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John Reynolds's avatar

Hey Noelle, how much of this do you think is an issue of storytellers telling and not showing?

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Frank Ewert's avatar

Noelle - it strikes me that Jesus' parables would not satisfy readers who demand that every story have a clear, straightforward moral lesson. His own disciples hard a difficult time understanding the meaning behind them. Moreover, he openly admitted that his stories were told with the express purpose of confusing some of his hearers.

And that's to say nothing about the layers of meaning each story has, much like your example of the story of Daniel. There's nothing wrong with observing that Daniel resisted peer pressure. But if we walk away from the text with that as our sole or primary takeaway, we've done ourselves a disservice as readers.

Which is all to say: you're on to something good and wonderful. Keep it up! I'm looking forward to those future articles.

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