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

6-3-1. The Analysis of the Parable
The parable is generally called the twin of the parable of the Lost Sheep, just as 13:18-21
(Mustard Seed and Leaven) and 14:28-32 (Building a Tower and King Going to War), since
they share the same meaning. In addition, for Luke, it is a frequent occurrence to find pairs of
accounts with men and women. 54 Although there are negative feelings towards women
among Jesus’ contemporaries, there is, as I have already pointed out in the Lost Sheep, not
the least intention to stimulate resentment toward the Pharisees and scribes with the mention
of a woman as the protagonist in the parable. 55
Unlike the previous parable, Jesus here does not begin with the phrase ‘what woman from
you’, to compare his audience to a woman, but rather the parable takes up ‘Or what woman’.
Nevertheless, the story, as in the parable of the Lost Sheep, does follow the logic of ‘How
much more!’, i.e. logic that progresses from the lesser to the greater. If a woman will look
industriously for a lost coin and rejoice at finding it, how much more will God search for a
56
lost one and rejoice at finding that one?
One drachma was offered as one day’s wage for a day worker, and was usually equal to a
57
denarius in the first century. Although the value of ten drachmas is not small, she could be
reckoned as rather poor, for that would explain well her diligent search. 58 With respect to the
coin, Jeremias suggests that the woman in the parable may have worn a headdress on which
the ten coins would have been strung together, 59 whereas Bailey suggests that the coin may
have been the woman’s necklace. 60
However, coins pierced were not customary in the
54. Cf. 1:6-7; 2:36-38; 4:25, 38; 7:11-15, 36-50; 8:1-3, 19-21, 43-56; 10:38-42; 11:27; 13:10-17. It may be a
Lukan strategy to highlight the role of women. There is a similar rabbinic parable to that of the ten coins in
which the lost one symbolizes the words of the Torah. The phrase used in the parable to search for the lost one
(a sela or an obol) is striking: “he lights ‘lamp after lamp’, ‘wick after wick’ until he finds it.” Cant. Rab. 1.9.
55. Against this argument, see Bailey, Poet and Peasant, 158; idem, Finding the Lost, 93, and Hultgren,
Parables, 64.
56. Snodgrass, Stories with Intent, 113.
57. See Tob. 5:14. The word ‘drachma’ is mentioned only here in vv. 8-9 and seven times in the LXX (Gen.
24:22; Exod 39:2; Tob. 5:14; 2 Macc. 4:19; 10:20; 12:43; 3 Macc. 3:28). Marshall thinks that Luke would have
translated the amount into coinage familiar to his readers, saying the fact that in 300 B.C. a drachma represents
the value of a sheep, but during the first century had been considerably devalued. Marshall, Luke, 603.
58. Fitzmyer, The Gospel According to Luke, 1081; Hultgren, Parables, 66. Jülicher, as opposed to this
extrapolation, imagines that she is not poor but belongs to the middle class. Jülicher , Die Gleichnisreden Jesu,
316-17. Schottroff even claims that a woman would have received half a drachma for a day’s wage. Schottroff,
The Parables of Jesus, 154.
59. Jeremias, Parables, 134-35.
60. Bailey, Poet and Peasant, 157. He suggests later that the woman in the parable may be the one entrusted
with the financial management of the home, and therefore the ten coins represent the woman’s life savings.
Bailey, Finding the Lost,102-103.
72