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

and Scott contend that the practice may be widespread and common. 84 According to Sir.
33.20-24, m.B.B. 8:7, t.B.B. 2:5 and b.B.Mes 75b, the property could be bequethed as a gift
during a father’s lifetime. However, in this case, the usufruct of the property still belonged to
the father and both a donor (the father as a legator or a testator) and a donee (the son as an
heir or an inheritor) could not dispose of it. If a donee disposed of the property to someone,
the buyer could not take possession of it until the death of a donor. In the same view, John S.
Kloppenborg suggests that Greco-Egyptian papyri may provide insight into the parable with
respect to the issue of legal practice. 85 He summarises the results of his observations by
concluding that the son’s request for a division of the property during his father’s lifetime
was common, and that it was not a death-wish and an insult. 86 However, the cases in Greco-
Egyptian papyri are inadequate in relation to this parable, in that the division of the property
was not made by the son’s request in each case. In the case of BGU III 993, the testator, as in
Gen 25:6, 87
seems to give voluntarily, not by the inheritor’s demand, as a gift to his daughter,
If his father sold them, they are sold [only] until he dies; if the son sold them, the buyer has no claim on them
until the father dies. The father may pluck up [the crop of a field which he has so assigned] and give to eat to
whom he will, and if he left anything already plucked up, it belongs to [all] his heirs.”
82. t.B.B. 2:5: “Under what circumstances have they ruled, ‘A sharecropper is given an oath when he is not
subject to a claim?’ So long as he is a sharecropper. When a sharecropper leavers his status as sharecropper of
this field, he is like anybody else [i.e., can obtain title through usucaption]. A guardian-when a guardian leaves
his status as a guardian, he is like anybody else. A son who took his share of his father’s estate, a woman who
was divorced, they are like everybody else.”
83. b.B.Mes 75b: Our Rabbis taught: Three cry out and are not answered. Viz., he who has money and lends it
without witnesses; he who acquires a master for himself; and a henpecked husband. ‘He who acquires a master
for himself’; what does this mean?-Some say: He who attributes his wealth to a Gentile; others: He who
transfers his property to his children in his lifetime….”
84. W.O.E. Oesterley, The Gospel Parables in the Light of their Jewish Background (New York: Macmillan,
1936), 183-84; B. Smith, The Parables in the Synoptic Gospels, 194; Linnemann, Parables of Jesus, 74-75;
Scott, Hear Then the Parable, 111.
85. John S. Kloppenborg, “The Parable of the Prodigal Son and Deeds of Gift,” NovT 130 (2008), 169-194,
here173. Greco-Egyptian papyri he surveyed is as follows: BGU III 993; P. Flor. I 99; P. Cair. Goodsp. 6; P. Oxy.
II 273; P. Lond. III 880; P. Fay. 97 and the like. For him there is a premium on BGU III 993 that having
expended his possession, a prodigal implores reconciliation with his mother, and on P. Flor. I 99 that the parents
of a prodigal accuse of prodigality and ask to be registered their denunciation of him in order to protect
themselves from the creditors.
86. The results of his observations as follows: “First, none of them is a called a and none uses the
terminology, normally found in wills. Second, whether or not the need of gift contains the phrase
, it seems clear that in most cases the property effectively transferred at the time of
the gift. Third, with deeds of gift it is not necessary to suppose that a gift to one son or daughter would
automatically imply that the entire parental estate was divided. Fourth, there is no indication at all that
opprobrium attached to the transfer.” Kloppenborg, “The Parable of the Prodigal Son and Deeds of Gift,” 188-
89, 192.
87. Having given gifts to Ketu'rah’s sons, Abraham sent them away to safeguard Isaac’s portion from them prior
to his death. “But to the sons of his concubines Abraham gave gifts, and while he was still living he sent them
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