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One Hundred-Fold Yield – Miraculous or Mundane? Matthew 13.8, 23; Mark 4.8, 20; Luke 8.8

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 February 2009

Robert K. McIver
Robert K. McIver
Affiliation:
(Avondale College, PO Box 19, Cooranbong, NSW 2265, Australia)
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Extract

In the second volume of their ICC commentary on Matthew, as they comment on the parable of the sower, W. D. Davies and Dale C. Allison state that yields of thirty-fold, sixty-fold, or one hundred-fold ‘do not seem obviously out of the ordinary. We therefore register our disagreement with Jeremias. The yield in our parable is not spectacularly overdone.’ Davies and Allison are not alone in saying this of the yield of the seed that fell on the good soil in the parable, although most commentators do interpret the passage in terms of the miraculous yield of the seed sown on the good soil. This matter is of some importance in the interpretation of the parable, though, because if Davies and Allison are correct, then the parable has quite a different focus than that generally understood. The parable would then only highlight the variation in fruitage, not the miraculous yield.

Type
Short Studies
Information
New Testament Studies , Volume 40 , Issue 4 , October 1994 , pp. 606 - 608
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1994

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References

1 Jeremias, Joachim, The Parables of Jesus (rev. ed.; London: SCM, 1963) 150 n. 84Google Scholar, citing the statistics of Dalman, Gustaf, Arbeit und Sitte in Palastina (Hildesheim: George 01ms, 1964) 153–65Google Scholar, states that a ‘tenfold yield counts as a good harvest, and a yield of seven and a half as an average one’.

2 A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Gospel according to Saint Matthew (ICC; Edinburgh: Clark, 1991) 2.385Google Scholar.

3 E.g. Payne, Philip Barton, ‘The Authenticity of the Parable of the Sower and Its Interpretation’, in Gospel Perspectives (ed. France, R. T. and Wenham, D.Sheffield: JSOT, 1980) 1.183Google Scholar; and Linnemann, Eta, Parables of Jesus (London: SPCK, 1966) 177 & 181 n. 13Google Scholar. Both Payne and Linnemann argue that it is the yield of the individual seed that is in view, and that the number of grains on each ear is quite within normal expectations. Payne further points out, the Greek is expressed in the singular (e.g.… μν καν …, Matt 13.23), but whether this is evidence that the reference is to a single seed is certainly debatable. By such reasoning, the singulars throughout the passage, such π δέ έπ ετrho; ς (Matt 13.20) or όν καλ γν σπαερυ (23) are also references to single seeds, a highly unlikely reading, to say the least. In fact, although it is possible that… ό μέƲ έκατόν … could be a reference to individual seeds, the use of the singular throughout the parable makes it the less likely meaning. Nor should it distract from the fact that all the seeds that fell on the good soil gave these extraordinary yields. They were distinguished in that some gave thirty-fold, while others gave one hundred-fold. None gave a lower yield.

4 Varro, Rerum Rusticarum 1.44.2Google Scholar; Theophrastus, Plants 8.7.4Google Scholar; Strabo, Geography 15.3.11Google Scholar; Pliny, Natural History 18.21.94–5Google Scholar.

5 Rei Rusticae 3.3.4. The translation is that of Ash, H. B. in the Loeb edition, Lucius Junius Moderatus Columella on Agriculture (London: Heinemann, 1941) 255Google Scholar. As Duncan-Jones, Richard points out in The Economy of the Roman Empire: Quantitative Studies (2nd ed.; Cambridge: Cambridge University, 1982) 49 n. 37Google Scholar, ‘there is no other contemporary average figure’. Better evidence exists for sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Italy, at which time yields of 4–, 5–, and 6–fold were recorded, so Aldo de Maddalena, ‘II mondo rurale Italiano nel cinque e nel seicento’, Revista Storica Italiana 76 (1964) 425Google Scholar. Duncan-Jones (p. 328) rejects the accuracy of one writer on the basis that a seven-fold yield in Italy is improbable.

6 Cicero suggests that under favourable circumstances the land in the best growing area of Sicily might yield eight-fold, or by special blessing of heaven, ten-fold; c. Verrem 2.3.47. V. M. Scramuzza comments that experience in modern Sicilian agriculture shows that this is not an unreasonable claim, and he recounts that he himself has known yield to vary from less than the seed planted, to a twenty-four-fold yield: ‘Roman Sicily’, in An Economic Survey of Ancient Rome (ed. Frank, T.; Baltimore: John Hopkins, 1937) 260f. n. 4Google Scholar.

7 B. Ketub. 112a, the translation is that of Daiches, S., in the Hebrew-English Edition of the Babylonian Talmud: Kethuboth (London: Soncino, 1971)Google Scholar.

8 Oakman, Douglas E., Jesus and the Economic Questions of His Day (Lewiston: Mellen, 1986) 63Google Scholar; Avi-Yonah, Michael, The Holy Land from the Persian to the Arab Conquests (536 B.C. to A.D. 640): A Historical Geography (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker, 1966) 195Google Scholar. The yields given in Dalman are derived from 20th-century statistics, by and large, and reflect the improvement in seed quality and in agricultural practice that has occurred since the first century.

9 So van Bath, B. H. Slicher, ‘Yield Ratios, 810–1820’, A.A.G. Bijdragen 10 (1963) 12Google Scholar. The detailed evidence on which this conclusion is based is found pp. 30–70 for wheat. See also the graphs and summary tables in van Bath, B. H. Slicher, ’De Oogstopbrengsten van Verschillende Gewassen, Voornamelijk Granen, in Verhouding tot het Zaaizaad’, A.A.G. Bijdragen 9 (1963) 29–125, esp. pp. 54, 61, 108Google Scholar. In van Bath's group II countries (France, Spain, Italy) yield-ratios start at 2.7-fold in the years 800-49, increase to 3.0-fold in 1150–99, to 4.8-fold in the years 1300–49. The highest recorded average yields for those countries up to 1820 occurred in 1750–99, when it reached 7.1-fold (p. 108).

10 Modern statistics tend to be given in terms of either total yield or net yield (total yield minus seed), rather than in yield ratios, thus these figures are only approximations. They are derived from Crop Production in Dry Regions (ed. Polunin, N.; London: Leonard Hill, 1972) 63–4Google Scholar, using the optimum seeding rate of 70 kg/ha listed on p. 48, rather than the more usual rates of 120–50 kg/ha. The average yield in Israel for 1964 was 2270 kg/ha (a yield of 32-fold), which compares with 1040 in 1962 (a yield of 15-fold), and an average of 670 for 1948–52 (a yield of 9.5-fold, if they were using the optimum amount of seed).

11 15.3.10. The translation is that of Jones, H. L., in the Loeb, edition of The Geography of Strabo (London: Heinemann, 1961) 7.171Google Scholar.

12 Neither were the Rabbis exempt from the temptation to exaggerate. One thinks of R. Jacob b. Dostai's story that once he walked ankle deep in milk and honey for a distance of three miles, an event showing the truth of Exod 3.8; Num 13.27, etc. The blessings of the future were also graphically illustrated. One grape would be placed in the corner of the house where it would be directly tapped for wine, because the least that any single grape would contain would be thirty kegs. Both these examples are found in b. Ketub. 111b.

13 Plants 8.7.1.