Matt 22:1-14	Luke 14:16-24	Thom 64:1-12
1 Jesus again responded	16 Jesus told him:	1 Jesus said:
to them
and told them parables.
2 "The empire of Heaven *
is like a king	"Someone	"A man
who gave	was giving	was receiving
a wedding celebration	a big dinner
for his son.
	and invited
	many guests.	guests.
	17At	When he had
	the dinner hour	prepared the dinner,
3 He sent his slaves	the host sent his slave	he sent his slave
to summon those	to tell	to invite
who had been invited	the guests,	the guests.
to the wedding,
[see Matt 22:4 below]	'Come, its ready now.'
but	18 But one by one
they	they all began
declined to attend.	to make excuses.
4 He sent additional slaves
with the instructions:
'Tell those invited,
'Look, the feast is ready,	[see Luke 14:17 above]
the oxen and fat calves
have been slaughtered,
and everything is set.
Come to the wedding.'
5 But
they couldn't be bothered
and went off,		2 The slave went
one	The first	to the first
		and said,
		'My master
		invites you.'
	said to him,	3 He replied,
to his own farm	'I just bought a farm and	'Some merchants
one to his business,	I have to go	owe me money;
6 while the rest	and inspect it,	they're coming
seized his slaves,		to me tonight.
attacked and killed them.		I have to go
		and give them instructions.
	please excuse me.'	Please excuse me
		from dinner.'
	19 And	4 The slave
	another	went to another
		and said,
		'My master
		has invited you.'
	said,	5 He said to him,
	'I just bought	'I've bought
	five pairs of oxen	a house
	and I'm on my way	and I've
		been called away
	to check them out;	for a day.
	please excuse me.'	I won't have time.'
	20And	6 He went
	another	to another
		and said,
		'My master
		invites you.'
	said,	7 He said to him,
	'I	'My friend
	just got married	is to be married
	and	and
		I have to arrange
		the banquet.
	so I cannot	I won't be able
	attend.'	to come.
		Please excuse me
		from dinner.'
		8 He went
		to another
		and said,
		'My master
		invites you.'
		9 He said to him,
		'I've bought
		an estate and
		I'm going
		to collect the rent.
		I won't be able
		to come.
		Please excuse me.'
	21 So the slave	10 The slave
	came back	returned
	and reported	and said
	to his master.	to his master,
		'Those whom you invited
		to dinner
		have asked
		to be excused.'
7 Now the king	Then the master	11 The master
	of the house
was outraged	was outraged
and sent his armies
to destroy those murderers
and burn their city.
8 Then he tells his slaves,	and instructed his slave,	said to his slave,
'The wedding celebration
is ready, but
those we've invited
didn't deserve it.
9 So	'Quick,
go	go out	'Go out
to the city gates	into the streets	on the roads
	and alleys of the town,
and invite	and usher in the poor,	and bring back
anybody you find	and crippled,	whomever you find
	the blind and the lame.'
to the wedding.'		to have dinner.
	22And the slave said,
	'Master, your orders
	have been carried out,
	and there's still room.'
	23 And the master said
10 Those slaves	to the slave,
went out	'Then go out
into the streets	into the roads
	and the country lanes
and collected everybody	and force people
they could find,	to come in
the good and the bad alike.
And the wedding hall	so my house
was full of guests.	will be filled.
	24 For I'm telling you,
	not one of those	12 Buyers
	who were invited	and merchants
	will taste	will not enter
	my dinner.'"	the places
		of my Father.'"
11 The king came in
to see the guests for himself
and noticed this one man
without proper attire.
12 And he says to him,
'Look, pal,
how'd you get in here
without dressing
for the occasion?'
And he was speechless.
13 Then the king
ordered his waiters,
"Bind him hand and foot
and throw him out
into the utter darkness.
They'll weep and
grind their teeth out there.'
14 After all,
many are called
but few are chosen."

* See cameo essay on the empire of God

Structure

The plots of these parables about dinner guests in Matthew, Luke and Thomas have a common core;

• a man gives a meal;
• servant(s) invite guests;
• guests decline to come;
• servant(s) told to gather people from the street.

Matthew and Luke also share some other details that are not in Thomas:

• word that the meal is ready;
• the host gets angry;
• the house is filled.

Thus, there were probably two early variants: Thomas and Q. But all the present performances show signs of extensive ad lib editing.

Revisions

Both Thomas and Luke preserve features of orality:

• a repeated invitation (Thomas)
• three excuses (Luke).

Thomas adds a fourth excuse about merchants to provide a basis for a concluding saying about barring businessmen (Thom 64:12). The more sweeping exclusion in Luke 14:24 is more appropriate to Q's context (see Luke 13:28-30//Matt 8:11-12).

Luke has two searches to find replacements for the original invitees (Luke14:22-24). Matthew, like Thomas, mentions only one (Matt 22:9-10). In Luke 14:21 the servant's first search focuses on the poor and handicapped. This underscores the themes of a passage that Luke interpolated into Q's sequence just before this parable (Luke 14:12-14; see outline above). So he probably added this motif to Q's parable as well.

Matthew gives the parable a different preface --- the parable of the tenants (from Mark 12//Matt 21:33ff). And he interprets both parables as historical allegories. A king (God) prepares a wedding for his son (Jesus) and invites his subjects (Israel) to the feast. They scorn the invitation and kill the king's servants (the prophets). The king sends (Roman) troops to burn their city (Jerusalem) and summons every outsider (Gentiles), good or bad, to the celebration.

Before moralizing, however, Matthew adds a second scene with a contrasting plot (Matt 22:11-13): a person is ejected from a wedding, bound hand and foot, just for not dressing properly. The scenes are incongruous if read as a single story. For then a passerby in the first act would be punished in the second for not preparing for a party to which he had not been invited in the first place. Thus, Matt 22:11-13 is either an independent parable that Matthew appended to the parable of the wedding guests due to common catchwords or as a warning aimed at Gentile Christians after the destruction of Jerusalem (70 CE). In either case, Matthew is the sole source. So these plot elements were probably not from Q.

Attribution

The dinner guests	%	Red	Pink	Grey	Black	WA	Print
Luke 14:16-23 Luke 14:24 Matt 22:2-13 Matt 22:14 Thom 64:1-11 Thom 64:12		14 0 4 0 28 0	57 0 18 0 62 0	11 0 32 0 0 0	18 99 46 99 10 99	56 00 26 00 69 00	pink black grey black pink black

The different concluding aphorisms were probably not part of the original parable. The Fellows agreed that none could be traced to Jesus. Yet 90% of the Seminar held that Jesus said something like Thom 64:1-11. The plot is graphic, yet relatively simple. Surprisingly, it does not portray the slighted host as angry. He prepares the dinner before sending out last minute invitations. He just does not want to eat alone. Any company will do. This parable could have served as a retort to charges that Jesus was not particular about his own eating companions (see Luke 7:34//Matt 11:19). In fact, Luke and Matthew's expansions of this plot betray an uneasiness about a saying whose original conclusion opened the door to just about anybody. Thus, Thom 64:1-11 was almost cast red. Matthew's allegory, on the other hand, is so full of inconsistencies in its narrative that it just escaped being cast black.