Ok Spiker, you are asking, I presume – what ties the paradoxical parables that have been attributed to Jesus and then handed down to us in the synoptic gospels to the historical Jesus?? Well, there is Internal and External proof.

Firstly, the Internal. The fact that the 1st century itinerant Nazarene (historical Jesus) spoke in parables about the kingdom of God is simply undisputed by New Testament scholarship… So here, take another look:

Good Samaritan Luke 10:25-37: the agents of neighborly love, i.e. the devout Pharisee & Levite, are exposed as morally and religiously bankrupt; the morally and religiously bankrupt, i.e. the half-caste Samaritan, is an agent of neighbor love.

Prodigal Son Luke 15:11-32: the younger wayward son, who is lost in rebellious exile from home, is saved with the father’s homecoming feast, the older dutiful son, who is saved in righteous obedience to his father’s home, is lost in rebellious exile from the homecoming feast.

Vineyard Workers Matthew 20:1-16: the privileged status of those who started work at day break is the source of their envy and their sense of injustice; the envy and injustice of those who started work just before sundown, is the occasion for their privileged status, (when both groups receive equal pay from the vineyard owner).

Pharisee and Tax Collector Luke 18:10-14: the self-righteous Pharisee, who is saved in as a Temple insider – is lost, just as the sinful Tax Collector, who is lost as a Temple outsider – is saved.

Now wouldn’t you agree that – since this “paradoxical” structure underpins ALL of the parables of Jesus, then it tells us something pretty significant about the language of the one who authored them? Moreover, this stable pattern of paradoxical reversals also conforms remarkably well to many of the “criteria of authenticity” that are already accepted by contemporary New Testament scholars for deciding which of the sayings attributed to Jesus in the gospel texts actually stem from the historical Jesus and which sayings reflect the moral allegorizing and theologizing by the early Christian communities – e.g. the criteria of shock/offense, the criteria of dis-similarity, the criteria of coherence, and so forth…

Now the External Proof. There is one precious piece of historical evidence for the actual flesh and blood existence of Jesus, a textual fragment from outside the received New Testament canon that not only testifies to the historical existence of this 1st century charismatic Jew, but also details precisely the same insight into his authentic oral teachings. Josephus (c. 37 – c. 100), a Jewish historian for the Roman Empire and a vehement non-believer, in a much discussed passage called the Testimonium Flavianum, writes:

“About this time came Jesus, a wise man, (if indeed it is appropriate to call him a man). For he was a performer of paradoxical feats (paradoxôn ergôn poiêtês) a teacher of people who accept the unusual with pleasure, and he won over many of the Jews and also many Greeks…”** you do not have permission to see this link **

While virtually all historians agree that this text has been tampered with by later Christian writers and apologists,** you do not have permission to see this link ** Now, if we may grant the historical authenticity of just this one fragment of Josephus’ non-Christian extra-canonical testimony, then we find that Jesus was a 1st century Jewish rabbi (teacher) who spoke in “paradoxôn ergôn poiêtês”, i.e. Yeshua was a paradoxical poet.

Thus we have both Internal and External Evidence that Jesus spoke about the kingdom of God in a language of paradox. What more do you want? Please don’t let a dogmatic skepticism get in the way of reason and evidence here! 🙂