비유 해석과 설교: 복음서의 겨자씨비유를 중심으로

Abstract

It has been said that parable interpretation is a “wild jungle” or “hot potato” in the Biblical studies in the long history of church. It is not because Jesus’ parable is in itself too difficult to interpret nor too mysterious to acknowledge, but because it is put on the “wrong” table of scholarship, i.e., the problem of historical authenticity of the Biblical parable. In his work, “Interpreting the Parables”, Craig Blomberg well explores the vast scope of history in parable interpretation and asserts that Jesus’ parable must not be restricted by one point interpretation. Instead, he boldly proposes more alternatives for it, i.e., two point interpretation or even three, re-opening a dogged tradition of “allegorical interpretation.” In so doing, his interpretation again fell into the problem of decontextualiztion by focusing just on the smaller than the larger unit of the text. His problem that I point out is that he does not take parabolic context and its large narrative flow seriously. He too is revolving around and returning to the exhaustive theme of “historical problem.”What we would read the parable along with the narrative is not to be trapped by such fallacies. Reading the parables along with and in the narrative helps us to grasp the continual and consequential relationship of the parables with their immediate and surrounding texts. Each pericope always exists as part of the whole. Moreover, parabolic language as narrative is not philosophical nor conceptual, but instead much more practical and of everday life, which would be read as dialogue, not as monologue, between God and man. Accordingly the meaning of each unit or parable is to be determined by the narrative and its context. I propose the importance of reading narratives and contexts of the parables that must hold the key of their meaning. I try to interpret one of the Synoptic parables, the parable of The Mustard Seed, which has parallel passages in three Gospels. In my reading of these parables, I can explore the meanings of parables that are apparently exposed in each creative narratives by the gospel writers.