Pauling Sun
Taiwan Graduate School of Theology
E-mail:
[email protected]
Abstract
Luke 16:18 is notoriously difficult to interpret. Was the manager
in the parable dishonest? If so, why did the master com- mend the
manager’s act of instructing the master’s debtors to alter their
bills? On the other hand, how could this dishonest act be shrewd?
More disturbing was Jesus’ affirmation of this act by cre- ating a
teaching out of this parable. Traditional interpretation con- tends
that Jesus was making a point by using a negative example.
Interpreters who pay attention to ancient culture and its economic
system suggest that the manager’s act was not illegal. After sur-
veying the foremost interpretations of this parable, I suggest that
the manager was both dishonest and shrewd and that this under-
standing echoes with the parable’s context as well as with Luke’s
eschatology and theology of wealth.
Keywords: parable, dishonest manager, wealth, eschatology, economic
system
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δικα φρονμως 8
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7 8 8
9 16:1013 8
8
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1 Klyne R. Snodgrass, Stories with Intent: A Comprehensive Guide to
the Parables of Jesus, 2nd. ed. (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2018),
4023
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3 18
2 Snodgrass, Stories with Intent, 40119; John K. Goodrich,
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3 2 François Bovon, Luke 2: A Commentary on the Gospel of Luke
9:5119:27 (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2013), 45153; Stephen L.
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Medieval Allegories of Jesus’ Parables (Berkeley: University of
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François Bovon
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7
Snodgrass, Stories with Intent, 410n95
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12
Stanley E. Porter
16:89
8 Bovon, Luke 2, 453
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Darrell L. Bock, Luke: 9:5124:53, Baker Exegetical Commentary on
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14
Snodgrass, Stories with Intent, 4034
15 7
16 Margaret D. Gibson, “On the Parable of the Unjust Steward,”
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Testament Studies 7 (1961): 198219 Derrett
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15:1318
19
πσον φελειυς τ κυρ μου
John. S. Kloppenborg
16:3421
17 Joseph A. Fitzmyer, The Gospel according to Luke 19:
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1098
18 Thomas Hoeren “Das Gleichnisvom Ungerecheten Verwalter (Lukas
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19 P. Perkins, Hear the Parables of Jesus (New York: Paulist,
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20 David Landry and Ben May, “Honor Restored: New Light on the
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21Carroll, Luke, 326; Bruce J. Malina and Richard L. Rohrbaugh,
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(Minneapolis: Fortress, 2003), 293; Landry and May, “Honor
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22 Pliny the Younger, 61113 CECicero, 10643 BCE
Columella, 470 CE
remissio mercedisstatutory
obligatoryvoluntary
22 Goodrich “Voluntary Debt Remission and the Parable of the Unjust
Steward”
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16:8aδικα
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δικον μαμνον
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25 Joseph A. Fitzmyer, “The Story of the Dishonest Manager,”
Theological Studies 25
(1964): 33
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