Parables and Fables As Distinctive Jewish Literary Genres: The Origins and Structure of Indirect Speech About God

This book tackles the problem of how God and humanity communicate truth to people in an indirect manner. The authors place Jesus' parable-telling activity into a broad context and demonstrate that parables were not the exclusive provence of Jesus but were used extensively by his Jewish leadership contemporaries many of who are immortalized in the Talmud and other Jewish classics. They demonstrate that already in the Hebrew Scriptures/Old Testament parables and fables had been in use centuries before either Jesus and/or the rabbis.