Getting By Part 2: The Sower (Mark 4:1-9; Matt 13:1-8; Luke 8:4-8; Gos. Thom. 9)

05/30/22 • 81 min

In the second and final episode on Jesus' parable of "The Sower," Dr. Proctor discusses the genre of allegory and its relevance for studying Jesus' parables. Having acknowledged the presence of allegorical treatments of the "Sower" in each of the Synoptic Gospels, he and Lee move on to proffer an alternative way to understand the parable. Using clues from the development of the tradition after Mark and the commentary present in ancient agricultural texts about crop production rates, Mark and Lee settle on an interpretation of the famous story that is relevant and timely for anyone dealing with the wearying effects of the Coronavirus pandemic.

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5Wc: Matt 13:10-15

In the third and final episode on the topic of "why" Jesus spoke in parables, Dr. Mark and Lee investigate the changes Matthew made to Mark 4:10-13 in an effort to see how his "parables theory" differs from that of his source material. In the process they discover that the parables cannot in Matthew serve the same charitable pedagogical function for Jesus that they do in Mark. Matt 13:10-17 instead excludes the possibility of public comprehension of Jesus’ message on the grounds that such insight “has not been given to them” (v. 11). This editorial change permits Matthew to counteract Mark’s negative assessment of the disciples, but only at the public’s expense. In Matthew, the disciples basically trade places with the public when it comes to who’s in Jesus’ good graces and who’s not.