Parable Of Tenants

Mark 12:1-12 is the story of a landlord who created a vineyard and then rented his land to tenants to take care of. When the landlord tries to collect his harvest, the tenants beat and/or kill the slaves sent by the landlord to do his bidding. Finally, the landlord sends his son to collect the harvest, thinking the tenants won’t do anything to the beloved son. The tenants immediately recognize him as the son and still they kill him. This parable will be examined from three perspectives: the literary world, the socio-historical world, and the ideological world. Literary criticism (the world within the text) is the examination of the characters and what was happening at the time the piece was written. In The Parable of the Tenants, the absentee landlord represents the chief priests of Israel, the slaves sent by the landlord represent the prophets sent by God to the priests, and the beloved son represents Jesus (Oxford Bible Commentary). In the passage, it says the metaphor, “The

The Parable of the Tenants takes place in a vineyard, a symbol for the nation of Israel (Oxford Bible Commentary). During this time, it was common for landowners to rent their land to tenant farmers, who would care for it, and when the right time came, the landowner would send someone to collect the produce. In verse 2 of this passage, it says, “at harvest time”, meaning that a custom at this time was to wait until five years after you planted to freely eat the produce. The first three years after you planted, it was forbidden to eat the the produce, the fourth year was strictly for sacrifice to God, and then during the fifth year, you could eat your produce (Sacra Pagina, 338). One social norm at this time was to own slaves, as it says in verse 2, “he sent a servant to the tenants to collect from them some of the fruit of the