Cultural Misconception of Luke 15

Points of Cultural Misconception of the Parable of the Compassionate Father

1. The request:  The prodigal's request is an unthinkable breach of traditional culture. (He wants his father to die.)
2. His father's gift:  The father reprocesses anger into grace and thereby deeply violates the code of an Oriental patriarch.  (As is shown five times in the parable).
3. A hurried sale:  The prodigal triggers the anger of the community. (He must leave town quickly.) 
4. The kezaza ceremony:  A threat hanging over the prodigal as he leaves town. (He must not lose the money.) 
5. Expensive living:  Not riotous (KJ), nor loose (RSV), nor dissolute (NRSV),  nor wild (NIV).  (The Greek word asotos is literally  a + sozo, i.e. without saving. No hints of immorality) 
6. Search for employment:  The prodigal must find a paying job so he can repurchase the land. (The kezaza ceremony now threatens.) 
7. Inauthentic Repentance: He projects A self-serving plan: (Augustinian or Pelagian?  Complications with the lost sheep and coin.) 
8. Turning point:  The costly demonstration of unexpected love. (Grace not law.  Love is offered before the confession.) 
9. A father who behaves like a mother. (The father is defined by Hosea 11, not by Middle Eastern culture.)
10. Authentic Repentance: The Prodigal Revises His speech – he is not interrupted. (Like the lost sheep, he accepts to be found). 
11. Christology:  Incarnation and atonement meet. (This happens with the shepherd, the woman and the father.) 
12. The meaning of the banquet (a theological trialogue): 
• Father's comments:  Because - He was lost and is found .. dead and is alive (divine passives)
• Young boy:  .... Because, he (the Father) received him (the prodigal)  with peace. 
• Older son:  You killed for him the fattened calf. 
13. Older son's anger at grace. (for some grace is not only amazing – it is also infuriating!)
• His mentality:  (You get what you pay for, don't you?)
• His response:  (He breaks his relationship with his father - like the prodigal, only more so.) 
14. Father's response:  The Father once again reprocessed anger into grace.  At the same time the father  urges the older son dealing with the prodigal in the same way. 
15. Older son's final reaction:  An unfinished theological symphony (participation theater). 

Reference: Kenneth E. Bailey.

Who represents Who in Luke 15

Why the shepherd (Lk 15:4-7), woman (Lk 15:8-10) and father (Lk 15:11-32) in Luke 15 are symbols for God and Jesus.

Allegory reigned supreme for many centuries as a method of interpretation, and the fatted calf in the parable of the prodigal son became a symbol for Christ because the calf was killed. Through allegory, interpreters were able to locate their favorite ideas almost anywhere, and confusion and finally meaninglessness conquered. This is probably why parables ceased to be sources for Christian faith and were limited to ethics.

In reaction to the fanciful exaggerations that the allegorical method produced in past centuries, across the twentieth century there was a stream of scholarship that argued for “one point per parable.” Others allowed for several themes in a parable. The purpose was to protect interpretation from adding meanings to the text that could not have occurred to Jesus or his audience. 

But if the great parable of the prodigal son has “only one point,” which shall we choose? Should the interpreter choose “the nature of the fatherhood of God,” “an understanding of sin,” “self-righteousness that rejects others,” “the nature of true repentance,” “joy in community” or “finding the lost”? All of these theological themes are undeniably present in the story and together form a whole that Kenneth Bailey calls “the theological cluster.” Each part of that cluster is in creative relationship to the other parts. The meaning of each can only be understood fully within the cluster formed by the entire parable. The content of the cluster must be controlled and limited by what Jesus’ original audience could have understood.

Simply stated, our task is to stand at the back of the audience around Jesus and listen to what he is saying to them. Only through that discipline can we discover what he is saying to any age, including our own. Authentic simplicity can be found the other side of complexity.

Reference: Jesus Through Middle Eastern Eyes by Kenneth E. Bailey.