Long ago Gerhard Sellin argued that it is important to assess the parables within the context of the macro-narrative.1 In Luke 14:1–21, meal parables are told during a meal. This invites the reader to look for connections between context (a meal) and message (about meals). Therefore, in this article I will assess the—in scientific literature often neglected—connection between Luke 14:1–6 and 14:7–24. This will, hopefully, be another example of the way parables can connect with their context.2
Before we discuss a number of scholarly opinions on this relationship, it is worth assessing the fact that the Lucan Jesus explicitly calls what he relates in Luke 14:8–12 a “parable.” However, this narrative does not fall into the form-critical category of a parable. On the other hand, the Lucan Jesus does not typify the verses 14:16–24 as a parable, although this story does have all the features of such a genre. This phenomenon fits in with what Ruben Zimmermann has noted in his discussion of parables.3 He argues that a terminological difference cannot be established in the New Testament between similitudes in the narrow sense and parables. With his use of the genre typification “parable” in 14:7, Luke introduces not only 14:7–11, but also verses 12–14 and 16–24.4 It is furthermore important to note that Luke has Jesus tell a parable in other places in his gospel without explicitly characterizing the story in question as a parable (e.g., Luke 15:11–32 and 16:1–13). Just as in Luke 14:7, at the beginning of this section (15:3) Luke refers to Jesus’s first story as a parable, so that the subsequent stories can also be qualified as such.
In his commentary, Joseph Fitzmyer suggests regarding the unity of Luke 14:1–24 that “the dinner-table sayings of Jesus [i.e., Luke 14:7–11 and 14:12–14] are … loosely joined in the preceding and following episodes.”5 Although Dennis Smith in his article on meal conventions in the ancient world argues that chapter 14 is a highly structured literary unit, he does not assess the relationship between Luke 14:1–6 and the following collection of sayings.6 According to Smith, “this chapter is made up of a collection of sayings of Jesus about banquets, including the parable of the Places at the Table (14:7–11), the parable of the Banquet Invitations (14:12–14), and the parable of the Great Banquet (14:15–24).”7 This is in line with quite a lot of other scholarly literature, which in most cases devotes the majority of its attention to the relationship between the three “parables” and the possibility of a common theme.
Thomas Popp seems to be an exception when he argues that, while Luke 14:7–11 (12–14) is carefully embedded in the context, the healing of a person with dropsy on a Sabbath within the framework of a festive meal has programmatic significance.8 In spite of his insistence on this programmatic significance, Popp himself does not assess the specific relationship between Luke 14:1–6 and the following verses in greater detail. Braun, on the other hand, does study this relationship in more detail than other authors do.9 He pleads for attention to the question of how the meal situation as outlined in 14:1–6 fits in with the rest of the story.10 Luke’s Gospel is replete with meals.11 He shares a number of them with the other Synoptics, such as Levi’s vocation (Luke 5:27–32; cf. Mark 2:13–17, Matt 9:9–13) and Jesus’s visit to the home of Simon (Luke 7:36–50; cf. Matt 26:6–13; Mark 14:3–9).12
We also find a “dining Jesus” in Lucan Sondergut. For example, he has three meals featuring Jesus as the guest of a Pharisee (Luke 7:36–50, 11:37–54, 14:1–24). The structure of Luke 7:36–50 and 14:1–24 in particular is quite similar: the host is a Pharisee, there is food and an uninvited guest who becomes the reason for Jesus to act as a teacher, and Jesus uses a story or parable in his teaching to make his point (Luke 7:41–42 and 14:7–10[–11], 16–23[–24]). Some significant differences occur as well. For example, while in Luke 7:36–50 the story is told during Jesus’s engagement with the uninvited guest, in Luke 14:1–24 the parables are told after he deals with the uninvited guest (14:7–24).
An important element for the interpretation of Luke 14:1–24 is that this meal, just like other meal situations, represents the framework for Jesus’s acting as a teacher. The thesis of this article is that Jesus’s performance as a teacher is a common theme throughout the whole of Luke 14:1–24, and that it is especially important to look for the connection between Luke 14:1–6 and the following verses.13
As we will see below, Luke 14:1–6 is often characterized as a conflict about the Sabbath. A key to understanding the relationship between this pericope and the following verses is that Jesus’s encounter with the person with dropsy is probably not—or not only—such a conflict, but is also, and probably even more so, a story about Jesus teaching his audience about eating together on a Sabbath day: being a law-abiding host on a Sabbath day involves welcoming an initially uninvited guest at the table.
In the following, we will outline the most important themes in Luke 14:7–24. After establishing that it is about inviting, sitting at the table, and inviting the poor, we will return to see whether these themes can be found in Luke 14:1–6.
1 Inviting the Poor to the Table; Step One: Luke 14:7–15
In the Kompendium der Gleichnisse Jesu, Luke 14:7–11 and 14:16b–24 are treated separately. There is, however, a very clear thematic link between them, which will be outlined below. What is the theme of the first parable? The point Jesus makes is that when you are called, you must be careful not to choose the place of honour, which is best left to the host to bestow upon the person of his choosing. If you take that first (
Given this broad line, it comes as no surprise that Popp, like many other authors, emphasizes the importance of the theme of honour in this passage.15 Popp seems to be influenced in this by certain German translations, which render
There is actually a kind of unexpected twist regarding the table arrangements to the story. Jesus shifts the image of good and bad places and the host’s right to assign them to the invited guests to the question of whom a host should invite (Luke 14:12). In the story, Jesus challenges the host of the wedding feast to call the poor, the maimed, the lame, the blind (
The fact that precisely these four categories are repeated in the same order, albeit this time very explicitly with the connecting word “
2 Inviting the Poor to the Table; Step Two: Luke 14:16–24
The parable in Luke 14:16–24 has received a lot of attention in the literature, if only due to the existence of different versions.20 When these versions are studied, scholars normally focus more on the versions of the parable as such and less on their place in the context. Even when the parable is studied purely in its Lucan context,21 there has been little attention for that context. Different authors focus on different perspectives. Thus, the title of Ernest van Eck’s overview article shows his focus to be on the host.22 Braun likewise takes that perspective when he typifies the parable of the Feast as the conversion of a wealthy householder.23 One of his arguments is his reading of Luke 14:24 as a pronouncement from the householder.24 Luise Schottroff chose to call her contribution to the Kompendium “Von der Schwierigkeit zu teilen” (“Of the Difficulty of Sharing”), thereby doing greater justice to the message that the poor and the blind should join the table. The parable talks about invitations to a large meal, a grand dinner. When the guests are told that the special meal is ready, they all give an excuse for not coming. There are several motifs that appear in this parable. For example, Schottroff points out that its indirect theme is the messianic meal.25 Yet she adds that the parable speaks very concretely about poor people (and that they are not a metaphor).26 However, she does not understand the host’s invitation as a good work, but as an attempt to annoy his guests. Accordingly, the parable must be compared to Jesus’s perspective on poor praxis as outlined in Luke 14:12–14.
The separate treatment of the two parables probably explains why there has been less attention for the shared motif of inviting.27 Precisely because the theme of inviting the poor occurs in both parables (Luke 14:13–21), it is important to ask whether it also plays a role in Luke 14:1–6.
3 Inviting the Poor to the Table; Step Three: Luke 14:1–6—the Role of the Dropsical Guest
Luke 14:1 is the introduction to a table discussion dominated by Jesus. The pericope runs until 14:24, as the introduction of new characters makes clear that the following verse begins a new one. Eating bread/having meals is one of the most significant issues in Luke 14:1–24. As earlier in the same gospel, Jesus is the guest of a Pharisee.28 This time, however, the Pharisee is an important one. This could be a connection to another rich man, mentioned in Luke 14:16. The purpose of the visit is “to eat bread.” This is a very simple way to describe a meal.29 Since Luke points out that it is on Sabbath, the reader may well think that this must have been a festive and special meal.
Luke 14:1–6 is usually seen as a Sabbath conflict.30 Most Sabbath conflicts consist of a dialogue between Jesus and possible opponents (see, e.g., Luke 13:10–17). A closer look at the way in which the present text unfolds shows that it is a less obvious Sabbath conflict. There is no open dispute, let alone a fierce controversy. From the outset, Jesus is the protagonist, and the other guests are hardly obvious and explicit opponents.31
Luke describes their attitude in this way: “
Whereas in Luke 6:9 and 20:19–20 men from the Jewish elite of those days clearly seek conflict with Jesus in a public place, in Luke 14:1–24 it is Jesus himself who, during a Sabbath meal, challenges his host (14:1) and the latter’s other “esteemed” guests (14:3) to an exchange of ideas about the purpose of the Sabbath and, probably, especially about the purpose of a Sabbath meal! However, Jesus takes the initiative only after the meal is interrupted by an unexpected guest, characterized as a man with dropsy.37 Before taking a closer look at what dropsy is, we will first go into some of the other details from the passage.
With his use of
But what is the antecedent in the phrase “before him”? Does the pronoun refer to Jesus or to the host? Whatever the case may be, the text makes clear that it is Jesus who reacts to the man, since his reaction to the person with dropsy has the form of an answer (
Braun argues that it is not necessary to see the question as a question about Sabbath halakhah. He points out that there is a clear parallel with Luke 6:9, which includes a similar question (
The translation “to take care of” may not be the usual one, but it is certainly a possibility. After all, the verb
If one looks at the following verses the answer to Jesus’s question could be such an obvious “yes” that it is not an open question, but a question that forces the hearers to follow Jesus.43 It is Jesus who asks the question, so that it falls into the category of questions that Douglas Estes calls a “first-turn question.”44 A first-turn question is one asked by the first speaker as the first speech act in a dialogue. In Luke 14:3 it is therefore Jesus who opens the dialogue.45 That Jesus’s question does not really need or possibly even tolerate an answer is shown in what transpires next. Thus, the question can be typified as a rhetorical question.46
There is one more element deserving of attention. Luke specifically identifies the interlocutors as
We have seen that the dropsical guest is positioned in front of (
It may well be that the common assumption that this passage concerns a Sabbath conflict has concealed the more important, overall theme of Luke 14:1–24, which is about eating together and inviting people who really need it to eat together.
The role of the person with dropsy is a key to the interpretation that this passage is not about specific Sabbath halakhah rules (i.e., what is and what is not allowed?), but rather a lesson about the possible intention behind the halakhah of the Sabbath. There are three things in Luke 14:1 that deserve our attention: 1) What is a person with dropsy? 2) How can such a person be healed/cured? And 3) What are the possible translations of
4 The Role of the Person with Dropsy
In some more or less recent scholarship on Luke 14:1–6, it has been pointed out that there has been too little attention for the fact that the uninvited guest is dropsical.48 In the exegetical literature on the miracles in the Gospel of John, it is quite common to draw a link between the direct context and the miracle. When Jesus says that he is the light of the world, the person healed is, not surprisingly, blind (John 9:5), and at the raising of Lazarus, Jesus says, “I am the resurrection and the life” (John 11:25). There has, however, been less attention for the way Luke makes similar connections. Our thesis is that there is a connection between the fact that the whole of Luke 14:1–24 is about eating (especially eating bread) and inviting people to dinner and the fact that a dropsical person suddenly appears in front of Jesus.
There are two interesting, diametrically opposed views on his part in this story, both of which stress the special role played in the passage by the theme of rich and poor. The question here is what “dropsical” stands for.49 The word
Braun and Hartsock believe that the very fact that the person is dropsical is the key to understanding this story, because dropsy was a metaphor for greed and opulence in the Graeco-Roman world.54 Both then elaborate a number of examples from the Graeco-Roman world. Braun presents the following example:
Diogenes compared money-lovers to dropsies: as dropsies though filled with fluid crave drink, so money-lovers, though loaded with money crave more of it, yet both to their demise. For their desires increase the more they acquire the objects of their cravings.55
Stobaeus, Flor. 3.10.45
Citing this and other examples, Braun and Hartsock argue that the dropsy stands for greed and avarice.56 This raises a number of questions: How would Jesus heal such a dropsy? Will the man then be cured of the symptoms of his excessive appetite and avarice? Does a distended belly (suddenly) disappear? Or another symptom of a greedy dropsy? And what happens to his character problem? Can he be cured of that too? Or is he only cured of his character and not of his “obese” body? In my estimation, both writers all too easily assume that the topos of greed and avarice, whose existence as such cannot be challenged, indeed plays a role here.
An alternative answer to the question about the role of the dropsy was given by Ben Hemelsoet.57 Since his article on Luke 14:1–6 was written in Dutch, it has gone largely unnoticed in scholarly literature. Like Braun and Hartsock, Hemelsoet argues that there has been too little attention for the illness of “dropsy” as a key to the interpretation of this pericope. While Hartsock and Braun assume that the dropsical person was too rich and greedy, Hemelsoet proposes that he was sick due to the hunger he had suffered for some time, and then suggests that Jesus secured his presence at the table as the beginning of the healing process. The possibility of a dropsy standing for a hungry person has consequences for our understanding of the rest of the story.
It is a pity that Hemelsoet failed to offer sources for his suggestion that the dropsy is a person suffering from hunger, since it makes it seem weaker than the interpretation proposed by Braun and Hartsock.58 Like à Lapide, Braun and Hartsock mainly collected sources showing that dropsy people stand for greed and avarice. But the fact of the matter is that this is only one of the ways in which dropsy has been discussed in history. Hippocrates, for example, in his writings offers medical reviews of this disorder, yet without any hint of a moral judgement whatsoever. Similarly, Diogenes Laertius recounts an interesting story about the famous philosopher Heraclitus, who became a misanthrope and fled to the mountains, where he only ate grass and herbs. That diet gave him dropsy, and when he returned to the people, he sat down in a dung heap and died (Diogenes Laertius, Vitae 9.1.3).
Yet another example of dropsy due to hunger comes from Flavius Josephus, who is closer in time and cultural context to the Gospel of Luke than some of the sources mentioned by Braun and Hartsock. In his Jewish War, Josephus relates how Titus came to Jerusalem and besieged the city. Josephus himself had already defected to the Romans, and even gave a speech in which he tried to convince the rebels in Jerusalem to defect as well (Josephus, J.W. 5.375–419). In the next section, he describes how hunger reigned in Jerusalem, continuing to urge the city’s inhabitants to give up the battle even after he had been struck on the head by a stone (Josephus, J.W. 5.541). Some succeeded in fleeing the city, with Josephus describing the situation of these hungry people (Josephus, J.W. 5.548–549).
Josephus is thus a witness to the possibility of dropsy occurring as a result of hunger. Dropsy—and this can be found in the medical manuals—is not to be traced back to a single cause.
It is interesting to note that a derivation of the Greek word (hydrocan)60 occurs in the Babylonian Talmud, which includes a discussion of the possible causes of dropsy:
R. Oshaia said: He who devotes himself to sin, wounds and bruises break out over him, as it is said, stripes and wounds are for him that devotes himself to evil. Moreover, he is punished with dropsy, for it is said, and strokes reach the innermost parts of the belly. R. Nahman b. Isaac said: Dropsy is a sign of sin.
Our Rabbis taught: There are three kinds of dropsy: that [which is a punishment] of sin is thick; that caused by hunger is swollen; and that caused by magic is thin. Samuel the Little suffered through it. “Sovereign of the Universe!” he cried out, “who will cast lots?” [Thereupon] he recovered. Abaye suffered from it. Said Raba, I know of Nahman [the nickname for Abaye] that he practises hunger. Raba suffered from it. But was it not Raba himself who said, More numerous are those slain by delayed calls of nature than the victims of starvation? Raba was different, because the scholars compelled him [to practise restraint] at the set times [for lectures].
b. Shab. 33a [trans. Soncino]
The link between not eating and becoming dropsied can thus also be found in this later Jewish source.61 In the context of this article, these examples suffice to show that there are alternative interpretations of dropsy. Dropsy can stand for someone who is hungry, which actually suits the context much better.
One final element to be discussed here is that the thesis that Jesus “takes hold of (
Jesus then asks another question: Which one of you, if you have a son or an ox that has fallen into the pit, will not immediately pull it out, even on the Sabbath day (Luke 14:5)? This seems to be a rhetorical question. Since the answer is already clear, the listeners cannot (and do not!) have anything to “answer.”65 The question is rather part of a lesson that Jesus gives his dinner companions on the occasion of the unexpected arrival of a needy “guest.” This lesson is explained in the remainder of this passage, where Jesus says that when you give a feast, you must invite the poor, the cripple, the lame, and the blind (Luke 14:13–21). The hungry are missing from this list, but the listener already knows that they have to be invited since the person with dropsy was restored, as one of the most obvious examples of a hungry person (Luke 14:2–4).
5 Conclusion
The conclusion of this article is that Jesus’s reaction to the person with dropsy is very fitting in Luke 14:1–24, since his dealing with that person is an example of table manners, in this case an invitation to a hungry person to join the table. A dropsical guest can be understood as a hungry person and the only appropriate answer to such a live issue calling for attention is to invite him to the table. As such, the Sabbath meal becomes a therapeutical meal.66
If this interpretation is correct, then Luke 14:1–6 is an apt introduction to what follows in the later parables in that these opening verses summarize Luke’s view on the relationship between rich and poor. In the realm of God (his “Kingdom”), the person with dropsy is implicitly invited to the table, and the person who so badly wants to sit at the front is shown his place (Luke 14:7–11). If you are going to invite (=call) people for a meal, do not invite those who do not need it, but invite the hungry (like a person with dropsy; see 14:13–21). Jesus himself is one who can and is willing to be a guest at such a meal, over and over again. He is not a propagandist of asceticism (as John the Baptist is; cf. Luke 7:18–35, esp. 7:33).67 It has often been said that Jesus shows a preference for the poor. The reality turns out to be more nuanced in Luke’s gospel. For he also invites the rich to a new life—not only the host of Luke 14:1–12, but also, of course, the rich host of the parable in Luke 14:16. They too are given opportunities to foster table fellowship, and it is not without reason that elsewhere in this gospel Jesus is often found sitting at the table with wealthy people. He apparently not only has something to say to the poor, but his lessons—often a combination of practice and narrative theory—are also aimed at the rich.
One who becomes a dropsy due to hunger is certainly among the poor to be invited to the feast (Luke 14:13–21), and this makes Luke 14:1–6 a practical example of what the following parables discuss theoretically (Luke 14:7–24).68 When meals are shared, what is said by someone sitting at the table becomes true: “Blessed is he (or she) who will eat bread in the kingdom of God” (14:15). Eating (bread) together was precisely that which Jesus was invited to do on that Sabbath (14:1).69
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Bovon, François. Das Evangelium nach Lukas. Vol. 2. Lk 9:51–14:35. EKKNT 3/2. Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag, 1996.
Braun, Willi. Feasting and Social Rhetoric in Luke 14. SNTSMS 85. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005.
Collins, Raymond F. “The Man Who Came to Dinner.” Pages 151–172 in Luke and His Readers: Festschrift A. Denaux. Edited by Gilbert van Belle, Joseph Verheyden, and Reimund Bieringer. BETL 182. Leuven: Peeters, 2005.
Doering, Lutz. Schabbat: Sabbathalacha und -praxis im antiken Judentum und Urchristentum. TSAJ 78. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1999.
Doering, Lutz. “Sabbath Laws in the New Testament Gospels.” Pages 207–253 in The New Testament and Rabbinic Literature. Edited by Reimund Bieringer, Florentino García Martínez, Didier Pollefeyt, and Peter J. Tomson. JSJSup 136. Brill: Leiden, 2010.
Estes, Douglas. Questions and Rhetoric in the Greek New Testament: An Essential Reference Resource for Exegesis. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2017.
Fitzmyer, Joseph A. The Gospel According to Luke X–XXIV. AB 28. Garden City: Doubleday, 1981.
Green, Joel B. The Gospel of Luke. NICNT 2. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1997.
Hartsock, Chad. “The Healing of the Man with Dropsy (Luke 14:1–6) and the Lukan Landscape.” BibInt 21, (2013): 341–354.
Hemelsoet, Ben. “‘Gezegend hij die komt, de koning, in de naam des Heren’: Rondom Lucas 14,1–6.” ACEBT 1 (1980): 85–95.
Koet, Bart J. “Purity and Impurity of the Body in Luke-Acts.” Pages 81–95 in Dreams and Scripture in Luke-Acts: Collected Essays. Edited by Bart J. Koet. CBET 42. Leuven: Peeters, 2006.
Koet, Bart J. “A Tale of Two Teachers: Jesus about Jesus and John the Baptist (Luke 7,18–35).” Pages 147–168 in Multiple Teachers in Biblical Texts. Edited by Bart J. Koet and Archibald L.H.M. van Wieringen. CBET 88. Leuven: Peeters, 2017.
Koet, Bart J. “Arm en rijk volgens Lucas: Iedereen uitgenodigd voor het koninklijke bruiloftsmaal.” Coll 48 (2018): 243–258.
Koet, Bart J. “Counter-questions in the Gospel of Luke. An Assessment.” Pages 209–227 in Asking Questions in Biblical Texts. Edited by Bart J. Koet and Archibald L.H.M. van Wieringen. CBET 114. Leuven: Peeters, 2022.
Koet, Bart J. “An Uncomfortable Story from the New Testament: About Making Friends with the Mammon (Luke 16:1–13).” Pages 45–64 in Troubling Texts in the New Testament: Essays in Honour of Rob van Houwelingen Edited by Myriam Klinker-De Klerck, Arco den Heijer, Jermo van Nes, CBET 113. Leuven: Peeters, 2022.
Krauss, Samuel. Griechische und Lateinische Lehnwörter in Talmud, Midrasch und Targum. 2 vols. Berlin: Calvary, 1899.
Lapide, Cornelius à. Commentarii in scripturam sacram. 10 vols. Lyon-Paris: Pelagaud, 1864.
Müller, C.G. “Leserorientierte Fragen im Erzählwerk des Lukas.” TGl 93 (2003): 28–47.
Neyrey, Jerome H., ed. The Social World of Luke-Acts: Models for Interpretation. Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1991.
Ottenheijm, Eric. “The Shared Meal—a Therapeutical Device: The Function and Meaning of Hos 6:6 in Matt 9:10–13.” NovT 53 (2011): 1–21.
Popp, Thomas. “Ehre und Schande bei Tisch (Von Rangordnung und Auswahl der Gäste), Lk 14,7–11[12–14].” Pages 586–593 in Kompendium der Gleichnisse Jesu. Edited by Ruben Zimmermann et al. Gütersloh: Gütersloher Verlagshaus, 2007.
Schottroff, Luise. “Von der Schwierigkeit zu teilen (Das große Abendmahl) Lk 14,12–14 (EvThom 64).” Pages 593–603 in Kompendium der Gleichnisse Jesu. Edited by Ruben Zimmermann et al. Gütersloh: Gütersloher Verlagshaus, 2007.
Sellin, Gerhard. “Lukas als Gleichniserzähler: die Erzählung vom barmherzigen Samariter (Lk 10,25–37).” ZNW 65 (1974): 166–189; 66 (1975) 19–60.
Smith, Dennis E. “Table Fellowship as a Literary Motif in the Gospel of Luke.” JBL 106 (1987): 613–638.
Smith, Dennis E. “The Philosophical Banquet: Meal Symbolism in Luke.” Pages 253–272 in From Symposium to Eucharist: The Banquet in the Early Christian World. Minneapolis: Fortress, 2003.
Snodgrass, Klyne. Stories with Intent: A Comprehensive Guide to the Parables of Jesus. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2008.
Van Eck, Ernest. “When Patrons are Patrons: A Social-scientific and Realistic Reading of the Parable of the Feast (Lk 14:16b–23).” HTS 69 (2013): 1–14.
Zimmermann, Ruben. “Die Gleichnisse Jesu.” Pages 3–44 in Kompendium der Gleichnisse Jesu. Edited by Ruben Zimmermann et al. Gütersloh: Gütersloher Verlagshaus, 2007.
See Gerhard Sellin, “Lukas als Gleichniserzähler: die Erzählung vom barmherzigen Samariter (Lk 10,25-37),” ZNW 65 (1974): 166–189; 66 (1975) 19–60.
Willi Braun, Feasting and Social Rhetoric in Luke 14, SNTSMS 85 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005), 2.
Ruben Zimmermann, “Die Gleichnisse Jesu,” in Kompendium der Gleichnisse Jesu, ed. Ruben Zimmermann et al. (Gütersloh: Gütersloher Verlagshaus, 2007), 3–44.
Cf. Thomas Popp, “Ehre und Schande bei Tisch (Von Rangordnung und Auswahl der Gäste), Lk 14,7–11[12–14],” in Kompendium der Gleichnisse Jesu, ed. Ruben Zimmermann et al. (Gütersloh: Gütersloher Verlagshaus, 2007), 587.
Joseph A. Fitzmyer, The Gospel According to Luke X–XXIV, AB 28 (Garden City: Doubleday, 1981), 1044.
Dennis E. Smith, “Table Fellowship as a Literary Motif in the Gospel of Luke,” JBL 106 (1987): 621. A revised version of this article has been published as: Dennis E. Smith, “The Philosophical Banquet: Meal Symbolism in Luke,” in From Symposium to Eucharist: The Banquet in the Early Christian World (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2003), 253–272.
Smith, “The Philosophical Banquet,” 257.
Popp, “Ehre und Schande bei Tisch,” 587: “Die Heilung eines Wassersüchtigen am Sabbat im Rahmen eines Festmahls (14:1–6) hat programmatische Bedeutung. Jesus definiert die Regeln, die im Reich Gottes gelten. Das Verhalten der Gäste (14:7) fungiert als Auftakt zu einer an sie (14:8–11) und den Gastgeber (14:12–14) gerichteten Jesusrede. Wer auf Gottes Gästeliste steht, zeigt die Parabel vom großen Festmahl (14:15–24).”
For the unity of Luke 14:1–24, see Braun, Feasting and Social Rhetoric, 17–21.
Braun, Feasting and Social Rhetoric, 5, argues that an interpretation of Luke 14:1−24 “would need to account for the narrative setting (dinner party), the selection, literary characteristics and sequence of all the episode’s constituent periods (including the scene of healing a dropsy, an apparently odd formal and thematic ‘wild card’ in the dinner episode).”
Smith, “Table Fellowship as a Literary Motif,” 614. See Raymond F. Collins, “The Man Who Came to Dinner,” in Luke and His Readers: Festschrift A. Denaux, ed. Gilbert van Belle, Joseph Verheyden and Reimund Bieringer, BETL 182 (Leuven: Peeters, 2005), 151–172. Cf. François Bovon, Lk 9:51–14:35, vol. 2 of Das Evangelium nach Lukas, EKKNT 3/2 (Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag, 1996), 465.
Collins (“The Man Who Came to Dinner,” 152) argues that “[t]he reader who compares Luke’s narrative account with the earlier accounts of Mark and Matthew will surely note that Luke highlights Jesus’ commensality much more than do the other Synoptists.” Compare Luke 5:29 with Mark 2:15 (“a great banquet” instead of “to recline”), and Luke 5:30 with Mark 2:16 (Luke adds “to drink” to the question, thereby making the dinner more complete).
Braun, Feasting and Social Rhetoric, 3–5, also assesses the relationship between the parable and the larger narrative.
For a negative evaluation of this longing for places of honour, see also Matt 23:6, Mark 12:39, and Luke 20:46.
The importance of the theme of “honour and shame” in the Graeco-Roman world often becomes a presupposition in contextualizing New Testament texts, and thus the world of Luke-Acts is seen as an “Honour and Shame” society; see, for example, Jerome H. Neyrey, ed., The Social World of Luke-Acts: Models for Interpretation (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1991). However, the extent to which the Jewish-Hellenistic world in which Luke-Acts originated adopted this characteristic of the Graeco-Roman world must be assessed for every passage. It may well be that the theme of “honour” is less important in Luke 14:7–12 than Popp supposes. In any case, I will try to show that the theme of inviting and calling someone to the table also plays a role in the present passage.
E.g., “Als er bemerkte wie sich die Gäste Ehrenplätze aussuchte” (Revised Luther Bible, 1984).
Popp, “Ehre und Schande bei Tisch,” 587.
Of course, this will also be an important lesson for Jesus’s own host, the host of the Sabbath meal.
The fact that these passages are connected by the use of this verb is rightly stressed by Klyne Snodgrass, Stories with Intent: A Comprehensive Guide to the Parables of Jesus (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2008), 306 (twelve times
See, e.g., Luise Schottroff, “Von der Schwierigkeit zu teilen (Das große Abendmahl) Lk 14,12–14 (EvThom 64),” in Kompendium der Gleichnisse Jesu, ed. Ruben Zimmermann et al. (Gütersloh: Gütersloher Verlagshaus, 2007), 593–603. Cf. Snodgrass, Stories with Intent, 299–323.
For an assessment of whether and/or to what extent Luke 14:16–24 can be described as an example of the classical, aristocratic symposium, see Braun, Feasting and Social Rhetoric, 136–144. He argues that one can see relations between Luke 14:1−24 and the Graeco-Roman symposium in broad terms, but that the literary and ideological matrix for this passage is not constituted by the classical symposia of Plato and Xenophon.
Ernest van Eck, “When Patrons are Patrons: A Social-Scientific and Realistic Reading of the Parable of the Feast (Lk 14:16b–23),” HTS 69 (2013), 1–14.
Braun, Feasting and Social Rhetoric, 98–131.
Braun, Feasting and Social Rhetoric, 121–128.
Schottroff, “Von der Schwierigkeit zu teilen,” 601.
Schottroff, “Von der Schwierigkeit zu teilen,” 599: “Die ptochoi bezeichnen menschen die nicht genug zu essen haben.”
Snodgrass, Stories with Intent, 20.
Surely this is an indication that Jesus was accepted in Pharisaic circles (and vice versa).
Already in the Torah and the Prophets, the expression “eating bread” was a sign of an (important) meal: see, e.g., Gen 31:54 (
For the relationship between Luke 14:1–6 and Mark 3:1–6 and between Luke 14:1–6 (esp. 14:3) and Matt 12:9–14 (esp. 12:11), see Lutz Doering, Schabbat: Sabbathalacha und -praxis im antiken Judentum und Urchristentum, TSAJ 78 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1999), 462–463. Matt 12:9–14 and Mark 3:1–6 are more closely related and have more elements of a Sabbath conflict.
I think that Luke 14:1–6 is, in the most formal sense, not a Sabbath healing. In his chapter on “Sabbath Conflicts of Healing,” Doering likewise—albeit from a different perspective—points to the possibility of Luke 14:1–6 not being one such conflict. See Doering, Schabbat, 463: “Es ist möglich, daß die unmittelbare, argumentativ nicht abgestützte Anwendung des Logions einen gewissen Abstand von der Sabbathpraxis und von der Aktualität der Sabbatkonflikte andeutet.”
See Joel B. Green, The Gospel of Luke, NICNT 2 (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1997), 545.
Popp, “Ehre und Schande bei Tisch,” 587.
Ibidem.
It is not so easy to translate the term
It is in Luke 14:3 that we hear about them explicitly:
Gk.
It might be argued that the participle
C.G. Müller, “Leserorientierte Fragen im Erzählwerk des Lukas,” TGl 93 (2003): 30.
There in fact appear to be two important, mutually exclusive variants in the manuscripts:
Braun, Feasting and Social Rhetoric, 26.
Braun, Feasting and Social Rhetoric, makes some sense of the fact that this story is not necessarily a miracle. He notes that “this passage recounts a healing miracle, although it is not a formally a miracle story” (22). He argues that it is a practical and therapeutic action.
This question is formulated as an alternative question, but there is actually more going on here than merely a “yes” or “no.” An alternative question pits two competing ideas against each other. We could say that Jesus is asking: “Is it allowed to heal on the Sabbath, or is it not allowed to heal on the sabbath?” This gives the question a highly rhetorical appearance, which is best supported by the truncated Greek: Jesus elides the second clause and replaces it with “
Estes, Questions and Rhetoric, 275–287.
See footnote 37 above.
The category of the rhetorical question is quite broad and therefore less meaningful in the modern era, and as such its application to the ancient world is anachronistic. The categorization does not appear to have been accepted or understood by ancient writers. Estes (Questions and Rhetoric, 69 and 333) even argues that the category of the rhetorical question does not exist as such, since all questions in fact have a rhetorical element to them. There is something to be said for this criticism, although we cannot discuss it in detail for the present purposes and have chosen to use the term “rhetorical question” as it is usually understood. Estes argues that Matt 22:17 is a dilemma question, which allows the questioner to ask his audience to choose between two difficult options (224).
This is the basic meaning of the Greek word
Some of what follows comes from my Dutch article on rich and poor in Luke’s Gospel; see Bart J. Koet, “Arm en rijk volgens Lucas. Iedereen uitgenodigd voor het koninklijke bruiloftsmaal,” Coll 48 (2018): 243–258.
It is remarkable that Van Eck, “When Patrons are Patrons,” 4, suggests that the dropsy means uncleanness, without mentioning the kind of (im-)purity that would be at stake here. Van Eck seems to be too caught up in a schematic image of Jesus violating Jewish purity laws on the Sabbath. For the way the Lucan Jesus turns out to be quite sensitive to the avoidance of uncleanness, see Bart J. Koet, “Purity and Impurity of the Body in Luke-Acts,” in Dreams and Scripture in Luke-Acts: Collected Essays, ed. Bart J. Koet, CBET 42 (Leuven: Peeters, 2006), 81–95.
Cornelius à Lapide, Commentarii in scripturam sacram, 10 vols. (Lyon-Paris: Pelagaud, 1864), 7:785–786. Cornelius à Lapide (1567–1637) wrote commentaries on every book of the Scriptures, except Job and the Psalms. In his comments he frequently quotes the interpretations of the church fathers.
Chad Hartsock, “The Healing of the Man with Dropsy (Luke 14:1-6) and the Lukan Landscape,” BibInt 21 (2013): 341–354. Hartsock refers only to English literature. His interpretation is comparable to the one presented by Bovon, Lukas 9,51–14,35, 471–472.
Braun, Feasting and Social Rhetoric, 22–41 (esp. 30–38).
Hartsock, The Man with Dropsy, 342.
Braun, Feasting and Social Rhetoric, 22–42; Hartsock, The Man with Dropsy, 352–354.
As quoted in Braun, Feasting and Social Rhetoric, 34 and by Hartsock, The Man with Dropsy, 349. In the fifth century, Joannes Stobaeus, from Stobi in Macedonia, compiled a valuable series of extracts from Greek authors. In the second volume of his work, one can find this anecdote about Diogenes. Braun (Feasting and Social Rhetoric, 34) argues that Diogenes was the first Cynic to use dropsy and its symptoms as an analogy for insatiable greed.
Braun, Feasting and Social Rhetoric, 41, suggests that Luke is insinuating that the guests’ illness is to be identified with the Pharisaic character. He assumes that the other guests are Pharisees and lawyers, and that they have a “dropsical” character. This seems to be yet another example of a game that a lot of scholars like to play when they all too easily blame the Pharisees. Hartsock’s argument (The Man with Dropsy, 353) about the Lucan tendency to condemn all rich people is in my eyes too superficial, since he takes little account of the way Luke discusses different attitudes of the rich towards the poor (see only Zacchaeus in Luke 19:1–10).
Ben Hemelsoet, “‘Gezegend hij die komt, de koning, in de naam des Heren’: Rondom Lucas 14,1–6,” ACEBT 1 (1980): 85–95.
However, the form of dropsy most often seen in the news today is dropsy due to hunger: children with swollen bellies, who suffer from famine.
Josephus does not use the noun, but a participial form of the verb. In Josephus, J.W. 1.656, the same Greek verb is used to describe a similar disorder, which can nevertheless be attributed to a different cause.
The Hebrew term is connected to
In Lev. Rab. 15:2, a connection is drawn between having dropsy (
Fitzmyer, Luke X–XXIV, 1041, argues that the verb implies that the man was sent away; Braun (Feasting and Social Rhetoric, 41 n56) disagrees and refers to other possible translations, like “dismissal” or release from “illness.”
The rendering “sent away” possibly derives from the Vulgate, which reads dimisit.
Hemelsoet, “Gezegend hij die komt,” 94, argues that “to send away” is not really a common translation for
Luke uses an interesting, rare Greek word to describe the response to Jesus’s question:
For therapeutical meals in Matthew, see Eric Ottenheijm, “The Shared Meal—a Therapeutical Device: The Function and Meaning of Hos 6:6 in Matt 9:10–13,” NT 53 (2011): 1–21.
See Bart J. Koet, “A Tale of Two Teachers: Jesus about Jesus and John the Baptist (Luke 7,18–35),” in Multiple Teachers in Biblical Texts, ed. Bart J. Koet and Archibald L.H.M. van Wieringen, CBET 88 (Leuven: Peeters, 2017), 147–168.
This is in line with Braun, Feasting and Social Rhetoric, 26, who argues that Luke 14:3 is not about Sabbath halakhah, but about a more general moral question. Braun typifies Luke 14:1–6 as a chreia, which has to make a didactic point. My proposal to read the chapter as a unity and to see the dropsy as nimshal of the sayings and parables in the chapter to a certain extent bolsters the findings of Lutz Doering, “Sabbath Laws in the New Testament Gospels,” in The New Testament and Rabbinic Literature, ed. Reimund Bieringer, Florentino García Martínez, Didier Pollefeyt, and Peter J. Tomson, JSJSup 136 (Leiden: Brill, 2010), 238: “It may be considered to read Luke 14:5, with its emphasis on loss and rescue, in the context of ch. 15, reflecting God’s salvific attention to the ‘lost ones’ of Israel.”
I am indebted to Dr Margaret Daly-Denton for correcting my English text. The research for this article was completed prior to the parable conference in June 2019 (Utrecht). Related to this article, I have published two more articles about relations between parables and asking questions: Bart J. Koet, “Counter-questions in the Gospel of Luke. An Assessment,” in Asking Questions in Biblical Texts, ed. Bart J. Koet and Archibald L.H.M. van Wieringen, CBET 114 (Leuven: Peeters 2022), and Bart J. Koet, “An Uncomfortable Story from the New Testament: About Making Friends with the Mammon (Luke 16:1–13),” in Troubling Texts in the New Testament: Essays in Honour of Rob van Houwelingen, ed. Myriam Klinker-De Klerck, Arco den Heijer, Jermo van Nes, CBET 113 (Leuven: Peeters, 2022).