the role of the lukan parables in terms of the purpose of luke's gospel

similarities between the Gallus and the Cataplus of Lucian 3 and the parable. Apart from the
above examples, there are Gilgamesh Epic, 4 1 Enoch 5 and Jannes and Jambres 6 . However,
as several recent studies have concluded, 7
there is no reason to insist on its dependency on
any particular fixed story. The Gospel story uses a well-known folkloric motif that was shared
by several cultures, as well as circulated all over the Hellenistic world, such as the reversal of
fate of a rich man and a poor man after death and a dead person’s return from the dead with a
3. “This dialogue opens with Charon, the ferryman in Hades, waiting for Hermes and the day’s dead, among
whom are poor Micyllus and the rich tyrant Megapenthes. Micyllus had been working on, as usual, a sandal
when the fate Atropos had come for him, whereas Megapenthes, just as typically, had been at a banquet where
he sipped a poisoned drink. On the way down to Hades, though, Megapenthes tries to run away from Hermes,
and when that fails he tries to persuade the fate Clotho to let him go back to life in order to finish his house or to
give his wife instructions about some buried treasure, or to complete a wall and docks and so forth. Clotho,
however, refuses each request. After their ferryboat ride, Micyllus and Megapenthes appear before
Rhadamanthus, the judge of the underworld. He judges each by inspecting the soul for any marks that result
from doing wicked deeds. Micyllus’s judgment is quick. His soul is pure, and so he is sent to the Isles of the
Blessed, there to recline with the heroes. In the case of Megapenthes, however, the matter is very different. His
soul is black and blue with stigmata. And after the testimony of the philosopher Cyniscus and the corroborating
testimony of Megapenthes’s bed and lamp, Rhadamanthus learns the reason for so many marks. Cyniscus
charges him with having murdered countless people and confiscated their property. Moreover, with his wealth
Megapenthes left no form of licentiousness untried. In particular Cyniscus charges him with sexual offenses:
Megapenthes denies only the latter charges, but the lamp and bed quickly corroborate the philosopher.
Consequently, all that Rhadamanthus has to do is decide on an appropriate punishment.” Ronald F. Hock,
“Lazarus and Micyllus: Greco-Roman Background to Luke 16:19-31,” JBL 106 (1987), 447-63, here 459-60.
See also the works of Lucian of Samosata, Dialogues of the Dead, 7:406-8, 1:328-35 and 28:426-29. Snodgrass,
Stories with Intent, 422.
4. See C.J. Gadd, “Epic of Gilgamesh, Tablet XII,” Revue d'Assyriologie et d'Archéologie Orientale XXX
(1933), 127-43; Alexander. Heidel, The Gilgamesh Epic and Old Testament Parallels (Chicago: the University
of Chicago Press, 1949), 93-101.
5. For especially 1 Enoch 22:1-13, see Outi Lehtipuu, The Afterlife Imagery in Luke’s Story of the Rich Man and
Lazarus (NovTSup 123. Leiden: Brill, 2007), 130-32. Cf. Sverre Aalen, “St Luke’s Gospel and the Last
Chapters of 1 Enoch,” NTS 13 (1967), 1-13; G. W. E. Nickelsburg, “Riches, the Rich, and God’s Judgment in 1
Enoch 92-105 and the Gospel according to Luke,” NTS 25 (1978), 324-44; idem, “Revisiting the Rich and the
Poor in 1 Enoch 92-105 and the Gospel According to Luke,” 579-605, in SBL Seminar Papers 37. vol. 2.
(Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1998).
6. J.H. Charlesworth, The Old Testament Pseudepighrapha, vol 2, 437-42; idem, The Pseudegrapha and
Modern Research with a Supplement (SCSS 7; Chico: Scholars Press, 1981), 134; Albert Pietersma, The
Apocryphon of Jannes and Jambres the Magicians (New York: Brill, 1994), 96-261.
7. R. Bauckham, “The Rich Man and Lazarus: The Parable and The Parallels,” 225; Frank W. Hughes, “The
Parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus (Luke 16:19-31) and Graeco-Roman Rhetoric,” in ed., Stanley E. Porter
and Thomas H. Olbricht, Rhetoric and the New Testament: Essays from the 1992 Heidelberg Conference
(JSNTSup 90; England: Sheffield Academic Press, 1993), 29-41; Michael J. Gilmour, “Hints of Homer in Luke
16:19-31,” Didaskalia 10 (1999), 23-33, here 33; Outi Lehtipuu, The Afterlife Imagery in Luke’s Story of the
Rich Man and Lazarus, 36-38; Snodgrass, Stories with Intent, 427. Similarly, C.H. Cave argues that Luke’s story
has no direct dependency on the Egyptian and the Jewish accounts, since the common motif among them is only
a topos in oriental storytelling as the general theme. C.H. Cave, “Lazarus and the Lukan Deuteronomy,” NTS 15
(1968), 319-25, here 323. Similarly also Scott, Hear Then the Parable, 157.
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