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Jack Wilson (0:01)
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Jack Wilson (0:38)
Hello Today on the podcast, something a bit unusual. A mysterious document that arrived in my inbox. Author anonymous, origins unknown. And if that weren't mystery enough, the email employs a form known for its ambiguity and at times its elusiveness that's elusive with an A and elusive with an E. We'll look at parables and a parable today on the History of Literature. Hello, welcome to the podcast. I'm Jack Wilson, your host. I'm glad you could be with us today. It arrived in my inbox out of thin air. Well, that's how it often seems with email, doesn't it? But this one was special. No name attached, no subject, no identifier of any kind. An email address with no person connected with it. Just randomness and a domain I did not recognize. My efforts to track it down proved fruitless. And maybe that's for the best. Often in life we demand certainty when ambiguity would suffice and be more appropriate, perhaps. Which brings me to the contents of this email and a historical genre. The title simply a parable, not a parable by so and so. A parable for our times or a modern day parable. Not even the topic or protagonist. The parable of the small town family or I mean, it could have had a lot of different things, right? The most famous parables in Western civilization are the ones told by Jesus. And we'll talk about those today. They're not called a parable in the Bible. They mostly don't have a title. They're just spoken by Jesus to his followers. But we've categorized them, we've given them names so we can keep them straight and remember their contents. They're called the Parable of the Good Samaritan in maybe the most famous example. Or just the Good Samaritan. Even that seemed like too much certainty for this anonymous author. It seems simply a parable. I'm going to read it to you eventually. We have some other things to discuss. First, recently I had a discussion that you're going to hear in the coming weeks where we deal with some old European fairy tales with one of our guests and the morals of the story that were provided by the author compiler. Here we have none of that. Here it's just a story and the mystery behind it. If we can glean anything about it, it's that it fits into the literary tradition known as parables. We know that from the two word title that this anonymous author gave it, a parable. And so I thought I would talk about that for a while. Who invented parables? Where do they come from? Was Jesus the first? Nope, nope, he was working in a tradition. Who besides Jesus used them before and after? What are they good for? What's the format? What are the features? What did Jesus convey through his parables? How have they been interpreted? What do people today say about parables? And then we'll hear this story, this narrative, this parable that has been, well, haunting me is probably putting it too strongly, intriguing me, ghosting up my inbox, puzzling me to no end. You can email me with your own thoughts about it if you care to speculate. Maybe we'll share some of those speculations down the road. Okay, parables, what are they? They are essentially short stories. Not even a literary short story, as we might read from a Joyce or a Chekhov, which by comparison feels overloaded with detail and plot. They're succinct, they're compressed narratives, as so much in the Bible is. They're much more akin to a fable. But unlike fables, we don't expect a world of talking animals or other forms of nature personified. Parables are usually discussions of human beings in some kind of situation, dealing with something, a slice of life, an example, an analogy that we are to draw, or a metaphor that we are to understand. We extrapolate something from a parable, they get at some truth, most famously about the nature of human beings. But in Jesus's teachings, they are that often. But they also convey information about God, the kingdom of heaven, faith, the end times, instructions. Here's where the end times is particularly interesting. Here's when it's coming, here's when you'll know. Here's how to wait. Here's what to do in the meantime. Here's how to be moral instructions. Religious instructions come out of parables. Jesus's parables. Now let's back up metaphors. Aristotle called them signs of genius. Windows. This is the success of a parable is like that too. It's a metaphorical analogy. It can rise on or fall on how well the parable explains or exposes or explores something deep and mysterious in a way that we can comprehend. The word parable comes from the Greek, the prefix for alongside next to the word for throwing, throwing alongside, a comparison, a metaphor, what is that? One idea alongside another gives us a parable. And while we're talking about the Greeks, let's talk a bit about the universal and the particular, our old Plato, Aristotle, dichotomy and dynamic. A parable is a particular story that conveys a universal truth which can itself be applied back to a different particular story or situation. Think of it as something on earth, an earthly story about two brothers, for example, or maybe a broken window or a helpful traveler. In that simple story, often not much more than a quick anecdote, we find a lesson that goes all the way to the heavens, the realm of the ideal, a universal truth. Maybe this simple story about planting a seed tells you all about something abstract, the kingdom of heaven. Then we are to take that knowledge, that abstraction, and reapply it back here on earth to our own lives, our own spiritual lives, or our code of conduct, our approach to a different situation. I can almost imagine this like a television image being shot up into space, reformulated into something ethereal, and being restored, being returned back into your television set. Right? That's how I kind of think of these things. Where are we now? Are we in the heavens, talking about the ideal, the abstraction? Are we back on earth, reapplying the thing that we have just learned? My analogy doesn't quite hold with the television image, because there's also a transformation. The story about the seed goes up into the realm of the abstract and the ideal, but when it returns, it's different. Let me give you a cleaner example so that this makes sense. How do you talk about something like eternal love and forgiveness? How do you make people understand that God's love will find its way to a repentant sinner? You can imagine people saying, well, that hardly seems fair. I'm doing the one that I'm doing everything God wants. I would expect him to love me for that. But what about this guy who spends his life sinning, doing everything God doesn't want? How will God? Why is God going to love him? How does that work? What's that all about? Will it really happen? Well, here's a famous parable told by Jesus that explains. This is Matthew, chapter 18, verses 10 to 14. See that you do not despise one of these little ones, for I tell you that their angels in heaven always see the face of my Father in heaven. What do you Think. If a man owns a hundred sheep and one of them wanders away, will he not leave the 99 on the hills and go to look for the one that wandered off? And if he finds it, truly, I tell you, he is happier about that one sheep than about the 99 that did not wander off. In the same way, your Father in heaven is not willing that any of these little ones should perish. You see how this works? Here's a story that rings true to us. The story about the shepherd. Yes, I can imagine that a shepherd would be just that way. I don't own sheep, as it happens. But I know that If I have 99 things going right and one thing going wrong, I fixate on the thing that's going wrong. And I'm excited when that thing is restored and it's right again. Right? That's what we do. I have 100 appliances in my house. If the dryer breaks, I focus on the dryer. I don't sit around and praise the refrigerator. I want the dryer to be better. In a classroom when I had 25 attentive students and one bored student, I didn't ignore the bored student. I zeroed in on him. It was always a him, it seems, and most of the time his name was Irvin. And I later learned that he had something wrong with his eyes that made him look more bored than he was. But you get the point. We take the story about the lamb and we say, yes, that rings true. We understand that a shepherd behaves like that. There's something innate about us that cares about the one that's lost. We let the 99 kind of be on their own. We're happy about them. But then we are so excited when we find the one that was lost. We get it. We take that story and the point. We beam it up to the skies where it's all abstract, and we say, we tend to care about the lost, the broken, the damaged, and we're happy to see those things get better. And Jesus nudges us to understand that this is how God feels about lowly humans, we sinners. If someone's lost the way, that's the sheep that God is going to hunt down and help. He doesn't say, well. God doesn't say, well. 99% is good enough for me. You can only do so much. After all, I'm only human. God doesn't say that. He goes for the 1%, just as a shepherd would. Now we beam that back down to Earth and we apply it. Now, we're not talking about sheep anymore. We've taken our lesson and we think, well, if I am a person, then I'm loved by God, even if I'm a sinner. And that guy over there is too. And so is that woman over there, and so is that other guy. Boy, some of these people are worse than me. Well, God will care about them. He might even spend some extra time on them. And he will rejoice when he sees them return. Or he will do that for me if I've lost the way or if I lose the way in the future. Now I understand. Now I understand. I didn't get it before. I thought God was picking the wrong people to help or to care about or to give a little extra love to. Well, now I get it. I understand God. I understand how it works for people here on Earth. And all we did was talk about sheep. And I don't even own a sheep myself. But I get it. That's how a parable works. That's how it's supposed to work. And it works this way outside of the religious context, too. As we'll see, even the stories in the Bible can often work just as well as moral instruction in a completely secular way. Not every parable is out there to explain how to understand God or heaven or some other theological concept. Sometimes it's just about character. Sometimes it's just about getting along. There's a religious subtext, of course. The God who prescribes the Golden Rule is not a God who prescribes. Get yours while the getting's good, right? So it does. The Golden Rule does tell us something about God, but it's also perfectly acceptable as advice or wisdom, no matter what your God is, whether you believe or not, or if you have no God at all. It's words to live by. Parables. Some of them are like that, too. Okay, the transmission I've been discussing, the abstraction and the reapplication. It has to be good in a couple of ways, right? The story and its meaning have to be comprehensible. We have to recognize the general truth of what is being said. We need to understand the larger meaning. And we have to see how it applies to us in our own lives or in some other situation. And it can't give you. It can't give you anything extra to gum up the works. I'll give you at least one example of a parable that didn't make it into the Bible. And it's kind of confused. You can see why it was. Well, I almost said why it was left behind. But then I'd have to say, no pun intended. And in my kingdom, the heaven over which I preside, I have room. I have room for all parables. I'm not going to leave any behind. I have room even for those parables that are not chosen. Parables. I like the wayward parables, the lost ones, the helpless, even the hopeless. All these parables are my children. How do we know if we're listening to a parable? And if we are, how do we know what meaning to take from it? Sometimes the parable teller will give us a clue. I say to you. Verily, I say, that's usually the pivot for Jesus, right? Truly, I say to you, and then we know this is a parable. Here's a lesson to apply. Here's the parable of the budding fig tree from the Gospel of Luke. Helpfully, Luke signals to us it's a parable by telling us that Jesus told them a parable. That's how it starts. And he told them a parable. Look at the fig tree and all the trees. As soon as they come out in leaf, you see for yourselves and know that the summer is already near. So also, when you see these things taking place, you know that the kingdom of God is near. Truly, I say to you, this generation will not pass away till all has taken place. Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away. End quote. Now, what does Jesus mean exactly before this? He has described the things that are going to happen, the signs that will signal that the kingdom of God is coming. And the natural question is, when? When Some heavy stuff. When is redemption? When will all this happen? And he says, I am not going to give you a date, certain. I am not going to tell you exactly what month, what day, what year. So that sounds kind of unsatisfying, really. We're not going to know. Well, some of us have to make plans. Some of us might need to know. You can't just wave that away. If it's not on the calendar, then what? How can we possibly be prepared for it? And here's where Jesus reorients them in their thinking. He says, you don't have a certain date about the figs arriving, do you? But you do have some advance notice. The leaves are your signs that the figs will be arriving soon. Well, this event is going to be like that. You'll see signs and you'll know that the event is on its way. The point of the parable here is to tell them there will be signs before this happens. Believers will see them and know that's how the scheduling is going to work. And he uses the fig tree to say, we all know this happens. It works perfectly fine with fig trees. We don't demand a specific date from a fig tree. We see the signs. That's enough notice. Well, this is going to work like that. Jesus also talks about parables, what they do and why he uses them. There's a sense that he he told a lot more parables than are recorded in Matthew. We'll hear things like, Jesus spoke to them again in parables, or he spent the day telling them many things in parables. At one point, Matthew says he didn't tell the crowd anything that day except through parables. Then he got together with the disciples and explained what he meant. There's an exchange I like where someone asks him to explain the parable. Here it is. Peter says, explain the parable to us. And Jesus says, are you still so dull? Don't you get it yet? But then he does explain it. Are you still so dull? Jesus is often called the greatest teacher in the history of the world. By Christians, he's certainly called that. And for Christians, it would be hard to say or believe otherwise. Jesus was revealing divine secrets. What could be more important than that? He's not only the greatest teacher, he's maybe the only teacher. I mean, he's at the top of the list. What I love about this passage is that it resonates with every other teacher whose job it is to pass along mortal and mundane topics like the day the Declaration of Independence was signed, or what, seven times eight. Or what caused the civil war. Even teachers like those, like the rest of us can identify with the impulse that Jesus expresses here. Right? One might think that the Prince of peace in teaching would say, when Peter says, explain the parable to us, he might say, the Prince of Peace. One might expect that he would say, ah, yes, my son, give it time, I'm sure you will understand. Or I'm happy to repeat. Instead he blurts out, are you still so dull? Isn't that wonderful? Peter, Peter, you're my guy. I love you. You'll be the rock. But dude, I've told you this already. I didn't think I'd have to explain it. Oh, Jesus, God love him, are you still so dull? That's from the new international version, by the way. Different translations differ on what Jesus says at this moment. The King James version has it, as are ye also. Yet without understanding the Good News Bible says, you are still no more intelligent than the Others don't you understand? That might even be better than Are you still so dull? A backhanded compliment. I expected more from you, Peter. I thought you'd be more enlightened by now. And yet here we are. You're as dumb as everybody else here. What did the others think when they heard that? Whoa. Drive by. What did we do? Jesus? We didn't ask you to explain the parable that was, Peter. Even though I'm trying to define parables in the abstract here as a literary device, I find it difficult to get away with from the way Jesus used parables. Parables are so widely used in the New Testament, something like 30 of them, depending on how you count. But many of them are repeated multiple times in the four Gospels, and he's so closely identified with parables that we can't help but talk about his parables. So even though we'll try to talk about parables in general and how they work, I pretty much resort to using examples from the New Testament to explain what I mean. The Greeks didn't just give parables the name, they had examples of them too, of course, but the Christian parables are the ones that we most often associate with the term. I'll give one example later of a parable outside the Christian tradition, and if you're inclined, you can go read the ones from Greece about Heracles or Hercules, the Greeks called him, or the ones from the 19th century about broken windows, or the ones from the Sufis. Mostly what we'll hear today are Christian parables. Okay, what exactly is a parable? And why do some people say that the New Testament has 30 or so parables, and other people say it has more than 60. Why is that so hard to pin down? Some people find parables in the Book of John, and others say that John contains no parables at all. It seems we need to define it before we look for it. Whether we're looking inside the Bible or outside of it, definitions of the word parable vary. Most agree that it's a short, fictional narrative of some kind. It illustrates some truth or some assertion, often about human nature. But as we'll see in the examples from the Gospels, it's human nature plus something higher. Sometimes it's not a story as we think of it in the once upon a time there was a king who loved gold kind of story. Here's a parable from the New no one sews a patch of unshrunk cloth on an old garment, for the patch will pull away from the garment, making the tear worse Neither do people pour new wine into old wineskins. If they do, the skins will burst, the wine will run out, and the wineskins will be ruined. No, they pour new wine into new wineskins and both are preserved. End quote. There's no person there for us to imagine, really. There's no family members surrounding a speaker or confused neighbors asking questions. There's no dilemma. There's a kind of appeal to one's sense of craft or purpose or getting things right. I haven't given you the context of this. You may already know it. Jesus is trying to explain why his ways are so different from the old ways. If he's the Messiah, the King of the Jews, then why isn't he adhering to Mosaic Law? Why not the fasting regimen prescribed by John the Baptist, for example? And imagine if Jesus was trying to say, I'm doing things in a different way, and that's valid and important. Imagine if he said, for example, why am I doing this? Because you shouldn't mix the new with the old. Just don't do it. I say to you, I command thee. Do not mix the old with the new. And people would say, well, why not? Don't we have babies mixing new people with old? Don't we see rain falling from the sky into a river? Isn't that new water joining old? Doesn't that mix? Mixes just fine? So Jesus finds a few other examples to illustrate his point. He says, you wouldn't pour new wine into old wineskins, would you? You wouldn't put new cloth on an old garment. You'd make things worse. And listeners can say, right, okay, so it's not like the baby's being born or the rain falling from the sky. It's like the new cloth on the old garment. The new cloth will eventually shrink. It'll pull away the whole. We'll end up. If we put the new on the old, we'll end up with nothing. We'll make everything worse. This is a situation like that, the New Deal, the New Testament. Jesus is here. There are old ways that will no longer fit. You can see how these can be confusing to people. Jesus was often misunderstood, and he'd be asked to explain his meaning further. And today, without Jesus here to ask, to confirm, the stories stand on their own. And their meaning isn't always agreed upon either. That's intrinsic to the parable form. Because we are asked to draw a connection, to interpret and analyze, there can be room for disagreement and doubt. Of course, that's not really a flaw in parables. That's True of pretty much any form. It's inherent to language. It's intrinsic to human nature. Thou shalt not murder is about as plain spoken as it gets. You might say, well, why couldn't Jesus just speak like that? Just tell us things specifically? Well, thou shalt not murder. Does that give us enough? Is self defense. Murder is suicide. Murder is shooting a Nazi on the battlefield. Murder. There are always lines to be figured out because no single word is capable of capturing every possible shade of meaning or situation. Life is too complex for that. You can also see in the parable of the wineskins and the parable of the old garment just why we struggle even to count the number of parables. Those are two different parables, but they're almost like stray remarks, isolated. It's not. Sit down, my children, and let me tell you a story with a beginning, middle and end. It's like a quick analogy. The conventional assessment is that the Gospel of John doesn't contain any parables, and he helps us toward this assessment by not using the word parable, preferring a different word when he says parable, like things. But some scholars now say, well, these are parables too. The story of the Good shepherd is in the Gospel of John, or even some of his expressions and figures of speech. They work like parables. The term parable, in other words, when it comes to the New Testament, is essentially contested. Parables have been around for a long time and in many different cultures. There are examples from ancient Greece and Islam that we don't have time for today. But let's look at a rather famous one from the Jewish tradition, the Rooster Prince. A lot of people think that some, and most, maybe of Jesus parables, or a lot of them anyway, came from the Jewish tradition. That's where they had first been found. So let's look at one that we know was from the Jewish tradition, the Rooster Prince. I'm going to call this a tale of two parables, because I've got two different versions here and they convey different themes, and I think it's helpful to look at both. Here's version number one, which I've taken from an online source. The Stephen Wise Temple says the prince who thought he was a rooster. There once was a prince who thought he was a rooster. His father and mother, the king and queen, were devastated when the prince entered the banquet hall one evening and announced, I am no longer a prince, but a rooster, and and retreated beneath the dinner table, squawking like a rooster and picking up crumbs from the banquet hall floor. He refused to wear clothes, speak in human language, or eat with utensils. For weeks and weeks, the king and queen tried, with no success, to convince their son that indeed he was not a rooster, but a great prince. They called upon their community members to help, but no one could convince the prince that he was actually not a. A rooster. Finally, the king and queen called upon their trusted rabbi for advice. The rabbi arrived to the banquet hall, crawled underneath the table, and perched next to the prince, who thought he was a rooster. He clucked alongside the young rooster prince, and they pecked at crumbs on the floor in unison. I see that you want to be a rooster, the rabbi said, but you know that you can still be a rooster and wear clothes. I can, the young prince replied, and the rabbi nodded. So the prince donned his princely robes. Once again, the rabbi told the rooster prince that he could also remain a rooster and speak in human language. So he began to speak again. Finally, the rabbi said that he could still be a rooster, even if he ate with utensils. So he sat up at the table alongside his family and community and proceeded to eat with a fork and knife. The prince ate like a human, spoke like a human, and dressed like a human. But even with this outward appearance, he knew forever in his heart that he was still a rooster. It's a nice story. The message is fairly clear in one way and not so clear in another. It's clearly saying, hey, we should meet people where they are, right? The rabbi, the trusted rabbi, the wise rabbi, he knew how to get something out of this rooster prince. Yelling, threatening, begging, explaining that had not worked. But clucking with him, pecking at crumbs with him, that worked. Developing trust and then kind of persuading him to do normal things. But did it work? Did the rabbi do a good job? It didn't really work. Right? Is that the point of the parable? I'm not sure it's saying what it wants to say. That's what's confusing to me, is the point. You can never change people's minds, not really. But you can get them to conform to what you want on the surface level. You can make them look a certain way and act a certain way, behave a certain way, but you will not fix them. You will not change them. That's not a bad message. Maybe it's an interesting one. Might be some practical advice. People won't change, but you can get them to do what you want. I'm not positive that's what they were going for here. I kind of feel like the literary fruit was right there, hanging there. And the tale teller couldn't resist grasping for it because what an ending it is. The literariness of this is much more interesting than the moral instruction, because deep down, he knew forever in his heart he was still a rooster. Is it telling the listening audience, think what you want? People harbor that secret. Just go along with the crowd or your parents on the outside. You can have this whole secret self that they never need to know about. Just don't express it in any way. Hide it. Act normal. Think weird. Okay. Or be yourself. Maybe that's it. It's not weird. Maybe being a rooster is. Maybe that's a metaphor for something like, be a nonconformist. Be true to yourself. Well, okay. We have another version of the rooster prince story. There are lots of them, actually, but here's one that'll give us a good contrast. This one, which I've taken from another source. MySandtails.com courtesy of the Times Herald Record. And this story ends up conveying a different message. Let's see if you can hear the differences as I'm reading it. Remember the first one? The rabbi comes in, he clucks and pecks that food on the ground. And then he kind of persuades him, you know, go ahead, be a rooster. But you can still do all these human things, like eat with a knife and fork. Here's a different story. Once upon a time, a prince lived with his parents in a city in Eastern Europe. Every day, the king gave his son tasks and instructions for how to behave. Be polite to all the elders. Be kind to all the girls. Always dress like a prince. Behave in a princely fashion. Speak this way, walk that way. The king and queen selected the prince's music, the books he read, his friends and his foes, his food and his fun. One day that seemed most, or that otherwise seemed most ordinary, the prince woke at dawn, sat up, and began to crow like a rooster. At first, no one paid much attention. But when he took off his clothes and waddled downstairs, still crowing at the top of his lungs, the servants began to laugh. The queen was in the kitchen eating breakfast, and when she saw her son, she gasped. My dear, go put on some clothes. You're not behaving like a prince. But the prince ignored her and crouched under the table, where he began to peck at the crumbs on the floor, just as a rooster might. The king scowled. This is hardly princely behavior. We are not amused. But no matter what the king and queen said or did, the prince crowed and waddled and pecked and behaved in every way like a rooster, not like a prince. That evening, instead of going to his room, the prince padded out to the barn, and there he spent the night. At dawn, he opened his eyes and began to crow, and soon he trundled back into the house to sit beneath the kitchen table and peck at the crumbs on the floor. This went on day after day. In despair, the king and queen called upon the royal doctors, who offered pills. But the prince refused to swallow the pills. Instead, he pecked at their hands. Other doctors tried talking sense to him, but the prince crowed in their faces. What can we do to make our son behave like a prince? Once again, the king asked his wise men. But nobody had an answer, and soon word spread of the rooster prince. The king would never let a rooster prince rule. If he could not cure his son. The prince could not inherit the kingdom, and the king needed an heir. But nobody seemed able to help. One day an old sage came to the city. His face was so lined with age, his eyes were nearly invisible. When he walked, he limped and used a cane. But he made his way to the palace and announced, I assure the king and queen I have the cure for their son. The king hurried to meet the old man and asked, what is your cure? First you must promise you will pay me for my work, the old man said. Second, you must promise I may do whatever I wish. Of course. The king nearly shouted, and a moment later the old man removed his robes. Where is your son? He asked. The king pointed to the kitchen, where the prince now spent his days under the table, and the sage limped there. The king followed and stood in startled silence as the old man climbed under the table and began to cluck like a chicken and to peck at the floor. How can you cure my son of his madness if you are mad as well? The king cried. But the sage only clucked more loudly and scurried about, pecking for crumbs. The king and queen consulted with each other. What shall we do? The queen pleaded. Now we have two madmen in our home. We must wait, said the king, though his heart swelled with worry. Still, he had promised the sage, and the king was a man of his word. The next day, the rooster and the chicken, the prince and the sage, pecked away under the table, clucking and crowing. And as they pecked, they began to talk to each other. Are you a chicken? Asked the prince. That I am, answered the sage. I am a rooster, said the prince. So you are the sage. Said, and how is your life here in the kitchen? Fine indeed, the prince said. Everyone leaves me alone to enjoy my time. It's a fine life. I understand, the sage said. And it is good to live the life we like. Isn't it vital? Said the Rooster Prince, crowing at the top of his lungs. This went on for days, and though the queen was furious, the king did not interfere. He believed the sage was wise, and he began to see how his son longed for freedom. And then one day, the sage called to the royal seamstress. Bring me a pair of pants, he said. When the seamstress brought them, the sage began to put them on. The Rooster Prince stared and cried. What are you doing? Chickens don't wear pants. Who says? The sage asked. Why shouldn't I be warm? Why should humans have all the good things? For the first time, the Rooster Prince noticed the floor was cold and the barn too. The next day, when the sage asked for a shirt, the Rooster Prince stared and said, chickens don't wear shirts. Why should I shiver just because I'm a chicken? The sage answered. Once again, the Rooster Prince thought about how cold he felt. And when the sage put on socks and shoes, the Rooster Prince saw how bruised and tired his own feet were. When the sage asked for a plate of food and the Rooster Prince smelled it, his stomach grumbled. His heart contracted with envy. The very next day, the Rooster Prince asked for some pants, a shirt, some shoes and socks, and a plate of food. Soon after that, he was behaving like a human being again. From that day on, everyone lived happily ever after. Okay, do you see the difference in version 2? There's no secret self that endures. It doesn't quite rule it out, but it doesn't specifically inform us that the prince believes he's a rooster for the rest of his life. All we have here in the second story is that the Rooster Prince has asked for some human things and behaves like a human, and everyone lives happily ever after. We think he snapped out of it, as in the first version, the wise rabbi meets the Rooster Prince on his terms. Here we have the sage doing the same thing. He earns his trust, pretending to be a chicken. But this time he doesn't just say, act normally and you can do whatever you want. He persuades him with logic. He appeals to his sense of dignity and pride and selfishness. Why would you want to be a cold, naked rooster? Why should humans get all the clothes? Woody Allen had his own take on this story, sort of in Annie hall, where he repeated an old joke that seems to share some origins with the rooster prince story. The punchline to that I'm sure you'll recall, is we needed the eggs. Sometimes you have to let people be themselves. You can't control them. Maybe it's best to take them as they are and take the good where you can find it. Okay, now my not knowing exactly what the lesson is from the first Rooster Prince story especially is not so unusual, because that's. A lot of parables are like that. We have an uneasy relationship with parables. We don't always agree on what they mean. In some newer translations of the Bible, they don't even use the word parable. Explain this riddle to us. Peter says in the common English Bible translation, maybe the translators of that version thought riddle is a more common word than parable, a more modern word. But it's not a riddle. To me, that seems like they've introduced some new confusion. You'd. You'd read it and think, oh, all right, a riddle. But this riddle doesn't really work. You might think Jesus. Jesus is not so. He's kind of bad at making riddles. He doesn't seem to know what a riddle is, but that's because he shouldn't have used the word riddle. Jesus was not bad at making riddles. He was good at delivering parables. Are you so dull that you don't get that translation translators are ye, yet without understanding the common English Bible in general? I'm not an expert on the various translations, but I have found that the common English Bible is a little too graphic for my taste. In most translations, there's. There's something like. Don't you know that everything goes into the mouth, enters the stomach and leaves the body? Well, the common English Bible translates this as. Don't you know that everything that enters the stomach or everything that goes into the mouth enters the stomach and goes out into the sewer? Okay, leaves the body was enough. I don't need to have this. I get it. Sometimes a little restraint is preferable. I'll take the euphemism. If I'm reading the Bible, I don't need to be. Or maybe I'm the one who is. Yet without understanding. Let's take a break and look at the parable master. Himself. Himself with a capital H after this.