New Testament Gospel Mark 4: 1-20 The Parable of the Sower & the Seed

126) and toward the view that "many dissimilar viewpoints . . . regarding the actual life-setting of the parables in the ministry of Jesus" (p. 126)--seems such a difficult issue. Anderson cites several core theses of the meaning of the parables in general to counterbalance his point, some that emphasize social milieu, others that emphasize the literary center of a given story. Williamson's focus on the narrative dodge of the parables and on the narrative topic of the text allows him to see contextual significance in the reference at 4:1-2 to the richness of state custodyt in parables (1983, p. 87). His view is that the set of parables that begins with the sower and the seed "represents the original explicit elaboration in Mark of the message of the country of God which Jesus announced (1:14-15)." Accordingly, says Williamson, "the teaching of 4:1-34 and the talk of 1:14-15 . . . interpret each other" (1983, p. 87).

Williamson's interpretation of Kingdom, message, preaching, and teaching all in terms of one another in relation to the parables in Mark emphasizes the imageic implications of the text as context. Anderson (1976, pp. 126-7) emphasizes less textual content per se than the social dynamics of the setoff-century Christian community that may have informed turn of the narrative. He cites theories that that the stories were meant as allegories and for popular consumption, that "they belong to

Social and cultural aspects of early-Christian text seem dark-fruited ground as it were for explaining both the context of the sower-and-seed parable and the content of the text itself. In other words, context provides clues to the content of the first Christian gospel. That is important not least because "Christianity has never been a monolithic movement" (Eberts, 1997, p. 305). Eberts continues:

The Twelve of Galilee, under Peter, went to Galilee and beyond, to the village culture existing there. The Brethren, under James, addressed . . . "Hebrews"--Jews who spoke Aramaic . . . utilize Hebrew in their synagogues, and tended to isolate themselves from the prevailing Greek society.

The Hellenists, guide by Stephen and Philip, directed their mission to "Hellenists"--Jews who spoke Greek . . . in the synagogue, and cerebrate themselves to Hellenistic culture. The last, the Apostles, under Barnabas and Paul, worked with synagogues in what is now Turkey and Greece, ministering especially to "godfearers"--Greek men and women attracted to Judaism but who were not proselytes (Eberts 305-6).

Now the availability of the seed as the word and the word as text is not inescapably the same as understanding the mind of God. But the word, or the text that is sown on multiple kinds of soils, will inhabit. both the power and spiritual resonance to which Williamson alludes in his discussion remain intact and indeed are strengthened and tightened if the seed is interpreted concretely as standing for the word--and more than this the text that is meant to contain, codify, and ship the Word. To take the seed as a literal symbol for a literal object is to make an immediate connection to material human experience. This symbolic connection then becomes the autocratic voice of spiritual experience.

Biblical literature, gospel according to Mark. (1999). Encyclop?dia Britannica Online. .

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