should be paid to the fact that the parables
of Jesus are called in the New Testament not allegoria or mythos but parabolè.
It is interesting to observe that the
term parabolè comes from the language
of ballistics, from the root ball- ("to
throw") and the preposition parà
("the other side"), with the meaning of "throwing along" or
"putting side by side". A parabolè
(like a parabola in geometry) is,
first of all, the indirect, curved trajectory of a projectile going from point
A to point B over an obstacle. In the same way, the parable, as rhetorical
device, is a narrative that allows the story-teller to reach the intended
target through an unexpected itinerary, following another path, so that the receiver
cannot prevent the result and avoid the impact.
A parable is therefore a
story, true or ficticious, with an unexpected lesson brought up by means of
comparison. But, contrary to other anecdotes and illustrations, instead of
being intended to merely illustrate or amuse, the parable is intended to
surprise and to reveal. The narrative
brings, in the setting of the familiar, the surprise of the unfamiliar,
disrupting the listeners in their expectations or in their perception of
reality. This allows the parable to increase the force of its impact.
The fact that the parable often
adopts the light tone of a tale does not mean that this genre is less serious
than other biblical genres, nor that we can take its lessons less seriously. In
fact, it is precisely because the subjects of the parables are so important and
deep that they are better transmitted in this way.
If we are not very familiar
with the gospel parables, at first reading we may be easily tempted to see them
as very simple stories. They speak of invitations to banquets, of fishermen
casting their nets, of women baking bread, of teenagers leaving home and of
employees who have problems with their bosses. Since these are situations that
we all may know by experience, the parables seem to us more accessible than
they really are. Their first listeners, however, realized very soon that,
behind their modest appearance, the parables were hiding unexpected dimensions.
Rather than examples illustrating reality, they carry surprising messages. When
we analyse them in depth, we discover that the parables constitute some of the
most perplexing and enigmatic passages in Scripture.
26
What make these stories so
special?
1.
First of
all, they are built on an element of surprise. It is not frequent, nor normal,
to excuse oneself for declining an invitation of the king to a royal wedding
banquet by claiming that one has bought some oxen that need to be tried out
just at that moment! It is not frequent or common that the owner of a business
should pay the same salary to the workers who have worked one hour as to those
who have worked twelve! The parables are full of mysteries. They teach as much
through evidence as through extravagance. Very often their intention is to
surprise.
2.
Second, the
parables make it easier to establish unexpected connections. The parable is built on characters, images
and situations already known by the listeners, allowing the storyteller to
establish, in a very natural way, unexpected links with new ideas or
situations. The art of metaphor rests precisely in the capacity of establishing
comparisons between ideas and situations that, at first sight, do not have much
in common, thus revealing unexpected truths, and new aspects of reality.
3.
The fact of
appealing more directly to the imagination than to reason, allows the parable
to open more easily the door which leads to the mysterious inner world, in
which everyone builds his/her own view of reality, without the pressures,
obstacles, complexes and preconceptions of the exterior world. Through fantasy,
the parable helps the receiver to visualize abstract notions and new realities
that the spirit is able to conceive and that would be impossible to reach by
another way.
4.
27
The narrative language is par excellence the language of contacts
and relations. The message easily reaches its target when the listener identifies
his/her own experience with the story told.
This is why stories and anecdotes are much more efficient than direct
orders to produce change in reluctant persons. A good story may replace with certain
advantages, and in a much more elegant way, all the advice that we are inclined
to give and that so often is not immediately welcomed. The mind of the
listener, as soon as it captures the message, naturally acknowledges by itself its
final intention without needing somebody to dictate it. The solution to the
problem comes spontaneously just by presenting it in a different way by means
of a comparison:
-
This is
like sewing a patch of unshrunk cloth on an old garnment. This does not
work. You need a new coat! (Mt
9:16-17).
-
There are
moments when one wonders how to face tomorrow. Look at the birds. They do not
worry… Are you not much more valuable
than they? Why worry about problems that you will probably never have, or that
God will finally solve? (Mt 6:25-26).
5.
Parables
and anecdotes have a seductive effect because they do not impose anything, they
do not threaten. The audience has to wait until the end of the story to
discover how its lesson applies to his/her personal case. This way of indirect
communication respects the autonomy of the listener, leaving him/her the space
of freedom necessary to establish by him/herself the connection between the
story told and his own situation.[9]
Used rightly, parables,
stories and anecdotes have a powerful effect, not only as didactic resources,
but also as therapeutic tools. For they
are able to overcome, in the simplest way, our natural resistance and self-defense
mechanisms, appealing to our best common sense. To a hesitant, insecure and
fearful person, Jesus may say:
-
28
"It is difficult to plow the
field looking back at the same time. If you really want to go forward, stop
looking through the rear-view mirror." (Luke 9 :62)
This type of indirect message
has more chances to be accepted that a direct rebuke. To say "It is not
the healthy that need a doctor, but the sick" (Mt
6.
Many of the
illustrations used by Jesus belong to the category of "self-evident metaphors".
Their premises work on a hidden form of truism enveloped in an almost
irrefutable argument. This use of truism is very useful for giving advice in an
indirect way, because it does not hurt the individual nor interfere with
his/her liberty. It is formulated just as a description of reality:
-
"If
the salt loses its saltiness…it is no longer good for anything." (Mt
6 :13)
-
"People
do not light a lamp and put it under a bowl. They put it on its stand."
(Mt 5:15)
-
"You
recognize trees by their fruit." (Mt 7:16-20)
These statements arouse
spontaneously the immediate agreement of listeners, thus avoiding
controversy. Since they are logically
unquestionable, they are much more efficient than any kind of argumentation, or
than any sermonizing. The strength of their impact rests in their ability to
convince the listener without imposing anything.
This is the case for many
parables, but not for all. Some are
really controversial, and some are even comparable to delayed weapons. Joachim Jeremias calls these parables "weapons
of war".[10] They are intended to reach a target that may
hurt the receivers in their aim to make them to surrender to God's grace.
29
7. Jesus knew how to combine in his parables spirituality, ethics and
aesthetics. In order to touch the conscience of his listeners while respecting
the complexities of the human mind, he was a master at the craft of bringing
together deep thinking and the beauty of art. As with any good artist, Jesus relied
heavily on inspiration. He had his own
personal way of looking at reality, with his own perspective and his own viewpoint.
His stories have a mirror effect, and help us to see ourselves from God's point
of view. This is why they were as
fascinating for his first listeners as they are for us today.
The question regarding the reasons
for Jesus’ parables was raised from the very beginning by his own disciples:
"The disciples came to him and asked, 'Why do you speak to the people in
parables?'" (Mt 13:13). The answer
is perplexing, because it may be understood in two different, even opposing
ways:
a) According to Matthew "Because they do not see and do not
understand" (Mt
b) But according
to Mark, "so that they may be ever hearing but never understanding" (Mk
If we take both accounts
seriously, as equally valid, we may conclude that Jesus’ answer may be understood
in the sense that his purpose was not a simple one. The parables were intended
at the same time, for some listeners as a means to understand the mysteries of
God, and for others, as a means to conceal this very same teaching.
Ellen G. White lists the
main reasons for Jesus’ use of parables in the following way:
1.
To illustrate his messages
«In
Christ’s parable teaching the same principle is seen as in His own mission to
the world (…) the unknown was illustrated by the known; divine truth by earthly
things with which the people were most familiar.»[11]
2.
30
To bring new revelation
"Christ
sought to remove that which obscured the truth. The veil that sin has cast over
the face of nature, He came to draw aside, bringing to view the spiritual glory
that all things were created to reflect. His words placed the teachings of
nature as well as of the Bible in a new aspect, and made them a new
revelation.»[12]
3.
To
awaken inquiry
"Jesus
desired to awaken inquiry. He sought to arouse the careless, and impress truth
upon the heart. Parable teaching was popular, and commanded the respect and
attention, not only of the Jews, but of the people of other nations. No more
effective method of instruction could he have employed."[13]
4.
To reach a larger audience
"Jesus
sought an avenue to every heart. But using a variety of illustrations, He not
only presented truth in its different phases, but appealed to different
hearers. Their interest was aroused by figures drawn from the surroundings of
their daily life. None who listened to the Saviour could feel that they were
neglected or forgotten."[14]
5.
To protect his message from his enemies
"And He had another
reason for teaching in parables. Among the multitudes that gathered about Him,
there were priests and rabbis, scribes and elders, Herodians and rulers,
world-loving, bigoted, ambitious men, who desired above all things to find some
accusation against Him (…) The Saviour understood the character of these men,
and presented truth in such a way that they could find nothing by which to
bring His case before the Sanhedrin. In parables he rebuked the hypocrisy and
wicked works of those who occupied high positions, and in figurative language
clothed truth of so cutting a character that had it been spoken in direct
denunciation, they would not have listened to His words, and would speedily
have put an end to His ministry."[15]
E. G. White concludes
stating that "in the Saviour’s parable teaching is an indication of what
constitutes true 'higher education'".[16] In other words, Jesus used parables because
this method allowed him to reach more effective His educational goals.
31
IV. The pedagogical advantages of parables
As we have seen, parables are a very
specific form of teaching, using the advantages of mimesis, the literary and
artistic imitation or representation of reality.
As a hermeneutical
concept, mimesis through parables is the heir of a long and rich history. At
its most basic level, mimesis is the mental ability that allows us to imitate
or to represent someone or something in our actions, speech, art or literature,
which is the essence of any artistic or literary creation.
Among the diverse forms
and methods of teaching available to the educator, the parable has the
advantage of appealing, – because of its mimetic nature – both to normal human
curiosity and to fascination with fiction.
We all like stories.
For a long time, parables
were considered as a lower form of teaching, obviously inferior to all the
other categories of teaching by analysis, reasoning and deduction. But today the trend has changed, and parables
are considered a very intelligent and privileged form of teaching.[17] These are some of the main reasons invoked in
favour of parables:
1.
Simple
forms may convey deep wisdom
In the past many thought that
the parable was a primitive form of discourse. Today however, the best scholars
affirm just the opposite. They acknowledge that parables may be superior forms
of teaching, much more effective than most of the other ways of conveying a
message.
2.
The known
leads to the unknown
The most common way to learn
goes from the known to the unknown. Through
the all too familiar realities of life – the uncertainity of a harvest, the
anguish of a loss, and the burden of a debt – Jesus’s parables lead the
listeners to the unknown and surprising realities of the spiritual life: God
takes care of his creatures, he suffers with his lost children, he is a
forgiving father, etc.
32
3. The concrete leads to understanding of the abstract
The more abstract an idea is,
the more it is difficult to formulate.
Apparently research shows that the vast majority of people think
anecdoctically, not abstractly. Great
creativity is needed to formulate images capable of communicating abstractions
so that they are easily understood by those who receive them. The parables
succeed in achieving this in a remarkable way. For example, to explain what
Jesus calls "The kingdom of God", He shows in which way God wants to
be king of our lives: He is not going to
impose His kingdom by force like a Roman general (as some expected from the
Messiah); He is going to propose it (as Jesus is doing with his teaching), like
the sower who sows seeds in his field.
4.
Parables
are "never-ending" stories
Because of the mimetic and
artistic character of parables, they may be read and reread endlessly, with new
insights and ever-renewed benefits for the reader, because of the changing character
of personal experience. For there will never be any "last word" about
the meaning of a mimetic representation in a text or a work of art. "Every
encounter with a work of art is part of the still unfinished happening of the
work itself because of the way we recognize more
than we knew previously".[18]
These reasons support the idea
that parables were an important educational tool used by Jesus in the
transmission of faith.
Is it possible, appropriate
and convenient to teach through parables today? In the light of what has
been said, a positive answer seems obvious. As every teacher knows, it is
becoming more and more difficult to compete for students’ attention. How can teachers compete with the
ever-present effects of the media?
"Which strategies will capture the minds of the students reliving Rocky IV violence or fantasizing about
an illicit relationship? Unfortunately, the glorious truths of the Scriptures
fail to grasp the attention, ignite the imagination, or relate to the needs of
far too many students."[19]
33
Young people in this
generation "process information in narrative images"[20]. One way to make Bible truths come alive for
students is to present them indirectly through parables. Because our intention
is that the students – listeners and readers of our parabolic message – do more
than merely understand an idea; we would like them to respond imaginatively and
emotionally, that is, with commitment, to a real-life, or even a transcendent experience.
The advantage of the parable
over other types of teaching, is that it is by nature playful and affective, not cool and detached. The
parable plays with the natural curiosity of every human being, and opens the
listener to the story told on occasions when a direct, propositional statement
would be rejected. This is the reason
why Nathan used a parable to convince king David of his terrible sin with
powerful results (2 Samuel 12:1-7), and this is certainly why Jesus used parables
so effectively. His "parables often drew his listeners innocently into the
story and then turned the tables on them after it was too late to evade the
issue at hand»[21].
One of the main obstacles that
some Adventist teachers may face, when considering the creation or the use of
parables for their own teaching, comes from the traditional reluctance of some
to deal with whatever may be called "fiction". Although Ellen G. White admits that some of
these works of fiction, "written with the purpose of teaching truth (…)
have accomplished good", her general warning is against this type of
reading.[22]
However, we are convinced that
the statements of Ellen White against fiction are not ontological but
epistemological in orientation. That is
to say, she does not oppose the genre, but the content of most works of fiction. This is why she may be very positive about
some pieces of pure fiction such as Pilgrim's
Progress by John Bunyan, while rejecting fiction in general.[23] When she opposes "truth" to
"fiction" she does not identify truth with "factual" and
fiction with "non factual" reality.
For her "fiction" equates with "error". So when she states that "we must teach
truth, nor error or fiction" she does not speak of a literary form.[24] In the minds of many of her contemporaries
the term fiction denoted the perverted, "harmful form of imaginative
writings often designed to exalt sin and sordidness.[25]
34
E. G. White would certainly
agree that "a piece of literature is not good or bad because it falls in a
certain category in classification of its form"[26]. Pligrim's
Progress and Jesus' parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus, are fiction from a
literary point of view, while they are "true" from the view point of
their religious and spiritual intention.
Imaginative forms of literature are not evil per se, and therefore, the
Bible does not hesitate to use them. And
this is why Ellen White was able to clip articles and stories for the Sabbath Reading for the Home Circle
(1905), that are pure fiction according to a general literary definition.[27] Her warnings against fiction do not apply to
the type of stories which she included in her anthology for youth, because,
according to her definition of fiction, the stories selected for her collection
"were true to life, to probity, to honor, to virtue" although were
not "all factual accounts of actual happenings".[28] For truth versus error is a more reliable
basis of choice than fact versus fiction."[29]
The parables of Jesus have
been crafted in such a creative way that the medium and the message are
inseparable.[30] In these parables, like in other parts of the
Bible, the medium serves the message but cannot be separated of it.[31]
We can say, therefore with
John Jay Hughes, that in a certain sense, "Jesus' parables are works of
fiction. That is, they are made up
stories. Like many fictional works, they
reflect actual incidents or experiences.
The story of the woman searching for her lost coin, and when she found
it throwing a party that possibly cost more than the coin she has just
recovered, may have originated in an incident form Jesus' youth. The story of the Good Samaritain may have
been inspired by an actual mugging on the dangerous road between
35
What makes, for example, the
parable of the Good Samaritan great literature? "Everything about it: its
experiential approach to truth, its sensory concreteness, its narrative genre,
its carefully crafted construction, and its total involvement of the reader-intellectually,
emotionally, imaginatively."[33] If parables were a suitable tool for Jesus,
they may be also a useful tool for educators today.
VI. Educational values better transmitted
through parables
Although
parables may be useful for teaching many subjects, we find that they are particularly
fitted for transmitting spiritual and moral values. This makes them especially suitable
for Bible courses.
I have used the
"parabolic" approach with success, teaching Bible in high school
classes, and have observed and listed
several advantages of this method:
1. Working with parables helps to awaken
creativity, the appreciation of artistic skills, and the capacity to relate
ideals and dreams to the reality of everyday life.[34] The parabolic genre helps to bring together
reason and imagination, because it is, at the same time, truth and mask,
fiction and reality,[35]
because a person’s world view consists of images and symbols as well as ideas
and propositions.[36]
2. The study of parables helps to develop
mental agility (thinking by analogy), and the pleasure of searching and finding
deeper meaning beyond the surface of appearance.
3. "Parables are a magnificent example of
rationality and demand the best intellectual involvement, both in the telling
and the hearing."[37]
36
4. Reflection on parables helps to develop the capacity of synthesis
and analysis.
5. Exposure
to parable appeals to the enjoyment of the child in us.
Artistic skills serve "the purpose of intensifying
the impact of what is said, but also the purposes of pleasure, delight and
enjoyment."[38]
6. The
study of parables by groups helps to develop dialogue skills and the capacity
of listening and learning from other sensibilities.
7. The
analysis of parables leads to truth from unexpected perspectives.
8. Teaching
through parables, the teacher may transmit values, and help the students to
grasp truth in an easier, self-evident way, without imposing anything.
In fact, "By expressing what we
believe in the language of what we know, we confirm both our beliefs and our
knowledge." [39]
Now the question that
comes to mind is how to integrate in a practical way faith and learning through
parables in our personal and concrete teaching ministry.
We
have worked successfully with parables, with high school students, in the Bible
class. Here are some suggestions based
on personal and professional experience:
1. The
most immediate way to work with parables is probably to find one that conveys
the message that we would like to share for a certain lesson, and just tell it
to the students at the right moment. But
there are also many other possibilities.
2. Another
option is to ask the students to read a given parable carefully and re-write it
by changing some details in order to make the setting more contemporary, while
keeping the structure and the message of the text as it is stated in the Bible.
37
- Adapt, for example, the parable of the Ten Virgins to a
contemporary setting, looking for what would replace the oil and lamps today.
- Take the 23rd Psalm and change all the imagery from the shepherd
to a mountain guide, etc.
3. It
is always useful to challenge the students to summarize the message of the
parable in one or two short sentences.
4. A
more creative activity would be to retell the parable for people of a certain
targeted age or social group (children, teenagers, secularized, rich, migrants,
farmers, etc).
5. With
more means and time, working in groups, try role-playing the parable (for theater,
TV, etc.).
6. Challenge
the students by groups to mime or enact the parable without words.
7. Illustrate
the message of the parable through news and pictures from the newspapers.
8. Compare
the scenario of the parable with similar situations today, taking note of the
similarities and the differences.
9. Ask
the students to compare themselves with the different characters of the parable
and say how they would have acted in a similar situation.
10. Apply the parable to the reality in which the
students live (politics, school, family, friends, church, etc).
11. Create
modern parables that Jesus could have formulated if he had lived in our time.[40]
12. Reflect
on a given modern parable, according to a set of guidelines given.[41]
It would seem that our ability to recognize lateral,
logic-based illustrative situations is not impaired, even though we are no
longer in the habit of turning them into stories to tell to our students. Our difficulties in achieving a certain
linguistic sophistication mean that something rather special has disappeared
from our culture. Let us hope that this
is only a temporary loss and that we will find new illustrative means of
helping our students "to see things to which we have allowed ourselves to
become blind."[42]
38
In
order to get started right away, with a practical example, let's listen to a
modern parable:
TRUTH AND
PARABLE
Once upon a time, Truth came
to this world. She had the mission to
teach human kind about the reality of all things. This was a very heavy task.
In order to fulfil her task,
Truth tried to speak to the people she found, but some abused her, others hid
from her and the rest rejected her…
- Why do they treat me so
badly? She cried in a corner.
Parable heard Truth crying and
said to her:
- They reject you because they
are afraid of you, for you are naked. As
you see, here everybody wears clothing.
Dress yourself and the people will listen to you.
- How shall I dress myself if
I do not have any clothes?
- Don't worry, said
Parable. You are beautiful and I am a
very good tailor. I will make all the
clothes you will need.
And since Truth married
Parable and now wears the clothes he prepares for her, many people listen, and
Truth continues to fulfil her mission.
(Adapted from Kalil Gibran)
[1] Alfonso FRANCIA, Educar con parábolas, Madrid:
Editorial CCS, 1992, p. 5.
[2] Brad H. YOUNG, The Parables. Jewish Tradition and Christian Interpretation,
Peabody: Hendrickson, 1998, p. 7: "One third of the recorded sayings
of Jesus in the Synoptic Gospels are in parables. If we do not understand the parables, we miss
what may be known about the historical Jesus. One must understand parables to
know Jesus."
[3] Webster Dictionary of
the English Language, Unabridged, Encyclopedic Edition,
[4] See on this section, Roberto BADENAS, Para conocer al Maestro en sus parábolas, Madrid:
Editorial Salefiz, 2002, p. 218-219.
[5] Webster’s New World
Dictionary,
[6]
[7]
[8] Robert H. STEIN, An Introduction to the Parables of Jesus,
[9] Errol McDONALD, "Have I
Got a Story for You: The Narrative Factor in Christian Education", in Christ in the Classroom, vol. 21, 1998,
pp. 185-203.
[10] Joachim Jeremias, The Parables of Jesus,
[11] Ellen G. White, Christ's Object Lessons,
[12]
[13]
[14]
[15]
[16] Ibid.
[17] See David P. PARRIS, "Imitating the Parables: Allegory, Narrative
and the Role of Mimesis", JSNT 25.1 (2002), pp. 33-53.
[18] Wilma McCLARTY, "Why Teach The Bible as Literature?" in The Journal of Adventist Education, vol.
51, n. 4, April-May 1989, pp. 23-24, 43.
[19]
[20] Bailey GILLESPIE, "Church Next: The Transmission of Christian
Values during the College and University Years", paper presented at the 3rd Integration of Faith and Learning Seminar,
Friedensau, 2003, p. 1.
[21] Leland RYKEN, How to Read the
Bible as Literature,
[22] Ellen G. WHITE, Counsels to Parents, Teachers and Students Regarding Christian
Education, 1913, pp. 383-384.
[23] See Department of Education, General Conference of Seventh-day
Adventists, Guide to the Teaching of
Literature (1971), in D. Davies, pp. 115-116. The explanation is found, to
my opinion, in the ambiguity of the use of the concepts of "truth"
and "fiction" in the common English of Ellen G. White's time. This ambiguity needs to be taken into
consideration.
[24] Ibid., p. 116. "From an intensive examination of her
references to fiction, it appears that Ellen G. White used the term fiction to
apply to work with the following characteristics: (1) It is addictive. (2) It may be sentimental, or sensational,
erotic, profane, or trashy. (3) It is
escapist, causing the reader to revert to a dream world and to be less able to
cope with the problems of everyday life.
(4) It unfits the mind for serious study, and devotional life. (5) it is time consuming and valueless."
[25] Paul T. Gibbs, seems to have understood this point well: "I believe Mrs. White meant by fiction
what the word most frequently stands for in the mind of the man or woman in the
market place or in the kitchen – plotted stories of carnal love, greed, temper
– the lurid, cheap magazine story." ("Literature in Adventist
Schools", Seventh-day Adventists on
Literature, Ed. Robert Dunn,
[26] H. M. Tippett, "A Review of Some Principles in Dealing with Fiction
and Imaginative Forms of Literature in Our Schools", p. 92, cited in D.
Davis, p. 56.
[27] Delmer DAVIS, Teaching Literature. A
Seventh-day Adventist Approach, Berrien Springs: Andrews University Press, 2002, pp. 58-62.
[28] Tippett, p. 94.
[29] Gibbs, p. 129.
[30] See Charles W. HEDRICK, Parables
as Poetic Fiction: The Creative Voice of
Jesus,
[31] RYKEN, op. cit. p. 43.
[32] John Jay HUGHES, Stories Jesus Told. Modern
Meditations on the Parables,
[33] RYKEN, op. cit. p. 43.
[34] Shirley A. McGarrell, "Faith and Fiction: An Inspiring Dilemma for Seventh-day
Adventist Teachers of Literature", in Christ in the Classroom, vol. 14,
1994, pp. 289-307.
[35]
[36]
[37] Edwin A. KARLOW, "Parables – A Synthesis
of Thought", in Christ in the
Classroom, vol. I, 1991, p. 176.
[38]
[39] Karlow, op. cit., p. 178.
[40] To create parables in scientific language, see Karlow,
op. cit., pp. 175-192.
[41] See, for example, Morris VENDEN, Modern Parables, Pacific Press. 1994.