I’m not sure how you got a support for expansion theory from
these accounts because the parables are ironic parodies, the first two
describing “expansions” that normally wouldn’t occur. The last illustration you
point to has nothing to do with expansion at all, not even shape.
Matthew 13.31 is a parody of Ezekiel 17.23; 31.5 and Daniel
4.7-9, 17-19. It’s an ironic comment because mustard seeds are tiny but can sometimes
grow into trees due to their destructive nature of killing all other vegetation
in their vicinity and sucking all the nutrients from the surrounding area that would keep the other vegetation
alive. (Compare Daniel 2.44.) Because of this Jewish law during the Second
Temple era regulated the planting of mustard to avoid the results seen
in this parable from ever happening.
Verse 33 is also a parable of irony because it is an
exaggeration. Though a leavening agent, yeast has its limits. You have to have
enough for your job or it won’t work. The woman in the parable is working with “three
measures” of flour, which is approximately 60 lbs. The result is unexpected
because the dough should not rise under these circumstances if the woman used the small amount of yeast most households had on hand. If you applied the
Baker’s percentage (which tells us how much yeast is required to make that much
flour rise), that would require 2.4 lbs of yeast. That’s a monstrous amount, and
likely not the idea Jesus had in mind due to the genre of the illustration.
Jesus was contrasting this parable with the mustard seed one, tiny beginnings
causing great expansion. 2.4 lbs is not small. Scientifically this parable is impossible with normal household amounts people even keep on hand today, and Jewish
men and women who baked in Jesus’ day would have recognized this absurdity--which is the point of irony.
Verse 45 is using an old Jewish illustration common to
Hebrew culture which relates pearls to piety and study of Torah, such as
appears in the Acts of Peter 20; Avot of Rabbi Natan 18A; and Peskita Rabbati
23.6. The shape of the pearl is not the issue in Jewish culture. It is the
value of such a rare find, like that of a precious stone such as a ruby or
emerald. To see value in the shape would be introducing into the reading of a
text an anachronism foreign to the writer and audience that commonly used the
item with a different definition.
In the end, I am sure you have answers for these points I raised developed from those
who validated your conclusions (no scientific theory can be called a “theory”
without independent confirmation from disinterested parties according to the
method).
While I don’t believe in Jesus Christ, as a Jewish
philologist I am quite familiar with the parables of Jesus and the different
type of parable genres used in ancient rabbinical and early Christian cultures.
The “parables” of Jesus are actually “mashal,” a literary form which included
not only irony like the first two parables discussed above, but allegories,
axioms, proverbs, and similitudes. Does the type of parable (genre) affect how
they relate to your conclusions? Do they figure in at all?
And how did you get a theory of expansion from the first two
ironic parables, since they are discussing things that generally never if ever
happened?
{ filling in for poopsie ;0) }