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

Secondly, irrespective of how the parables are classified and defined in any way, either
literary categories or in Semitic context, the parables inevitably feature allegory, since the
parables take both a literal and a tropical meaning, according to two modes of meaning. 29
Moreover, we are led to the fact that the parables have a feature of allegory, when we define
allegory as follows: Certain details in a narrative, such as characters, actions, symbols and the
like, stand for or point to something other, not themselves. Therefore the parables are
interpreted correctly and accurately only when certain elements in the parables are compared
to or correspond to the other components and spiritual realities in analogy, either in the gospel
contexts or the whole of the Old Testament and the New Testament. 30 In spite of disclaimers,
anti-allegorical interpreters cannot avoid allegory in interpreting the parables. 31
The
remaining matter now is how many details in the parables point to something other, what they
refer to and how do they fit the rest of the story?
4. The Parables may make more than one point.
Do the parables have more than one point? With respect to this question, rejecting the
parables as allegories, at the same time, Jülicher maintained that a parable has only one point
of comparison. He, what is more, attempted to relate the term, ‘tertium comparationis’, to a
general moral truth. Others who faithfully followed Jülicher’s single point of comparison, are
Princeton University Press, 1957), 89-93.
29. According to Madeleine Boucher, there are only two possible modes of meaning, that is, literal meaning and
tropical meaning. She claims that every kind of trope can be extended over an entire literary work, enumerating
the type of trope including synecdoche, metonymy, irony and metaphor and the like. She basically divides the
parables into three categories, that is: similitudes, parables that are allegorical, and exemplary stories that are
extended synecdoches. She therefore concludes that the tropical meaning in a parable extends across the large
unit of meaning, the whole, since all parables are tropical, even though all parables are not allegorical.
Madeleine Boucher, The Mysterious Parable: A Literary Study (CBQMS, 6; Washington, DC: Catholic Biblical
Association, 1977), 17-25; idem, The parables (Wilmington, Delaware: Michael Glazier, 1983), 24-34.
30. For scholars who view the parables as allegorical, see, Madeleine Boucher, The Mysterious Parables
(Washington: Catholic Biblical Association of America, 1977); H-J. Klauck, Allegorie und Allegorese in
Synoptischen Gleichnistexten (NTAbh, 13; Münster: Aschendorff, 1978), 4-28; Carlston, “Parable and Allegory
Revisited: An Interpretive Review,” 228-242; John Sider, “Proportional Analogy in the Gospel Parables,” NTS
31 (1985), 1-23; idem, Interpreting the Parables: A Hermeneutical Guide to their Meaning (Grand Rapids:
Zondervan, 1995), 18-26; Drury, The Parables in the Gospels: History and Allegory, 7-38; Donahue, The
Gospel in Parable, 11-13; M.C. Parsons, “Allegorising Allegory: Narrative Analysis and Parable Interpretation,”
PRSt 15 (1988), 147-164; J.M. Ford, “Towards the Restoration of Allegory: Christology, Epistemology and
Narrative Structure,” SVTQ 34 (1990), 161-195; Blomberg, Interpreting the Parables, 29-58; R.L. Wilken, “In
Defence of Allegory,” ModTh 14 (1998), 197-212; David P. Parris, “Imitating the Parable: Allegory, Narrative
and the Role of Mimesis,” JSNT 25 (2002), 33-53.
31. For this, see, Matthew Black, “The Parables as Allegory,” BJRL 42 (1960), 273-287.
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