Exegesis of biblical parables

¶ … Dinner

The Parable as Guide to Life and History

The Bible is filled with parables, short tales that attempt to communicate profound truths. A parable is in some ways like a satirical comic strip -- it uses ordinary persons and events to discuss that which might otherwise be considered beyond the pale; to daring or outrageous to speak of in more direct terms. The parable of "The Great Dinner" that is found in Chapter 14 of the Book of Luke is an excellent example of this technique. A relatively simple, and very short, story, it nevertheless illustrates a point. Of course, what that precise point is depends upon the reader -- it also depends upon the exact wording of the story. For as the Bible was originally written in a tongue that is entirely foreign to most modern-day Americans, it is only in the form of various translation that this, and other Biblical passages are available. The New Revised Standard Version of the Bible (NRSV), the New English Version (NEV), and the King James Authorized Version (KJV), each renders this parable in slightly different form. More than simply being different translations of what presumably was once a single text they are also -- in some sense -- different stories. Much as several individuals can write several different descriptions of the same event, so too do these varying translation offer variant pictures of the same story. How an event is presented: what words are used, which details are emphasized, and so forth, can alter our impressions of that event. Additionally, we frequently choose our words to suit our audience. We would not use the same kind of language, or even the same kinds of examples, were we speaking to a group of young children instead of a gathering of adults. By the same token, the same episode might be described differently if re-told at different historical periods. What might have been easily understood in one age might seem mysterious or arcane to those of another. All these things are true of "The Great Dinner."

The first thing that one notices about the New Revised Standard Version's, the New English Version's, and the King James Version's of "The Great Dinner" is that it I s not even called a "dinner" in all three versions. In KJV, the meal is a "supper," in NRSV it is a "dinner," and in NEV, it is a "banquet." While today, the words "dinner" and "supper" are usually virtually synonymous, they did at one time refer to two different kinds of meals. Dinner was the main meal of the time, and could be eaten at different hours. At the time the KJV was written, in the early Seventeenth Century, dinner was usually taken some time during the afternoon. Today, the main meal is usually eaten in the evening. Historically, at least to people in, say, the Nineteenth Century for example, supper was a light meal; a snack that was consumed not long before going to bed. But a banquet, well even to the modern reader a banquet is different from a dinner or a supper. Presumably the NEV uses the term "banquet" to go with the theme of a rich man being the meal's host. Banquet is suitably grand. It doesn't sound ordinary like supper or dinner. The same discrepancy can be found with KJV's use of the word "lord" to describe the gathering's host. That sounds very, very grand to people today, but would have largely had the connotation of a master or "boss" to people in the 1600's. Also notable is NRSV and NEV's use of the word "slave" where KJV has "servant ... which brings us to the next point.

Each of these different versions attempts to reach a particular audience, and also to provide what it believes is the most accurate rendering of the story i.e. The translation that is closest to the words of the very first, and original, version of the story. Slaves weren't very common in the England of James I. They aren't very common today either, but we have a better understanding of what they are than did the Englishmen of that period. Also, our scholars have done lots of researcher since King James' time, and we "know" that in Biblical Times, a servant would more often have been owned than employed by his master. Of course, this is an interpretation. Since the parable doesn't describe in detail the relationship between the "lord" or the "man" and his "servant" or "slave" we really don't know which he was. Both the NRSV and the NEV are very representative of their time in showing the modern world's heavy emphasis on reason and "fact." Scientific-style research is very important to most Twenty-First Century Americans (and Englishmen too), and as NRSV and VEV were both written fairly recently, they attempt to address this fact by basing their translations of the Bible on what they believe to be the scientific, and "factually-substantiated" conclusions of highly trained Bible scholars. In contrast, the translators who produced the KJV were simply translating into. What was to them, contemporary English, the Medieval Latin version of the Bible with which they were familiar. For the scholars of King James' time, tradition was the greatest authority, and they assumed -- as do our Bible scholars -- that they were producing the most accurate version possible of the Holy Scriptures. After all, they were the very words of God, and had been handed down unaltered through the ages.

Now as to what the parable actually means to the reader that has changed too! We don't -- at least in America, Canada, and Western Europe -- have streets filled with the "halt and the lame." We may pass the occasional homeless person slunk down in a doorway, but most of our handicapped people are rather better cared for than they would have been in King James' Day, or in Biblical times for that matter. To us, dragging in people from off the street may even sound a little odd, given all those stories of dangerous lunatics, and untrustworthy strangers that we are always seeing on television. Hospitality was much more important to people in Jesus' day and also in Stuart England. In our world, the various "friends" who had refused to attend the gathering might actually never want to come again after they'd heard who had been at our house. They might have thought we were a little strange, and also very spiteful considering the way we'd right away invited a bunch of "undesirables" instead of them. However, at one time, the behavior of the "lord" would have been symbolic of the very highest act of charity, and he would have been held up as an example of an individual with a real social conscience. Clearly, the lord would once have been viewed as giving his help -- that is his food -- to those who really needed it. Today, we'd think at best that he was showing off a little too much. Couldn't he really help those poor people by giving money or time to a shelter or hospital instead of just inviting them to his house to spite us? We might even have laws against things like that.