Parable Draft 1

The parable starts with a rich nobleman who decides to go on a journey, and only the extremely wealthy went on journeys. There are also three servants that the nobleman entrusts with some of his wealth, and his servants, aren’t like today’s stereotypical servants, but like a board of trustees. One was entrusted with five "talents," let's call him Five, another entrusted with two "talents," we'll call him Two, and the last with one "talent," he'll be called One. In first Palestine a “talent” was considered a ridiculous amount of money, such as one billion dollars, and to trust his servants with a total amount of eight “talents,” especially one person with five “talents” of his own shows how much money he really has. Five and Two invested their share and were able to double their starting amounts, while buried his "talent" because he was not as willing to invest as Five and Two. When the nobleman arrived from his journey he saw what Five and Two were able to bring back to him and gave them praise, but when One gave him back the original "talent" he was given the noble punished him because the noble felt that One was lazy and that he was trying to make a statement. In the Parable of the Talents I found the deeper meaning to be that, if one were to stand up, and make a statement toward an oppressor one will need the support of any others. To enact change it is fine for one to think of the idea, but it is essential to have many fight for that idea because if one were to stand up to their oppressor alone they would easily get squashed, but en masse they will be much stronger, because as it is know there really is strength in numbers. Herzog said himself that, “When one acts alone, one dies alone,” this relates to Jesus’ teaching in this parable, especially in first century Palestine because to the rich servants were expendable, as we saw in the Parable of the Wicked Tenants, and their lives held no value to their masters . This parable shows a classic class struggle between the upper and lower class, and as always the upper class has a great advantage over the lower class, in both financial and public support, and that is why the lower class can’t fight alone and need the help of higher class citizens, but for the higher class to help they must know where the lower are coming from, such as the Samaritan in the first parable we learned about, or it would take just one upperclassman to lend a hand to get others to, and that is a rare situation. This parable demands that if we want to change something, even for the good, that we can’t do it alone and that help is necessary, especially when the situation involves a rich man and his money. The purpose of this parable was to show how acting irrationally and hastily can get one punished or even killed.