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The Parable of the Unrighteous Steward (Luke 16.1–9): A Prudent Use of Mammon

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  06 June 2018

Delbert Burkett
Delbert Burkett*
Affiliation:
Department of Philosophy and Religious Studies, Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, Louisiana 70803, USA. Email: [email protected]
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Abstract

The parable of the unrighteous steward encouraged rich individuals outside the Christian community to use their wealth to make friends of Jesus’ poor disciples, specifically by reducing their debts, so that in the eschatological kingdom Jesus’ disciples would receive these benefactors into their eternal dwellings. It had its setting in the efforts of early Palestinian Christians to enlist the financial support of the wealthy. Since many of these did not wish to sell all their possessions and donate the proceeds to the Christian community, this parable suggested an alternative way that the rich could use their wealth to assist the community.

Keywords

parablestewardmammoncommunity of goodsdebt reduction
Type
Articles
Information
New Testament Studies , Volume 64 , Issue 3 , July 2018 , pp. 326 - 342
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2018 

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References

1 For surveys of interpretation and/or bibliography, see Krämer, M., Das Rätsel der Parabel vom ungerechten Verwalter, Lk 16,1–13: Auslegungsgeschichte—Umfang—Sinn (Biblioteca di Scienze Religiose 5; Zürich: PAS, 1972)Google Scholar; Kissinger, W. S., The Parables of Jesus: A History of Interpretation and Bibliography (ATLA Bibliography Series 4; Metuchen, NJ: Scarecrow and ATLA, 1979) 398–408Google Scholar; Fitzmyer, J. A., The Gospel according to Luke (x–xxiv) (AB 28A; Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1985) 1102–4Google Scholar; Ireland, D. J., Stewardship and the Kingdom of God: An Historical, Exegetical, and Contextual Study of the Parable of the Unjust Steward in Luke 16:1–13 (NovTSup 70; Leiden: Brill, 1992)Google Scholar; Hultgren, A. J., The Parables of Jesus: A Commentary (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2000) 146–57Google Scholar, esp. 154–7; Snodgrass, K., Stories with Intent: A Comprehensive Guide to the Parables of Jesus (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2008) 406–10Google Scholar; Dennert, B. C., ‘Appendix: A Survey of the Interpretive History of the Parable of the Dishonest Steward (Luke 16:1–9)’, From Judaism to Christianity: Tradition and Transition (Leiden: Brill, 2010) 145–52CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Bovon, F., Luke 2: A Commentary on the Gospel of Luke 9:51–19:27 (Hermeneia; Minneapolis: Fortress, 2013) 439–42Google Scholar.

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3 E.g. Via, D. O. Jr, The Parables: Their Literary and Existential Dimension (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1967) 156Google Scholar; Topel, L. J., ‘On the Injustice of the Unjust Steward: Luke 16:1–13’, CBQ 37 (1975) 216–27Google Scholar; Stein, R. H., An Introduction to the Parables of Jesus (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1981) 106–7Google Scholar; Fitzmyer, Luke, 1094–111, esp. 1105; Kloppenborg, J. S., ‘The Dishonoured Master (Luke 16, 1–8a)’, Bib 70 (1989) 474–95Google Scholar, esp. 475–6; Loader, W. R. G., ‘Jesus and the Rogue in Luke 16,1–8a: The Parable of the Unjust Steward’, RB 96 (1989) 518–32Google Scholar; Parrott, D. M., ‘The Dishonest Steward (Luke 16.1–8a) and Luke's Special Parable Collection’, NTS 37 (1991) 499–515CrossRefGoogle Scholar; de Silva, D. A., ‘The Parable of the Prudent Steward and its Lucan Context’, CTR 6 (1993) 255–68Google Scholar, esp. 257; Herzog, W. R. II, Parables as Subversive Speech: Jesus as Pedagogue of the Oppressed (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox, 1994) 235Google Scholar; Landry, D. and May, B., ‘Honor Restored: New Light on the Parable of the Prudent Steward (Luke 16:1–8a)’, JBL 119 (2000) 287–309Google Scholar, at 288–9; Reinmuth, E., ‘Der beschuldigte Verwalter (vom ungetreuen Haushalter) – Lk 16,1–8’, Kompendium der Gleichnisse Jesu (ed. Zimmermann, R.; Gütersloh: Gütersloher Verlagshaus, 2007) 634–46Google Scholar; Bovon, Luke 2, 444.

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6 Fitzmyer, Luke, 1105; Bovon, Luke 2, 445. Contra Topel, ‘On the Injustice’, 220; Kloppenborg, ‘Dishonoured Master’, 475.

7 Contra Bultmann, History of the Synoptic Tradition, 77, 81, 176.

8 Manson, Sayings, 291; Via, Parables, 157; Herzog, Parables, 241; Hultgren, Parables, 149; Metzger, J. A., Consumption and Wealth in Luke's Travel Narrative (BibInt; Leiden: Brill, 2007) 115CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Snodgrass, Stories, 406. M. A. Beavis thinks that the steward was a slave (‘Ancient Slavery as an Interpretive Context for the New Testament Servant Parables with Special Reference to the Unjust Steward (Luke 16:1–8)’, JBL 111 (1992) 37–54, esp. 45, 49)Google Scholar.

9 Thus nothing suggests that the master's debtors made the accusation (contra Herzog, Parables, 251–5).

10 Beavis, ‘Ancient Slavery’, 48–9; Wright, ‘Parables’, 224.

11 Marshall, Luke, 617; Fitzmyer, Luke, 1097.

12 The view that the steward's goal was to retain his stewardship (Herzog, Parables, 256) is contradicted by the steward's own soliloquy.

13 Fletcher, ‘Riddle’, 23; Kloppenborg, ‘Dishonoured Master’, 482; Metzger, Consumption and Wealth, 118–19.

14 Wright, ‘Parables’, 226.

15 Contra de Silva, ‘Parable of the Prudent Steward’, 264; Herzog, Parables, 255–7; Beavis, ‘Ancient Slavery’, 51–2.

16 Ireland, Stewardship, 68–72.

17 Fitzmyer, Luke, 1097; Metzger, Consumption and Wealth, 123.

18 Stein, Introduction to the Parables, 109; Ireland, Stewardship, 74.

19 Kosmala, H., ‘The Parable of the Unjust Steward in the Light of Qumran’, ASTI 3 (1964) 114–21Google Scholar.

20 Jeremias, Parables, 45–7. Ireland lists others with this view (Stewardship, 60 n. 53).

21 Schellenberg, R. S., ‘Which Master? Whose Steward? Metalepsis and Lordship in the Parable of the Prudent Steward (Lk. 16.1–13)’, JSNT 30 (2008) 263–88Google Scholar; Udoh, F. E., ‘The Tale of an Unrighteous Slave (Luke 16:1–8 [13])’, JBL 128 (2009) 311–35Google Scholar, esp. 325–7.

22 E.g. Fitzmyer, Luke, 1098; Metzger, Consumption and Wealth, 119–22.

23 E.g. Derrett, J. D. M., ‘Fresh Light on St. Luke xvi:1: Parable of the Unjust Steward’, NTS 7 (1961) 198–219CrossRefGoogle Scholar; reprinted, ‘The Parable of the Unjust Steward’, Law in the New Testament (London: Darton, Longman & Todd, 1970) 48–77Google Scholar; idem, ‘“Take Thy Bond … and Write Fifty” (Luke xvi.6): The Nature of the Bond’, JTS NS 23 (1972) 438–40Google Scholar; Marshall, Luke, 617; de Silva, ‘Parable of the Prudent Steward’, 262–3; Herzog, Parables, 255; Wright, ‘Parables’, 225.

24 Kloppenborg, ‘Dishonoured Master’, 479–86; Landry and May, ‘Honor Restored’, 289–90.

25 E.g. Via, Parables, 158, 159–61; Stein, Introduction to the Parables, 109–10; Beavis, ‘Ancient Slavery’, 50–1; Ireland, Stewardship, 73–83; Hultgren, Parables, 151.

26 Kloppenborg, ‘Dishonoured Master’.

27 Landry and May, ‘Honor Restored’.

28 Parrott, ‘Dishonest Steward’, 512–5.

29 Goodrich, J. K., ‘Voluntary Debt Remission and the Parable of the Unjust Steward (Luke 16:1–13)’, JBL 131 (2012) 547–66Google Scholar.

30 E.g. Bultmann, History of the Synoptic Tradition, 175–6; Lee, ‘Wasteful Steward’, 522; Hultgren, Parables, 148, 152.

31 ‘In v. 8b this surprising commendation by Jesus is explained: rightly understood, it is limited to the prudence of the children of this world in their dealings with one another, and does not refer to their relations with God’ (Jeremias, Parables, 46).

32 Colella, P., ‘Zu Lk 16 7’, ZNW 64 (1973) 124–6Google Scholar (emphasis original).

33 Beavis, ‘Ancient Slavery’, 52. Snodgrass lists earlier scholars with this view (Stories, 409 n. 93; emphasis original).

34 Flusser, ‘Parable’, 183–4 (emphasis original).

35 E.g. Fletcher, ‘Riddle’; du Plessis, ‘Philanthropy or Sarcasm’; Porter, ‘Parable’.

36 Fletcher, ‘Riddle’, 29; cf. du Plessis, ‘Philanthropy or Sarcasm’, 13.

37 Snodgrass, Stories, 409. Williams raises another objection to the ironic interpretation: ‘the steward is not somehow shown to be ridiculous, as the rich fool is’ (‘Is Almsgiving the Point’, 297).

38 E.g. Manson, Sayings, 293; Jeremias, Parables, 46 n. 85; Marshall, Luke, 621–2; Snodgrass, Stories, 415.

39 Williams, ‘Is Almsgiving the Point’, 295–6.

40 E.g. Hiers, ‘Friends’, 31–3; Topel, ‘On the Injustice’, 220–1, 226–7; Fitzmyer, Luke, 1106–7; Ireland, Stewardship, 96–105; Gagnon, R. A. J., ‘A Second Look at Two Lukan Parables: Reflections on the Unjust Steward and the Good Samaritan’, HBT 20 (1998) 1–9Google Scholar, esp. 2–5; Metzger, Consumption and Wealth, 125–8; Giambrone, A., ‘“Friends in Heavenly Habitations” (Luke 16:9): Charity, Repentance, and Luke's Resurrection Reversal’, RB 120 (2013) 529–52Google Scholar, esp. 540–3.

41 Bovon, Luke 2, 450.

42 Pilgrim, W. E., Good News to the Poor: Wealth and Poverty in Luke-Acts (Minneapolis: Augsburg, 1981) 77Google Scholar.

43 Jeremias, Parables, 47; Stein, Introduction to the Parables, 110; Fitzmyer, Luke, 1095–6.

44 On the expression ‘mammon of unrighteousness’, see Kosmala, ‘Parable of the Unjust Steward’; Ireland, Stewardship, 97–9.

45 This point is made with respect to the Gospel of Luke by J. Dupont, Les beatitudes (3 vols.; Paris: Gabalda, 1973) iii.206.

46 The one exception is Joseph of Arimathaea, whom Matthew identifies as a rich man (Matt 27.57). Whether the women in Luke 8.1 are wealthy or not, they contribute their belongings to Jesus and the twelve.

47 In one interpretation of the parable, forgiving debts represents forgiving sins (Topel, ‘On the Injustice’; Loader, ‘Jesus and the Rogue’; Lee, ‘Wasteful Steward’, Reinmuth, ‘Der beschuldigte Verwalter’; Thurén, L., Parables Unplugged: Reading the Lukan Parables in their Rhetorical Context (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2014) 123–47)CrossRefGoogle Scholar. However, in the story the steward does not forgive the debts but merely reduces them.

48 Theissen, G., ‘The Wandering Radicals: Light Shed by the Sociology of Literature on the Early Transmission of Jesus Sayings’, Social Reality and the Early Christians: Theology, Ethics, and the World of the New Testament (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1992) 33–59Google Scholar; idem, ‘“We Have Left Everything …” (Mark 10:28): Discipleship and Social Uprooting in the Jewish-Palestinian Society of the First Century’, Social Reality, 60–93; idem, Sociology of Early Palestinian Christianity (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1978)Google Scholar.

49 Theissen's thesis receives a less positive evaluation from Horsley, R. A., Jesus and the Spiral of Violence: Popular Jewish Resistance in Roman Palestine (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1993) 228–31Google Scholar. See also Schottroff, L. and Stegemann, W., Jesus and the Hope of the Poor (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 1986) 48–9Google Scholar.

50 D. L. Mealand has identified three periods in Palestine from 30 to 70 ce that might serve as historical settings for gospel traditions relating to possessions, wealth and poverty: the initial founding of the Christian community in Jerusalem, the famine of ca. 48 ce, and the crisis in the sixties leading up to the Jewish revolt of 66 ce (Poverty and Expectation in the Gospels (London: SPCK, 1980) 38–41Google Scholar).

51 Johnson, L. T., The Literary Function of Possessions in Luke-Acts (SBLDS 39; Missoula, MT: Scholars, 1977) 2–5Google Scholar; Mealand, D. L., ‘Community of Goods and Utopian Allusions in Acts ii–iv’, JTS n.s. 28 (1977) 96–9CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Klauck, H.-J., ‘Gütergemeinschaft in der klassischen Antike, in Qumran und im Neuen Testament’, RevQ 11 (1982) 47–79Google Scholar, esp. 72–4; Seccombe, D. P., Possessions and the Poor in Luke-Acts (SNTU B/6; Linz: Fuchs, 1982) 200–7Google Scholar.

52 Johnson, Literary Function, 5–8; Haenchen, E., The Acts of the Apostles: A Commentary (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1971) 233–5Google Scholar; Conzelmann, H., A Commentary on the Acts of the Apostles (Hermeneia; Philadelphia: Fortress, 1987) 24Google Scholar.

53 Acts 12.12 refers to the house of Mary, the mother of John Mark, as a meeting place for disciples.

54 Philo, Hypothetica 11.4–5, 10–13; Good Person 12.85–7; Josephus, J.W. 2.119–61; Ant. 18.20, 22. Cf. Klauck, ‘Gütergemeinschaft’, 52–7.

55 B. J. Capper gives a survey of the debate and defends the view that full members of the community practised full community of goods (‘Community of Goods in the Rule of the Community (1QS) and Comparative Analysis of the Advanced Probationer's Renunciation of Administration of his Property in Other Fully Property-Sharing Groups’, QC 20 (2012) 89–150Google Scholar).

56 Johnson, S. E., ‘The Dead Sea Manual of Discipline and the Jerusalem Church of Acts’, The Scrolls and the New Testament (ed. Stendahl, K.; New York: Harper, 1957Google Scholar; reprinted, New York: Crossroad, 1992) 129–42, esp. 131–3; Hengel, M., Property and Riches in the Early Church: Aspects of a Social History of Early Christianity (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1974) 31–4Google Scholar; Mealand, ‘Community of Goods and Utopian Allusions’, 99; Dupont, J., ‘Community of Goods in the Early Church’, The Salvation of the Gentiles: Essays on the Acts of the Apostles (New York: Paulist, 1979) 85–102Google Scholar, esp. 88, 89, 94; Klauck, ‘Gütergemeinschaft’, 68–79; Barrett, C. K., A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Acts of the Apostles (2 vols.; ICC; Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1994) i.167–70, 251–5Google Scholar; Capper, B. J., ‘The Palestinian Cultural Context of Earliest Christian Community of Goods’, The Book of Acts in its First Century Setting, vol. iv: The Book of Acts in its Palestinian Setting (ed. Bauckham, R.; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans; Carlisle: Paternoster, 1995) 323–56Google Scholar; idem, ‘Community of Goods in the Early Jerusalem Church’, ANRW ii.26.2 (1995) 1730–4Google Scholar; Fitzmyer, J. A., The Acts of the Apostles: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary (AB 31; New York: Doubleday, 1998) 270Google Scholar.

57 Some critics attribute this saying to Lukan redaction, but it is more likely that it came from Luke's special material (D. Burkett, Rethinking the Gospel Sources, vol. ii: The Unity and Plurality of Q (ECL 1; Leiden: Brill/Atlanta: SBL, 2009) 190–2).

58 Matt 6.2, 3, 4; Luke 11.41; Acts 3.2, 3, 10; 9.36; 10.2, 4, 31; 24.17

59 Though we can only speculate, it is possible that community members did not expect to need their fields or houses much longer since they believed that Jesus would return soon to take them into the kingdom of God.

60 Acts 11.27–8; Josephus, Ant. 20.51–3; 20.100–1; cf. 3.320. See Gapp, K. S., ‘The Universal Famine Under Claudius’, HTR 28 (1935) 258–65CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Winter, B. W., ‘Acts and Food Shortages’, The Book of Acts in its First Century Setting, vol. ii: The Book of Acts in its Graeco-Roman Setting (ed. Gill, D. W. J. and Gempf, C.; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1994) 59–78Google Scholar.

61 Rom 15.25–9; 1 Cor 16.1–4; 2 Cor 8–9; cf. Acts 24.17.

62 When Paul and others in the New Testament refer to the Jerusalem community as ‘poor’, they use the term in its literal economic sense (Keck, L. E., ‘The Poor among the Saints in the New Testament’, ZNW 56 (1965) 100–29CrossRefGoogle Scholar).

63 On land ownership in Palestine, see M. Hengel, ‘Das Gleichnis von den Weingärtnern Mc 12 1–12 im Lichte der Zenopapyri und der rabbinischen Gleichnisse’, ZNW 59 (1968) 1–39, esp. 20–1; S. Freyne, Galilee from Alexander the Great to Hadrian 323 bce to 135 ce: A Study of Second Temple Judaism (Wilmington, DE: Glazier/Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1980) 156–70.

64 The Zenon papyri from the third century bce describe tenant farmers who thought that the rent collector exacted too much of their produce (Hengel, ‘Das Gleichnis’, 12–16; Freyne, Galilee, 157).

65 A. Jülicher, Die Gleichnisreden Jesu (2 vols.; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1899–19102) i.52–148.

66 E.g. Brown, R. E., ‘Parable and Allegory Reconsidered’, NovT 5 (1962) 36–45Google Scholar; Boucher, M. I., The Mysterious Parable: A Literary Study (CBQMS 6; Washington: The Catholic Biblical Association of America, 1977)Google Scholar; Klauck, H.-J., Allegorie und Allegorese in synoptischen Gleichnistexten (Münster: Aschendorff, 1978)Google Scholar; Gowler, D. B., What Are They Saying about the Parables? (New York/Mahwah, NJ: Paulist, 2000) 85–101Google Scholar; Snodgrass, Stories, 15–17; Wong, S. K., Allegorical Spectrum of the Parables of Jesus (Eugene, OR: Wipf and Stock, 2017)Google Scholar. For a defence and restatement of Jülicher's view, see Thurén, Parables Unplugged, 14–22.

67 Notable instances include the interpretation of the parable of the sower (Mark 4.13–20) and the parable of the wicked tenants (Mark 12.1–12).

68 ‘Underlying [the parable's] symbolism is the idea, familiar to Jewish piety, that a man in practicing almsgiving distributes, not his own property, but property which is already God's’ (Williams, ‘Is Almsgiving the Point’, 294, citing Pirqe Aboth 3.7). Cf. also Did. 1.5.

69 Cf. Chilton, Galilean Rabbi, 120–1.