Suppose the apostle Luke, momentarily transported from biblical Palestine, were to listen in as I told a joke about George W. Bush, Oprah, and a used-car salesman fighting over the last parachute in a plummeting airplane. He would be pretty much guaranteed to miss the unexpected humor of the punchline. I am similarly disadvantaged when I read the parables of Jesus. I don’t know all the things the listeners assumed when Jesus introduced the situation, I don’t know how each character was expected to act and speak, and I am not the slightest bit shocked by the things that shocked his audience.

Kenneth Bailey’s two books Poet and Peasant and Through Peasant Eyes, published in the 1970s, were written to help contemporary Western readers overcome these deficiencies. He lived and taught in the Middle East for much of his life, including decades of residence in rural villages. He appears to have written the books in consultation with a large network of Middle Eastern friends and scholars, as well as with his own considerable knowledge and research of ancient Middle Eastern languages and literature.

These books were scholarly, but not at all in an abstract way. Bailey approached the parables of Luke a passage at a time, systematically and thoroughly, teasing out the literary form, the cultural presumptions of the audience, and the response Jesus might have meant to provoke from them.

Because the gospels were not written in the same language that Jesus spoke, and because the existing manuscripts were edited after the evangelists wrote them down, analyzing the original speech of Jesus often involves a fascinating detective quest. Bailey deduces much about the history of the manuscripts simply by analyzing the literary form. Often he includes his own guesses about Aramaic wordplay in the original parable, based on his research of regional languages and cultures. As a literature major and a language aficionado, I found these explorations delightful.

Reading Bailey’s analysis of each parable is intellectually satisfying, but a greater reward is a clearer understanding of Jesus as a person. I was struck when I read the following conclusion to Bailey’s treatment of Luke 16:1–13, in which he rejects textual criticism that would disunite the parable of the unjust steward from the ensuing poem about God and mammon:

Theories that suggest the second block of material to be a gradual collection of early Church comments on the parable prove to be inadequate to the structural and theological nature of the material. The poem is the work of a skilled Palestinian poet in the first century. There remains no reason to doubt that the author was Jesus of Nazareth.

Now maybe I had heard Jesus referred to as a skilled poet before, but if I did I had always gotten the sense that people were repeating things they had always been told were true about Jesus—the party line, so to say—without any supporting evidence. Because he was divine, of course he would be great at everything. Also, these kind of people generally seemed not to know anything about poetry. But with Bailey’s guidance through each passage, with his painstakingly-supplied evidence, I came to a much greater respect for its artistry, and I love the idea that Jesus enjoyed literary wordplay.

What is great about this book is that helps you see for yourself all those well-rehearsed attributes of Jesus: brilliant theologian, quick-witted, subtle, perceptive, compassionate, defender of women and the oppressed, bold, and fascinating. A committed Christian is meant to invest substantial time in getting to know Jesus better, and in fact the main goal of a Christian’s life is to become more like Jesus. But I have always found Jesus very hard to get to know.

Bailey takes the limited, cryptic biblical information we are given and vividly describes the dynamics of each situation. Time after time he brings out Jesus’s criticism of self-righteousness and his teaching of humble reliance on God’s righteousness and mercy. It is one thing to be told that these concepts generate from Jesus’s teaching in a vague, theoretical way. It is another thing to see for yourself how consistent the good news of grace was, and just how boldly and beautifully and surprisingly Jesus proclaimed it. ( )

After reading this book (actually you get two books for the price of one), you will have a much greater appreciation of not only the parables but how scripture was translated from ancient text into our modern day Bible. The first book, Poet and Peasant, really gives you an in-depth look at how Bailey formulates his views on scripture. He goes into how scripture passages are analyzed. This assists the Bible student to better understand concepts and the thought process of the author. It is really “dry” at times and you will visualize yourself back in a literature course studying the poetic rhyme schemes of ancient Greek literature. To have an idea what Bailey is talking about in this and other books you need this information as a basis. He also gives the reader a glimpse of the 1st Century AD culture and how it affects the interpretation of the parables. In the second half of the book he utilizes the methods described to analyze in detail four parables and two poems (the Unjust Stewart - Luke 16:1-8, Mammoth and God – Luke 16:9-13, the Friend at Midnight - Luke 11:5-8, the Father’s Gift - Luke 11:9-13, the Lost Sheep and the Lost Coin – Luke 15:4-10, the Father and Two Lost Sons – Luke 15:11-32). I would recommend that you read it first then read Through Peasant Eyes which analyzes in detail parables in Luke (The Two Debtors 7:36-50, The Fox, the Funeral, and the Furrow 9:57-62, The Good Samaritan 10:25-37, The Rich Fool 12:13-21, Pilate, the Tower, and the Fig Tree 13:1-9, The Great Banquet 14:15-24, The Obedient Servant 17:7-10, The Judge and the Widow 18:1-8, The Pharisee and the Tax Collector 18:9-14, and The Camel and the Needle 18:18-30).
You will be able to relate to the parables as viewed in the times and through the eyes of Jesus’ audience. This book gives you the foundation for future study and a foundation for better understanding of Bailey’s other writings. I would recommend reading this book before any of his other works. ( )

book one: poet and peasant. the first half of bailey's book on the parables focuses on the method of interpretation. having lived in the middle east for many years, bailey proves to be an authoritative interpreter. as the title hints, bailey's methodological approach to interpretation seeks to see through the eyes of the recipients, the everyday peasant. highly recommended.

This book should be read by all Christians interested in gospel study. Bailey's work on the parables is eye-opening as he expounds on the culture of Palestine and and literary style used by Luke. This is by far my favorite book and the one I have learned the most from. If there were one book I would recommend to any educational Christian, this would be it ( )

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