Rascal
The parable of the merciless believer ( Matthew 18 : 23–35 EU ), also called a rogue servant in the tradition of the Luther Bible , compares the kingdom of heaven with a king who wanted to settle accounts with his servants and deals with the question of forgiveness .
action
A king wants to collect the debts of his debtors. One of his servants owes him the unaffordable sum of 10,000 talents . Since he is unable to repay this sum, the king wants him and his family to be enslaved. The servant falls down in front of him and asks for mercy until he has paid everything, whereupon the king forgives him all of his great debts.
Outside, the servant meets one of his fellow servants, who owes him the small sum of 100 denarii . The merciless servant grabs him by the collar, chokes him and demands that he pay everything. However, the fellow servant cannot pay, falls down and asks for patience. The servant doesn't want to, goes away and has his fellow servant thrown into jail until he has paid the debt.
Other servants who have observed everything are indignant and report to their master what has happened. He calls the servant and says: “You bad servant! I forgave you all of your debt because you asked me to! Couldn't you have forgiven your fellow servant as I did for you? ”The king becomes very angry and leaves the servant to the torturers. The parable closes with the words: “So will your heavenly Father also do you if you do not forgive his brother each with your whole heart” ( Mt 18:35 LUT ).
"Schalksknecht"
In Martin Luther's translation of the Bible, the king's address to the wicked servant reads:
"You schalck, I forgave all of this guilt that you asked me to do"
"You scoundrel, I forgave you all of this debt because you asked me (Luther Bible, 1912)"
In the medieval word “ rogue ”, in addition to malice, there is also a certain cunning, cunning or trickery with which the servant has stolen the forgiveness of the creditor, although he did not deserve it because he was not ready to forgive himself. Alternatively, the "rogue" can also be understood as a fool who does not understand that through his ruthlessness he is gambling away the mercy that was bestowed on him. All these connotations are not contained in the simpler translation of the Greek original (δοῦλε πονηρέ) with “bad servant”, as used in the modernized versions of the Luther Bible since 1984. The Latin Vulgate Bible speaks of "Serve nequam" ("You useless servant"); the German standard translation used in the Roman Catholic area reproduces the expression as: "You wretched servant!" (or since 2016: "You wretched servant!").
construction
The parable is divided into three scenes. It is well composed and appears closed through numerous repetitions of words.
Genre, parallels
According to its literary genre, the parable is a parable : the story is told in the past , its content goes beyond the everyday and has a clearly distinguishable image and factual half.
The story contains echoes of rabbinical storytelling traditions . There are no parallels in other New Testament scriptures; the only known source is the Gospel of Matthew .
Interpretations
The king is a metaphor for God who forgives people their guilt. Imitation of the divine deed is expected of man. He should forgive his fellow man just as God has forgiven him.
The motif of the reckoning is reminiscent of the last judgment, in which God judges people according to whether they have passed on the mercy of God or have acted hard-heartedly.
In the anti-Judaist reading, the merciless servant was allegorically equated with the Jewish people and the fellow servant with the pagans, and the torturers were interpreted as the angels of judgment or destroyers of Jerusalem .
context
The parable tells of a king and his servant. Königsknecht is a term for a high civil servant, minister or governor in the ancient Orient. The debt could be the tax revenue of his province. An unimaginably high debt amount exceeding all real conditions is deliberately mentioned. The amount of 10,000 talents that the servant owes his ruler and cannot teach would correspond to 100 million denarii and by far exceed the annual income of a provincial prince of the Hellenistic Orient. The annual income of Herod the Great was 900 talents, the tax revenue of Galilee and Perea in AD 4 was 200 talents. Under Jewish law, however, there was no personal liability for such debts from tax farmers ; selling women into bondage was also generally prohibited. The parable is evidently not set in a specifically Jewish environment, but is based on harder practices such as were common among Hellenistic potentates.
Both the almost unaffordable sum of money and the threatened penalty are hyperbolic means that reinforce the message effect.
The parable of the “rogue servant” (= bad servant) comes at the end of a speech composition which Lutheran exegetes often call a “congregational speech”, which encompasses the entire chapter 18 of the Gospel of Matthew and in which Jesus teaches his disciples how Christians should treat one another. The speech begins with the teaching that he who wants to be great in the kingdom of heaven must serve and focuses on the topics of admonition and forgiveness. A second well-known parable from this speech is the parable of the lost sheep .
literature
- Peter Stuhlmacher: Biblical Theology of the New Testament . Volume 2 From the Pauline School to the Revelation of John . Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht. Göttingen 1999. ISBN 3-525-53596-1
- Ulricht Luz: The Gospel according to Matthew . EKK 1/3. Benziger / Neukirchner. Neukirchen-Vluyn 1997. ISBN 3-545-23129-1
- Joachim Jeremias: The parables of Jesus . Vandenhoeck, Göttingen 1970. ISBN 3-525-53514-7
Web links
- Tell me, Schalksknecht ... Interviews with people from the Bible (45) in www.sonntagsblatt-bayern.de
Individual evidence
- ↑ Martin Luther: Das Newe Testament Deutzsch , Wittenberg 1522.
- ↑ Novum Testamentum Graece , 28th edition of the German Bible Society, Stuttgart 2012 ( online ).
- ↑ Gerhard Bauer: Save the "Luther German". In: Deutsche Sprachwelt 23 (spring 2006).
- ↑ Catholic Bible Institute (Ed.): The Bible. Standard translation of the Holy Scriptures. Complete edition. Stuttgart 1980, ISBN 3-920-609-25-5 , page 1099 (commentary).
- ↑ Joachim Jeremias : The parables of Jesus. 11th edition, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 1996, ISBN 3-525-33498-2 , p. 138.
- ↑ a b Small Jerusalem Bible. Herder translation with the complete commentary of the Jerusalem Bible. Herder, Freiburg im Breisgau 1968, ISBN 978-3-451-08760-8 , p. 37 (Mt 18,24).
- ↑ a b Katholisches Bibelwerk (Ed.): The Bible. Standard translation of the Holy Scriptures. Complete edition. Stuttgart 2002, ISBN 3-920-609-44-1 , page 1110 (commentary).
- ↑ Joachim Jeremias: The parables of Jesus. 11th edition, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 1996, p. 139.
