Talk:Parable of the Ten Virgins

Church architecture?

Why is this article listed in Category:Church architecture? It seems that its only claim to be there is that there are sculptures depicting the virgins in some churches. I am going to peruse the article again, and if I don't see something I didn't see the first time, I will remove the category. --Sean Lotz 22:19, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

Wrong image

The image entitled [Image:Strasbourg Münster Eingang.JPG] was not of the Ten Virgins, but of the Virtues laying low the Vices. That image showed the left entrance to Strasbourg Cathedral; the right entrance is the one with the Ten Virgins. I have added those images and deleted this incorrect image. -- Rebecca Kennison 21:26, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

Authenticity

By referring to "A large majority of fellows on the Jesus Seminar, for example..." as evidence to doubt that Christ told this parable, one may be drawn to the (intended?) conclusion that He (Christ) actually did not author it. By using reference of the Jesus Seminar, a creation of Robert Funk and John Crossan, to discuss authenticity of the scripture is clearly being academically dishonest since Funk's and Crossan's intent was to discredit orthodox Christianity (see quotes below). Using a known bias in a manner that seems unbiased is more apt to be part of a politician's playbook than to be part of an academic article for those seeking facts. If mention is to be made of Funk's work, then at least be honest by providing note of his bias that the reader can then research as needed. The correct way of including this would be, "A large majority of fellows on the Jesus Seminar, although led by anti-Christian academic R.W. Funk, designated the parable as merely similar to something Jesus might have said or simply inauthentic."

R.W. Funk - noted academic but decidedly anti-Christian as evidenced from some of his quotes below as seen at <http://www.westarinstitute.org/resources/the-fourth-r/the-coming-radical-reformation/> in his "The Coming Radical Reformation: Twenty-One Theses": "There is not a personal god out there external to human beings and the material world." "The doctrine of special creation of the species died with the advent of Darwinism and the new understanding of the age of the earth and magnitude of the physical universe." "It is no longer credible to think of Jesus as divine." "A Jesus who drops down out of heaven, performs some magical act that frees human beings from the power of sin, rises from the dead, and returns to heaven is simply no longer credible." "The virgin birth of Jesus is an insult to modern intelligence and should be abandoned."

J.D. Crossan, a resigned Catholic priest, who said according to Wikipedia <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Dominic_Crossan>, "many of the gospel stories of Jesus are not factual" and "that it is historically probable that, like all but one known victim of crucifixion, Jesus' body was scavenged by animals rather than being placed in a tomb."

Clearly, use of Messrs. Funk and Crossan body of work to examine the authenticity of Jesus is akin to quoting a Republican right-wing party leader comment's on the validity of Mr. Obama's policies. Lastly, and as a side note, Mr. Funk's quote above referring to the "insult" of virgin birth is one that I think academics should re-investigate in light of recent medical advances ("modern" at the time of Mr. Funk's writing was 1998) with regard to Cloning and In-Vitro Fertilization (see <http://www.linacre.org/cloningethics&medicineWatt.htm>). 74.100.24.178 (talk) 21:53, 20 January 2015 (UTC)

Misinterpretation?

I couldn't find a source for this anywhere, but I believe the context for the version of this in Matthew 25:1-13 relates to the concept described in Matthew 24:23-28. (Or am I ruining some kind of scholarly joke?) Pilast (talk) 20:36, 16 January 2016 (UTC)

Why virgins?

The characters having never had intercourse appears to be irrelevant to the story, so why is it repeatedly mentioned within it that they're virgins & why is it in the story's title? This article should explain the focus on the absence of sex in their lives to the extent that they're repeatedly defined by it. Jim Michael (talk) 23:01, 21 January 2021 (UTC)

The answer is in the article's first paragraph's first sentence.

In the Parable of the Ten Virgins, Jesus tells a story about a party of virgins, perhaps bridesmaids[2] or torchbearers for a procession,[3] chosen to participate in a wedding.

They're attendees at a wedding. While the Greek is literally "virgins", it's used with the cultural knowledge that they're part of such wedding processionals and ceremonies. It is exactly the same as modern Bridesmaids, which is why it is sometimes directly translated as "bridesmaids", and as the "maid" part suggests, bridesmaids are traditionally unmarried (even if that expectation has been loosened substantially in the past century or so).

Some theologians have spilled ink talking about virginity, or the lack of the parable talking about it, or whether it was code for something else, and they can tell you more about the Real Meaning That They're Virgins, but that's true of every part of the Bible - a hundred writers cooked up a thousand theories / interpretations. SnowFire (talk) 07:03, 22 January 2021 (UTC)

It's relevant that they're bridesmaids and that bridesmaids are traditionally unmarried, but why is it relevant that they've never had intercourse? The sex lives (or lack thereof) is irrelevant to being a bridesmaid - she could have no sexual history or had hundreds of lovers. Why isn't the story called the Parable of the Ten Bridesmaids? Why is the Greek translation relevant? Jim Michael (talk) 10:28, 22 January 2021 (UTC)

The New Testament was written in Greek, so the real question is the English translation. Most translations just used the raw Greek word, so that's why it was called the Parable of the Ten Virgins. The parable is called The Parable of the Ten Bridesmaids sometimes in English though, yes ( e.g. in the NRSV - https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew+25%3A1-13&version=NRSV ), for the same reason I described above - that their importance in the story is just as bridesmaids, so call them that. SnowFire (talk) 18:16, 22 January 2021 (UTC)

Parable or allegory

In justifying the deletion of my recent edit to this article, SnowFire declared, "Partial revert - don't really understand the slant of the recent addition? How is it not an allegory? Allegory just means there's a message to the story, that's not controversial. Don't think the word "extra". This statement shows complete ignorance of or, at least, disregard for a whole century of scholarship on the parables of Jesus of Nazareth AND of the actual differences between parables and allegories, even in contemporary literature. On the latter, here is a randomly selected modern statement of the distinction: "An allegory is usually an image, poem, or story whose interpretation can communicate a hidden meaning. In contrast, a parable is a simple story that is used to illustrate moral or spiritual lessons" (https://becomeawritertoday.com/allegory-vs-parable/) As New Testament scholars have long recognized , the "hidden" meanings in allegories, like in the Parable of the Sower, are found in the various narrative components, as understood by the biblical writers, e.g., who is the sower, what is the seed, what is meant by the different types of soil, etc? These are addressed and answered in the accompanying interpretations that follow such stories. By contrast, parables, like the Parable of the Good Samaritan, have simple, direct meanings -- usually explicit in the immediate context. In the case of the Good Samaritan, it simply answers the question, Who is my neighbor? The story of the Ten Virgins (Maidens) is a parable, whose purpose is simply to answer the question, When will the coming and the end of the world occur? It's answer, including the inferential word "therefore," is "be ready because you don't know when this event will happen." Of course, there remain readers of this parable who, like SnowFire, continue to interpret it as an allegory -- my edit acknowledges that. But that is not the position of mainline New Testament scholars.

As for my adding the word "extra," the text of the story clearly states that after the maidens awoke from napping, the unwise ones found that their lamps were "going out." This clearly indicates that the unwise maidens initially had oil in their lamps but, unlike the wise ones, had no "extra" oil.

For these reasons, I have undone the edits by SnowFire. Wctrenchard (talk) 20:16, 6 July 2022 (UTC)

@Wctrenchard: My edit summary got cut off by a slip of the keyboard - hence the sentence fragment on the word "extra". Thanks for bringing this to the talk page, but I still don't think your addition is a good one, at least as it stands, and the WP:ONUS is on people adding content. Your opinion and my opinion don't really matter here. Is there a good, published source that agrees with you? Because you can't just directly cite Bible Verses for why you're correct, that's a violation of no original research and WP:PRIMARY on primary source uses. (Which is a very good rule, so that every crazy person can't just make stuff up and cite the Bible / Constitution / UN charter / etc. directly.) If you can find some published scholar/theologian who says this and thinks it's important, I won't complain if you edit in "According to XYZ, this should be interpreted as a parable not an allegory and here's why". But I don't think it can be added as "fact" in Wikipedia's voice unless there's a lot of sources saying this and few going the other way. Anyway, I don't think you quite understand my position; I'm not saying I agree with your distinction but think that this story falls on the "allegory" side of the line, but rather making the more boring, grammatical point that parables are a subtype of allegories, so basically all parables are also allegories. I believe you if you want to draw a sharp line and define the terms such that there is a more stark difference, but I'm not sure that's the common meaning afoot.

Otherwise, I realize it's not the main focus, but you added some extra verbiage I don't see the merits of. This is more phrasing / grammar nitpicks, but we don't need to write "extra" constantly, the context makes it clear what's going on. (This is the part of the edit summary that got cut off.) SnowFire (talk) 20:40, 6 July 2022 (UTC)

I guess you already mention that you acknowledge there are others who call it an allegory, but since I happen to be at a well-stocked library right now... the 2001 Oxford Bible Commentary opens with "The parable of the wise and foolish virgins is an allegory of the parousia..." as its first sentence. The 1988 New Jerome Biblical Commentary says "Partially an allegory, it is a Matthean redactional development..." in its second sentence, but the non-allegory part is the "general eschatological teaching of Jesus" (i.e. not the same distinction you're making). This isn't cherry-picking, I just grabbed two at random off the shelf and they both called it an allegory. Again, I don't have any complaints if you want to bring this opinion up if it's properly attributed to some person, I just disagree with saying this in Wikipedia's voice as if it's the standard opinion you'd find checking a Bible encyclopedia, like the two I just checked. SnowFire (talk) 21:12, 6 July 2022 (UTC)

Seems fine as it is currently. "Allegory" is heavily referenced, & it would be silly to attribute this standard interpretation to any particular source in the text, except maybe Augustine. Johnbod (talk) 21:28, 6 July 2022 (UTC)

I have revised my added paragraph with a more nuanced and documented statement of one branch of the scholarly assessment of this parable and provided supporting sources and citations. Wctrenchard (talk) 07:44, 8 July 2022 (UTC)