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

of the framing structure and in the context of the reader’s belief system. 38
It seems, therefore, inevitable that there exists polyvalence in the parables. I, at this stage,
intend to add some reasonable grounds for accepting polyvalence in the parables. First of all,
language itself, at a semiotic level, has multiple meanings which are produced from a duplex
sign system which operates denotatively and connotatively at the same time. This has at least
two signifieds: A stated and an unstated, namely, a denotatum and a designatum. The arbitrary
nature of the sign or indeterminacy of language in the parables opens naturally the question
of multiple meanings. Moreover it is more so that language has the feature of polyvalence in
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the sense that meaning is a choice in the paradigmatic relation.
Secondly, multiple meanings arise in the parables because they, as has been observed
above, can be read in multiple contexts: Particularly in the context within which the story is
viewed, and in the context of the reader with individual insight, concerns and methodology to
interpret the parables, that is to say, different readings of the parables by different readers or
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interpreters create different meanings. The polyvalency of the parables can be seen to occur
more strongly in multiple contexts than in the linguistic feature of polyvalence. But we must
be most careful of readings in various non-Gospel contexts, for it may yield a distorted
interpretation. In result, polyvalence of the parables makes the reader consider carefully and
reflect deeply on interpreting the parables, not producing hermeneutic anarchy.
38. Susan Wittig, “A Theory of Multiple Meanings,” Semeia 9 (1977), 75-103. She argues that the significance
of the parable does not lie wholly in the context and wholly in the structure of the narrative but rather lies in the
reader’s own act of structuring, that is, in his efforts to find coherence and significance to understand both the
parables and his own system of values and belifes.
39. According to Ferdinand de Saussure, the value of any term is determined by its environment, that is, the
relations of equivalence and contrast between linguistic signs, in other words, the meaning of a word is
determined by syntagmatic relation and paradigmatic relation. F. Saussure, Course in General Linguistics
(London 1960), 123, 166; A.C. Thiselton, ‘Semantics and New Testament Interpretation,’ in ed., I.H. Marshall,
New Testament Interpretation: Essays on Principles and Methods (Exeter: Paternoster Press, 1977), 75-104. It is
well known to cause ambiguity which may be intended or unintended on the level of the word, syntactics,
semantics, stylistics or on a total level. See, M. Silva, Biblical words and their meaning: A introduction to
lexical semantics (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1983), 149, 151; H.J.B. Combrink, “Multiple meaning and/or
multiple interpretation of a text,” Neotestamentica 18 (1984), 26-37; Hedrick, Many Things in Parables: Jesus
and His Modern Critics, 47-50.
40. On the question of hermeneutics, I, of course, follow the fact that we should consider three dimensions, such
as the author’s intention, the text itself, and the response of the reader in order to find out the meaning of a text.
I, as opposed to the neglect of the author’s intention in modern literary criticism, still think that we must
impartially take the author’s intention into consideration to determine the meaning of a text, as E.D. Hirsh has
strongly argued it, even though I partly do not agree with his contention that a text has one objective meaning
which is begun from the author’s mind. E.D. Hirsch, Validity in Interpretation (New Haven: Yale University
Press, 1967), 1-67; idem, The Aims of Interpretation (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1976), 1-13.
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