Aparable is a succinct,didactic story, inprose orverse, that illustrates one or more instructive lessons or principles. It differs from afable in that fables employanimals,plants, inanimate objects, or forces of nature as characters, whereas parables have human characters.[1] A parable is a type ofmetaphoricalanalogy.[2]
The wordparable comes from theGreek παραβολή (parabolē), literally "throwing" (bolē) "alongside" (para-), by extension meaning "comparison, illustration, analogy."[5][6] It was the name given by Greekrhetoricians to an illustration in the form of a brief fictionalnarrative.
Parables also appear inIslam. InSufi tradition, parables are used for imparting lessons and values. Recent authors such asIdries Shah andAnthony de Mello have helped popularize these stories beyond Sufi circles.
A parable is a short tale that illustrates a universal truth; it is a simplenarrative. It sketches a setting, describes anaction, and shows the results. It may sometimes be distinguished from similar narrative types, such as theallegory and theapologue.[10]
A parable often involves a character who faces amoral dilemma or one who makes a bad decision and then suffers theunintended consequences. Although the meaning of a parable is often not explicitly stated, it is not intended to be hidden or secret but to be quite straightforward and obvious.[11]
The defining characteristic of the parable is the presence of asubtext suggesting how a person should behave or what he should believe. Aside from providing guidance and suggestions for proper conduct in one's life, parables frequently use metaphorical language which allows people to more easily discuss difficult or complex ideas. Parables express anabstract argument by means of using a concrete narrative which is easily understood.
The allegory is a more general narrative type; it also employsmetaphor. An allegory may have multiple noncontradictory interpretations and may also have implications that are ambiguous or hard to interpret. AsH.W. Fowler put it, the object of both parable and allegory "is to enlighten the hearer by submitting to him a case in which he has apparently no direct concern, and upon which therefore a disinterested judgment may be elicited from him, ..."[10] The parable is more condensed than the allegory: it rests upon a singleprinciple and a single moral, and it is intended that the reader or listener shall conclude that the moral applies equally well to his own concerns.
Medieval interpreters of the Bible often treatedJesus' parables as allegories, with symboliccorrespondences found for every element in his parables. But modern scholars, beginning withAdolf Jülicher, regard their interpretations as incorrect.[12] Jülicher viewed some of Jesus' parables as similitudes (extended similes or metaphors) with three parts: a picture part (Bildhälfte), a reality part (Sachhälfte), and atertium comparationis. Jülicher held that Jesus' parables are intended to make a single important point.[7]
Gnostics suggested that Jesus kept some of his teachings secret within the circle of his disciples and that he deliberately obscured their meaning by using parables. For example, inMark 4:11–12:
And he said to them, "To you has been given the secret of thekingdom of God, but for those outside, everything comes in parables; in order that 'they may indeed look, but not perceive, and may indeed listen, but not understand; so that they may not turn again and beforgiven.'" (NRSV)
The idea that coded meanings in parables would only become apparent when a listener had been given additional information or initiated into a higher set of teachings is supported byThe Epistle of Barnabas, reliably dated between AD 70 to 132:
For if I should write to you concerning things immediate or future, ye would not understand them, because they are put in parables. So much then for this.[13]
Another important component of the parables of Jesus is their participatory and spontaneous quality. Often, but not always, Jesus creates a parable in response to a question from his listeners or an argument between two opposing views.
To the educatedGreco-Roman audience, Jesus’ use of parables was reminiscent of many famous oratory styles like theSocratic method. As a literary work, theGospel authorship depict the various groups that question Jesus about his teachings, to the role an interlocutor has in theSocratic Dialogues ofPlato.
Similarly, the rhetorical style of theRoman Senator and lawyerCicero (which remained highly regarded after his death by many famous orators[14]) was known for its use of a seemingly unrelatedanecdote that demonstrates in its conclusion some insight pertaining to the current topic of the discussion.
The parable is related tofigures of speech such asmetaphor andsimile. A parable is like a metaphor in that it uses concrete, perceptible phenomena to illustrate abstract ideas. It may be said that a parable is a metaphor that has been extended to form a brief, coherent narrative. A parable also resembles a simile, i.e., a metaphorical construction in which something is said to be "like" something else (e.g., "The just man is like a tree planted by streams of water"). However, unlike the meaning of a simile, a parable's meaning is implicit (although not secret).
^George Fyler Townsend, in his translator's preface toAesop's Fables (Belford, Clarke & Co., 1887), defined the parable as being "purposely intended to convey a hidden and secret meaning other than that contained in the words themselves, and which may or may not bear a special reference to the hearer or reader." However, Townsend may have been influenced by the 19th century expression, "to speak in parables", connoting obscurity.
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