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

Although there is little consensus among scholars about the social stratification of the
Pharisees, it seems most likely that the Pharisees were generally composed of the retainer
class and lay persons, not the wealthiest members of society or the priestly aristocracy. 23 At
any rate, Pharisees seems to have been held in high regard among people at the time of Jesus,
for their tithing, ritual purity, and Sabbath observance, 24 although there is very little negative
reference to Pharisees concerning their proud and self-righteous attitude both in the Gospels
and in traditional Jewish literature. 25
In this regard, it should be considered that the parable
would have startled Jesus’ audience who had respected the Pharisees, unlike Luke’s readers
who would have quite negative imagery toward the Pharisees through the preceding
portrayals.
On the other hand, tax collectors in general is composed of three distinct groups, as
follows: those who paid the state in advance the sum to be collected for the coming year, so
as to purchase the right to collect specific taxes, supervisory officials like Zacchaeus who had
the opportunity for personal gain, and their employees who were staffed at toll booths or tax
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offices to collect such taxes. Even though it is most likely that the tax collector in the
parable would be an employee of a chief tax collector, yet it does not have to be spelled out
whether the tax collector in the parable is a “toll collector” who collected tolls, tariffs,
imposts and customs as indirect taxes, 27 or a “tax collector” who collected tolls, market
duties, and all kinds of local taxes (sales, income, property, and inheritance). 28
Tax collectors in turn are reduced to beggars, thieves and robbers in Roman and
29 30
Hellenistic literature, and to sinners, immoral people and Gentiles in the NT, but also
Competitors, 297; Hultgren, Parables, 121; Schottroff, The Parables of Jesus, 8-11. They stood on the grounds
that Pharisees held great regard among of people at the time of Jesus from extra-bible sources is contradictory to
the biased point of view that seems alluded both in the parable and in other NT texts regarding Pharisees’
portrayal.
23. Meier, A Marginal Jew: Rethinking the Historical Jesus; vol. 3, Companions and Competitors, 297;
Jeremias, Jerusalem in the Time of Jesus, 246-67.
24. According to Josephus, the Pharisees received great regard among the masses of people. See Josephus, Ant.
13.297-98; 18.15; J.W. 1.110; 2.162.
25. See G.F. Moore, Judaism in the First Centuries of the Christian Era (3 vols.; New York: Schocken Books,
1971), 2:190-94.
26. Herzog, Parables as Subversive Speech, 188; John R. Donahue, “Tax Collector,” ABD, vol. 6, 337-38.
27. Donahue, “Tax Collectors and Sinners: An Attempt at Identification,” CBQ 33 (1971), 39-61, 48; Fitzmyer,
The Gospel According to Luke, 469-70; Herzog, Parables as Subversive Speech, 173, 187-88; Farris, “Tale of
Two Taxations,” 23, 25, 29.
28. Scott, Hear Then a Parable, 93; Hultgren, Parables, 121.
29. Cicero, De office. 15-51; Diogenes Cynicus, Ep. 36.2; Lucan, Pseudolog. 30; Dio Chrysostom, Orat. 14.14;
O. Michel, “,” TDNT, VIII, 88-105.
30. Mark 2:15; Matt 5:46; 9:10; 11:19; 18:17; 21:31; Luke 7:34; 15:2.
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