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(1)
Thom 57
(2) Matt 13:24-30
(1) Thom 57
57 Jesus said, The Father's imperial rule is like a person who had [good] seed. 2His enemy came during the night and sowed weeds among the good seed. 3 The person did not let the workers pull up the weeds, but said to them, "No, otherwise you might go to pull up the weeds and pull up the wheat along with them." 4 For on the day of the harvest the weeds will be conspicuous, and will be pulled up and burned. [Complete Gospels]
(2) Matt 13:24-30
13:24 He put before them another parable: "The kingdom of heaven may be compared to someone who sowed good seed in his field; 13:25 but while everybody was asleep, an enemy came and sowed weeds among the wheat, and then went away. 13:26 So when the plants came up and bore grain, then the weeds appeared as well. 13:27 And the slaves of the householder came and said to him, 'Master, did you not sow good seed in your field? Where, then, did these weeds come from?' 13:28 He answered, 'An enemy has done this.' The slaves said to him, 'Then do you want us to go and gather them?' 13:29 But he replied, 'No; for in gathering the weeds you would uproot the wheat along with them. 13:30 Let both of them grow together until the harvest; and at harvest time I will tell the reapers, Collect the weeds first and bind them in bundles to be burned, but gather the wheat into my barn.'"
John Dominic Crossan
Item: 90
Stratum: I (30-60 CE)
Attestation: Double
Historicity: +
Common Sayings Tradition: NoCrossan [Historical Jesus, 280] writes:
When I first worked on this parable I thought that it intended to praise the wisdom of the landowner's decision caught, as he was, between twin evils (In Parables. 1973:64,85). But I find Oakman's recent arguments entirely persuasive, as is also his contention that Jesus' hearers are being asked to laugh a little at this relatively well-to-do landowner. Since darnel is a natural problem, only its great extent in a specific field would need to be explained, within the narrative of the parable and not just the paranoia of the owner, as due to an enemy's action. So he is stuck. "Weeding after the appearance of grain might pose the danger of uprooting wheat along with the darnel," according to Oakman, "but it possibly can lay claim to be the lesser of two evils." (Jesus and the Economic Questions of His Day. 1986:118) And that, says Jesus, is what the Kingdom is like. From the viewpoint of the well-to-do with their fields of best wheat and plural servants, it is a noxious weed. But they are stuck with it. Mustard and darnel, then, stand together, surely with some ironic humor, as twin images of the Kingdom, seen, however, from the angle of the landless poor.
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Color Thomas 57 Matt 13:24-30 This is one of the sayings considered at the opening session of the Seminar's work, and was then reconsidered at the second session later in 1986. The main shift of opinion between the two sessions seems to have concerned the "distant echo of the final apocalyptic judgment" in the Thomas version of the parable.
The allegorical interpretation appended to the parable in Matt 13:17-43a makes the theme of judgment on the last day explicit.
The parable reflects the concern of a young Christian community attempting to define itself over against an evil world, a concern not characteristic of Jesus. letting the wheat and weeds grow up together suggests the final judgment rather than agricultural practice. [Five Gospels, 194]