Tool Beta
The Ancient World Behind the Text
Pick a passage anywhere in the New Testament. See the customs and ideas a first reader knew without being told.
Luke 15:11-32, A father and two lost sons
A younger son takes his share of the estate early, wastes it in a far country, and comes home to a father who runs to meet him. The older brother refuses to join the feast.
Luke 15:11-32, in every translation this tool compares.
A man's younger son asks for his share of the property, and the father divides it between his two sons. The younger son goes to a distant country and squanders it, and when famine comes he is sent to feed a Gentile's pigs and longs for their pods. He comes to his senses and heads home to ask to be taken on as a hired servant, but his father sees him far off, runs, embraces and kisses him, calls for the best robe, a ring and sandals, and kills the fattened calf for a feast. The older son, coming in from the field, hears the music, refuses to go in, and complains that he has slaved for years without being given even a young goat; the father comes out and pleads with him, and the story ends without his answer.
- {"u":"https:\/\/jayms.com\/bible-study-tools-2\/ancient-world-ideas\/adoption-and-heirs\/","n":"Adoption, heirs and wills","s":"A family's property passed to its heirs; in Jewish practice the land went to the sons, the eldest with a double share. Roman law also let a man adopt a son, often a grown one, who left his old debts and ties behind and became his heir. A will, sealed before witnesses, settled who inherited and who looked after an heir too young to inherit.","r":""}
- {"u":"https:\/\/jayms.com\/bible-study-tools-2\/ancient-world-ideas\/gentile-lands\/","n":"Gentile territory","s":"Across the lake and to the north lay Greek-run cities with pagan temples and pig herds. Jesus crossed into them more than once.","r":""}
- {"u":"https:\/\/jayms.com\/bible-study-tools-2\/ancient-world-ideas\/honor-and-shame\/","n":"Honor before a crowd","s":"Public standing was the currency of the ancient Mediterranean. People competed for honor and dreaded being shamed in front of others.","r":""}
- {"u":"https:\/\/jayms.com\/bible-study-tools-2\/ancient-world-ideas\/eating-together\/","n":"Eating together","s":"Sharing a table made a bond of friendship, so who you ate with told everyone whose side you were on.","r":""}
- {"u":"https:\/\/jayms.com\/bible-study-tools-2\/ancient-world-ideas\/family-first\/","n":"The family's name","s":"Families lived, worked and stood together. Walking out of the family business or putting kin second was a public offense.","r":""}
Keener writes that to ask for one's share early amounted to saying, "Father, I wish you were already dead." Strauss, in the Zondervan backgrounds commentary, agrees; Levine disagrees, citing the Jewish legal scholar Bernard Jackson, who finds no support for that idea in Jewish sources. A father could assign his property before death but kept its use and income, so the son could not legally sell, yet he does (Keener and his notes). Bailey argues that a son who sold the family land faced a ceremony the later rabbinic sources call qetsatsah, and that the father runs to take on himself the shame the village had in store for his son; Levine answers that the ceremony is absent from the Mishnah, appears only in relatively late texts and leaves no trace in the parable. It was undignified for an older man to run (Keener and his notes; Bailey). The best robe was the father's own, the ring a family signet, and the sandals marked a son, not a slave (Keener and his notes). Wright reads the parable as Israel's own story: "This is the story of Israel, in particular of exile and restoration." Levine files Wright's reading under allegory.
- Craig S. Keener, The IVP Bible Background Commentary: New Testament, on Luke 15:11-12, 15:13, 15:15, 15:16, 15:20, 15:21-22, 15:23, 15:25-28 and 15:29-30
- NIV Cultural Backgrounds Study Bible, notes on Luke 15:12, 15:13, 15:15, 15:16, 15:20, 15:22, 15:23, 15:28 and 15:29
- Kenneth E. Bailey, Finding the Lost, ch. 3, Part 1: The Younger Son (Luke 15:11-24)
- Kenneth E. Bailey, The Cross and the Prodigal, ch. 4, The Shattering Confrontation: Luke 15:20-24, and Introduction to the Second Edition
- Amy-Jill Levine, Short Stories by Jesus, ch. 1, Lost Sheep, Lost Coin, Lost Son
- N. T. Wright, Jesus and the Victory of God, ch. 4, Prodigals and Paradigms, section 1, Jews, Peasants and Prodigals
- Mark L. Strauss, Luke, in Zondervan Illustrated Bible Backgrounds Commentary, ed. Clinton E. Arnold, on Luke 15:12, 15:13, 15:15, 15:16, 15:17, 15:28 and 15:30
