This page was created on November 11, 2004
This page was last updated on December 11, 2004

—Overview
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ON IMAGINATION

Imagination is the one weapon in the war against reality.
--Jules de Gaultier

To invent, you need a good imagination and a pile of junk.
--Thomas A. Edison (1847 - 1931)

Imagination is more important than knowledge...
--Albert Einstein (1879 - 1955)

You cannot depend on your eyes when your imagination is out of focus.
--Mark Twain (1835 - 1910), A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court

Skill without imagination is craftsmanship and gives us many useful objects such as wickerwork picnic baskets. Imagination without skill gives us modern art.
--Tom Stoppard (1937 - ), "Artist Descending a Staircase"

He is indebted to his memory for his jests and to his imagination for his facts.
--Richard Brinsley Sheridan (1751 - 1816)

Love is the triumph of imagination over intelligence.
--H. L. Mencken (1880 - 1956)

There is nothing more dreadful than imagination without taste.
--Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749 - 1832)

PARABLES ALLEGORY AND IMAGINATION:

PARABLES Stories, especially those of Jesus, told to provide a vision of life, especially life in God’s kingdom. Parable means a putting alongside for purposes of comparison and new understanding. Parables utilize pictures such as metaphors or similes and frequently extend them into a brief story to make a point or disclosure. Nevertheless, a parable is not synonymous with an allegory.

The difference between a parable and an allegory turns on the number of comparisons. A parable may convey other images and implications, but it has only one main point established by a basic comparison or internal juxtaposition. For example, the parable of the mustard seed (Mark 4:30-32; Matt. 13:31-32; Luke 13:18-19) compares or juxtaposes a microscopically small seed initially with a large bush eventually.

An allegory makes many comparisons through a kind of coded message. It correlates two areas of discourse, providing a series of pictures symbolizing a series of truths in another sphere. Each detail is a separate metaphor or what some call a cryptogram. If you are an insider who knows, you receive the second or intended message. Otherwise, you can follow only the surface story. Jonathan Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels is an allegory as is John Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress. In the Old Testament, Ezekiel recounts an incident in nature about great eagles and vines (17:3-8) and then assigns a very allegorical application to each of the details (17:9-18).

The word allegory never appears in the Gospels. Parable is the basic figure Jesus used. Though no parable in the Synoptic Gospels is a pure allegory, some parables contain subordinated allegorical aspects, such as the parable of the wicked tenants (Mark 12:1-12; Matt 21:36-46; Luke 20:9-19). Even in the parable of the Mustard Seed the passing reference to the birds of heaven nesting in the branches (Mark 4:32) may be an allegorical detail, but the distinction of the parable establishing a basic, single comparison remains and aids interpretation.

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