Tales Jesus Told : An Introduction to the Narrative Parables of Jesus

Helps readers experience the impact of Jesus' parables afresh by setting them in the social world of first-century Palestine and relating them to Jesus' activity and teaching.

Are modern readers, conitioned to read the parables as spiritual allegories, missing something of Jesus' original intentions?

Stephen Wright explores the purpose and effect of Jesus' parables by reading them contextually against their cultural, political and social background. Although use of ghe parables as tools for preaching and teaching has neglected the original impact they had on Jesus' hearers, it is possible, with our knowledge of life in first-century Palestine, to feel that impact again.

By approaching the parables supposing that they do not necessarily have deeper spiritual meaning, and by stripping away Old Testament overtones and the embellishments of the Evangelists, we are enabled to return to the original story of Jesus himself and to gain a clearer picture of Jesus' aims in his telling of a particular tale.

A detailed, engrossing and contextual study of Jesus' parables, Tales Jesus Told will be of particular interest to students of the New Testament and those who want to connect Jesus' teaching with the modern world.

• Presented in a manner that is accessible to the general reader.

• A respected parable scholar pioneers a new approach to Jesus’ parables.

• Argues for a more open-ended approach to parable interpretation.

• Explores the narrative parables against their original social background.

Stephen Wright is the Director of the College of Preaching at Spurgeon’s College, London. He did ground-breaking doctoral research on Jesus’ parables with James D.G. Dunn subsequently published as The Voice of Jesus (Paternoster Press).