PARABLES AS POETIC FICTIONS

Jesus told parables. Gospel writers give them diverse readings. Modern exegetes give them even more diverse readings. Hedrick chronicles both diversities and then poses a new question. How would those parables, precisely as poetic but realistic stories, have sounded to Jesus first hearers in the context of Israels fictions about itself? His book emphasizes original audience reaction, and its signal achievement is to have said something new, interesting, and provocative in the very crowded field of parables research. --John Dominic Crossan author of In Parables