A Comparative Analysis Of The Thematic Structure Of Parable Openings In The Gospel Of Matthew And Luke

Different from metaphor or simile, parable contains much more information than it seems to. What message does a parable try to convey? This question has been discussed by a great number of scholars from various fields. And it is still a hotly debated issue.Most of the parables are found in the New Testament, especially the Gospels. Three of the four Gospels have prolific parabolic materials. Some of the parables have been shared by the two or even the three Gospels. Does the Gospel writers record the parables in the same way or do they leave their own mark in recording the parables? This thesis tries to answer the question by examining the opening words of the parables.The discussion in this thesis is based on the Theme-Rheme theory of Functional grammar, which has been generally applied to the field of discourse analysis. It is proved to be effective in analyzing the underlying structure of a text. The thesis will analyze the thematic structure of the opening sentences of the parables in the Gospel of Matthew and Luke. The aim is to find out their features in opening a parable and how their openings serve their purpose of writing.The thesis is divided into six chapters. The first two chapters are introduction and literature review. In these two chapters the writer gives an introduction on some important terms and overviews the previous studies on parable and thematic analysis. Chapter three and chapter four discusses Matthew's and Luke's parable opening singly. The writer first separates the parable openings into different groups according to their mood and then analyzes their thematic structures, and in the same time discusses how the different thematic structures affect their organizing of information. The fifth chapter compares the thematic features of the openings of the two Gospels. It focuses on the parables which are shared by the two Gospels and discusses the similarities and the differences of the two Gospels by analyzing these parables. The last chapter gives a conclusion on the findings of the thesis.This thesis differs from the previous studies by applying the Theme theory of functional grammar to the analysis of the parables. It focuses on the opening words, where the thematic element exists, in order to find out the topic of the parables. It is found that typical Theme of a parable's opening sentence is simple and unmarked Theme. Matthew tends to put given information within the paragraph Theme while Luke's paragraph Theme carries new information. Each of the two Gospel writers has his specific concern in recording a parable. The analysis of the opening words is helpful to understand the focus of the parable.