Who do we meet in the stories Jesus told? In The Parables of Jesus the Galilean: Stories of a Social Prophet, a selection of the parables of Jesus is read using a social-scientific approach. The interest of the author is not the parables in their literary contexts, but rather the parables as Jesus told them in a first-century Jewish Galilean sociopolitical, religious, and economic setting. Therefore, this volume is part of the material turn in parable research and offers a reading of the parables that pays special attention to Mediterranean anthropology by stressing key first-century Mediterranean values. Where applicable, available papyri that may be relevant in understanding the parables of Jesus from a fresh perspective are used to assemble solid ancient comparanda for the practices and social realities that the parables presuppose. The picture of Jesus that emerges from these readings is that of a social prophet. The parables of Jesus, as symbols of social transformation, envisioned a transformed and alternative world. This world, for Jesus, was the kingdom of God.

Who do we meet in the stories Jesus told? In The Parables of Jesus the Galilean: Stories of a Social Prophet, a selection of the parables of Jesus is read using a social-scientific approach. The interest of the author is not the parables in their literary contexts, but rather the parables as Jesus told them in a first-century Jewish Galilean sociopolitical, religious, and economic setting. Therefore, this volume is part of the material turn in parable research and offers a reading of the parables that pays special attention to Mediterranean anthropology by stressing key first-century Mediterranean values. Where applicable, available papyri that may be relevant in understanding the parables of Jesus from a fresh perspective are used to assemble solid ancient comparanda for the practices and social realities that the parables presuppose. The picture of Jesus that emerges from these readings is that of a social prophet. The parables of Jesus, as symbols of social transformation, envisioned a transformed and alternative world. This world, for Jesus, was the kingdom of God.

Get an eye-opening point of view on Jesus' parables that will touch your life in practical and compelling ways.

Craig Blomberg surveys the contemporary critical approaches to the parables--including those that have emerged in the twenty years since the first edition. This widely used text has taken a minority perspective and made it mainstream, with Blomberg ably defending a limited allegorical approach and offering brief interpretations of all the major parables.

This book will review Luke's two volume historical narrative concerning Jesus' life and ministry as well the beginning and spread of Christianity in the Roman Empire as he experienced it.

The renowned biblical scholar, author of The Misunderstood Jew, and general editor for The Jewish Annotated New Testament interweaves history and spiritual analysis to explore Jesus’ most popular teaching parables, exposing their misinterpretations and making them lively and relevant for modern readers. Jesus was a skilled storyteller and perceptive teacher who used parables from everyday life to effectively convey his message and meaning. Life in first-century Palestine was very different from our world today, and many traditional interpretations of Jesus’ stories ignore this disparity and have often allowed anti-Semitism and misogyny to color their perspectives. In this wise, entertaining, and educational book, Amy-Jill Levine offers a fresh, timely reinterpretation of Jesus’ narratives. In Short Stories by Jesus, she analyzes these “problems with parables,” taking readers back in time to understand how their original Jewish audience understood them. Levine reveals the parables’ connections to first-century economic and agricultural life, social customs and morality, Jewish scriptures and Roman culture. With this revitalized understanding, she interprets these moving stories for the contemporary reader, showing how the parables are not just about Jesus, but are also about us—and when read rightly, still challenge and provoke us two thousand years later.

Combining New Testament study with the terseness of thriller writing, Theissen conveys the Gospel story in the imaginative prose of a novel. This is a story of our times, or how the gospels might have turned out if they were written by John Le Carre: racy, readable and full of incident.