Parables, can we break the code? (Jesus, moral, Kingdom, beliefs)

[doppelgänger]

Originally Posted by sojourner

Why don't you state it, just for the record?

Why don't you just answer the question, just for the record? I suspect you might also then have the answer to your second group of questions.

Originally Posted by sojourner

And what does that teach us? Why tell the parable? That we shouldn't waste the Master's efforts? That our actions (assuming there is no choice to be made) will lead to destruction? If Jesus was giving good news (and I think we have to assume that he was), what is good news here?

[sojourner]

Originally Posted by doppelgänger

Why don't you just answer the question, just for the record? I suspect you might also then have the answer to your second group of questions.

[doppelgänger]

Originally Posted by sojourner

I will not ask you to agree with me, Soj, that "so and so means this and that." If you think that's what I'm talking about, you have me confused with someone else.

I'd just like to see if you can find some other meaning for yourself other than the one you are proclaiming is the author's intended meaning.

[sojourner]

Originally Posted by doppelgänger

I will not ask you to agree with me, Soj, that "so and so means this and that." If you think that's what I'm talking about, you have me confused with someone else.

I'd just like to see if you can find some other meaning for yourself other than the one you are proclaiming is the author's intended meaning.

I can find all kinds of meaning in the parable. But only one that's congruent with a particular theological stance.

I guess what frustrates me about your posts is that you appear to me to employ skepticism for its own sake. it's sort of like the person who keeps answering every explanation with, "Who says so?" it doesn't really get us anywhere.

I'm not trying to be cut-and-dired, or narrow in vision, but, at some point, we have to tighten up our interpretation for it to retain any integrity.

If that's not what your'e doing, then we need to come to a clearer understanding of what your purpose is, so that we can communicate more clearly.

[doppelgänger]

Originally Posted by sojourner

I'm not trying to be cut-and-dired, or narrow in vision, but, at some point, we have to tighten up our interpretation for it to retain any integrity.

Why is that? And how do you know that what you're "interpreting" wasn't meant to be treated as metaphorical/artistic/creative by whoever wrote it? I.e. how do you know that an "exegesis" is anything even remotely like what the author(s) would have wanted done with their text?

[sojourner]

Originally Posted by doppelgänger

Why is that? And how do you know that what you're "interpreting" wasn't meant to be treated as metaphorical/artistic/creative by whoever wrote it? I.e. how do you know that an "exegesis" is anything even remotely like what the author(s) would have wanted done with their text?

It's a parable. It should be treated as a parable. anything else is intellectual masturbation.

Exegesis, properly done, can get us pretty close. In the end, we have to go with something, or we're left without any meaning at all. What's the use of that?

[doppelgänger]

Originally Posted by sojourner

It's a parable. It should be treated as a parable. anything else is intellectual masturbation.

Cute, but a non sequitur, as what it means to treat something as a parable is what I was specifically asking you about.

Originally Posted by sojourner

Exegesis, properly done, can get us pretty close.

Pretty close to what? How would you even test whether it's close at all? The author(s), aside from being unidentified, are also long, since dead. I guarantee that you're in a logical circle if you think "exegesis" gets you "close" to a dead author's intended meaning.

Originally Posted by sojourner

In the end, we have to go with something, or we're left without any meaning at all. What's the use of that?

You can't think of any value in not being told what you should think a text means? Really?