What Does the Parable of the Talents Mean?
Looking at Matthew 25:14–30 with ancient eyes
What does the Parable of the Talents mean? This woodcut from Historiae Celebriores Veteris Testamenti Iconibus Representatae—dated to 1712—depicts the Talents’ parable (Matthew 25:14–30). Two men bring the money that was entrusted to them back to their master, while a third man searches for his money outside.
What does the Parable of the Talents mean?
Jesus tells the Parable of the Talents (or the Talents’ parable) to his disciples. It appears in Matthew 25:14–30, and another version of the parable can be found in Luke 19:11–27. The story in Matthew 25:14–30 unfolds as such: A man goes away on a trip. Before he leaves, he entrusts money to his slaves. To one he gives five talents, to the second he gives two talents, and to the third he gives a single talent. The first two slaves double their money; they give the original investment and their profit to their master when he returns. The third slave, however, buries his talent out in a field instead of trying to make a profit; he returns only this when his master comes back. The master is pleased with the first two slaves, but he is dissatisfied with the third’s actions. He reprimands this slave and casts him out into the darkness.
Richard L. Rohrbaugh examines the Parable of the Talents’ meaning in his Biblical Views column “Reading the Bible Through Ancient Eyes” in the September/October 2016 issue of Biblical Archaeology Review. Although the story itself is fairly straightforward, Rohrbaugh argues that the Parable of the Talents’ meaning is less clear. An ancient audience would have interpreted it differently than a modern one.
The Talents’ parable has typically been interpreted by the Western church as being about proper investment: Jesus’ disciples are urged to use their abilities and gifts to serve God—without reservation and without fear of taking risks. Rohrbaugh, however, argues that the Talents’ parable is all about exploitation. Whereas a modern, Western audience would applaud the first two slaves for trading and investing well, an ancient audience would have approved of the third slave’s behavior and condemned that of the first two slaves because they profited at the expense of others. Rohrbaugh explains:
[G]iven the “limited good” outlook of ancient Mediterranean cultures, seeking “more” was considered morally wrong. Because the pie was “limited” and already all distributed, anyone getting “more” meant someone else got less. Thus honorable people did not try to get more, and those who did were automatically considered thieves: To have gained, to have accumulated more than one started with, is to have taken the share of someone else.
This interpretation of the Parable of the Talents’ meaning casts the actions of the first two slaves as shameful and that of the third slave as honorable.
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The scenario played out in the Talents’ parable (Matthew 25:14–30)—of a master leaving his property in control of his slaves—was not uncommon. In the ancient world, greedy people who did not want to get accused of profiting at someone else’s expense, which was considered shameful, would delegate their business to slaves, who were held to a different standard. Rohrbaugh explains the ancients’ reasoning: “Shameful, even greedy, behavior could be condoned in slaves because slaves had no honor nor any expectation of it.”
Accordingly, in the Talents’ parable, the master leaves his money with his slaves in the hope that they will exploit the system and increase his riches. The first two slaves do just this, but the third “honorably refrains from taking anything that belongs to the share of another.”
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This slave also does not invest his money at the bank, through which he would have earned interest. The master further reprimands the slave for not doing this, but Rohrbaugh points out: “[S]eeking interest from another Israelite was forbidden by the Torah (Deuteronomy 23:19–20), and, elsewhere in Luke, Jesus says that we should lend ‘expecting nothing in return’ (Luke 6:35).”
Should then the actions of the third slave be condemned or lauded? According to Rohrbaugh, reading Matthew 25:14–30 with ancient eyes suggests that the third slave is the only one who behaved honorably in the Talents’ parable.
Learn more about the Parable of the Talents’ meaning by reading Richard L. Rohrbaugh’s full Biblical Views column “Reading the Bible Through Ancient Eyes” in the September/October 2016 issue of Biblical Archaeology Review.
Subscribers: Read the full Biblical Views column “Reading the Bible Through Ancient Eyes” by Richard L. Rohrbaugh in the September/October 2016 issue of Biblical Archaeology Review.
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This Bible History Daily feature was originally published on September 26, 2016.
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While I will join in rejecting Rohrbaugh’s interpretation, many of the refutations are no better. First, he has a much more sensitive understanding of the ancient worldview than he is credited by the majority. It is anachronistic to regard it as Marxist, since he nowhere argues that wealth should be distributed evenly and, as far as I’m aware, Marxism doesn’t assume limited resources. The ancients believed that one’s status in birth, society, ethnos, etc. entitled one to an appropriate amount of resources and that it was a threat to society to exceed that amount–but the parable does not suggest the earnings were inappropriate or elevated the master’s wealth beyond his station. So that argument is speculative. The master and his competitors could have been expected to work to increase their public honour and personal holdings so as to be more active patrons. There is a whole matrix of ideas assumed by the parable but not stated, and Rohrbaugh has a much better grasp of this social ordering. What he fails to do, though, as noted, is read it in its literary context. But even here, some go too far by drawing an equation between the master, stated to acquire material wealth illicitly, and Jesus. It is a parable. It is an analogy expressed in terms of common everyday life. The kingdom is “like” its message but not the same thing as. The way the kingdom spreads is not illustrative of how we are to behave. It says in essence that, in a competitive society in which masters vie for honour, servants are to fight and compete for their master’s best interests. Rohrbaugh is correct that in the ancient context the profits would have come at others’ loss. Since this is not in focus, we not need pull it in to displace the message that actually is stated, nor draw absurd prophecies about Jesus’ followers managing cities in the new age. It is about the master, not a treatise on evangelism.
for crying out loud d author said and I quote “viewing the parable of the talent in ancient perspective”so where is the deceit here?
Thank you, Dr. Rohrbaugh, for an interesting piece. I think one of the most important points you raised in your article is the obvious fact that the master himself is a thief — and not only a thief, but probably, in our modern parlance, a psychopath who has no empathy for others. I’m not sure who Jesus had in mind as a model for the master, but it certainly wasn’t God!
As always with Jesus’ parables, there are several layers of interpretation, and the literal one is never the one he would have had in mind.
In addition to the layer about exploitation, I see in this parable yet another of Jesus’ many rebukes of hypocrisy; yet another of Jesus’ realistic commentaries on how society will treat you if you dare to be honest and speak the truth about tyrants (a theme that always reminds me of Shakespeare’s King Lear); and yet another of Jesus’ teachings on the importance of taking responsibility for your own choices and not using the excuse we’ve heard so many times in history: “But my Master TOLD me I HAD to steal from others, and what choice do I, an ignoble slave, have when I’m just following orders?”
The third slave in this parable is the only one with the courage to refuse to participate in an act of theft.
Michael Coogan has referred to the Book of Job as anti-Wisdom Wisdom, and I see the same pattern of anti-Wisdom Wisdom in Jesus’ parables. ANE Wisdom decreed that those who do what the master says will be suitably rewarded. Both Job and Jesus said something very different about our relationship with God.
I don’t see how anyone could interpret that the third servant was good and the other two bad.It defies all understanding and reason
So, J.A. – Jesus was Wrong – right?
Actually Richard L. Rohrbaugh is not reading the Bible with ancient eyes but with blind spiritual eyes. May be the western church interpretation is wrong , your interpretation is worse.
JESUS spoke with parables, neither to entertain you nor to make you sleep.
Consider my interpretation :
The slaves are the ministers of the church. The talents given to them are the believers. The work the first two did was evangelism or spreading of Gospel, so that increasing the number of believers. since during second coming, the church will be tested with fire. The souls that withstand(Gold) will alone be accepted.
Here, truly the third minister was lazy. Anyway he kept the souls given to him from falling, but failed to increase the Gold(souls). God is caring about the souls, nothing else.
Those who are wise will shine like the brightness of the heavens, and those who lead many to righteousness, like the stars for ever and ever.(Daniel 12:3)
In Luke this parable follows the Zachaeus story. He, like the 3rd steward, decided not to play along w the wicked king’s unjust rule. He no doubt paid a steep price for that. Jesus also refused to conform to the ruler of the world and look at what that cost him.
Wow, what a very naive interpretation. This is a parable, not to be interpreted literally as Rohrbaugh has. I am surprised this website is even offering it. The parable is about the talents that God has given the believers. Talents back then was a currency denomination. However, over time and justly so it has become to describe a person’s skills. In this case, it is the gifts that God has given each believer. Jesus was referencing the gifts that the believers were given to go out into the world and spread the gospel. It is our duty as bondservants of Jesus to do this. It is the Great Commission. The slave who did nothing with his talent received no reward when his master, Jesus returned.
Isaiah 5:20 “Woe to those who call evil good and good evil,who put darkness for light and light for darkness, who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter! 21 Woe to those who are wise in their own eyes, and shrewd in their own sight! 22 Woe to those who are heroes at drinking wine, and valiant men in mixing strong drink, 23 who acquit the guilty for a bribe, and deprive the innocent of his right!”
Do you think Jesus knew this verse from Isaiah? The Master knows what he is talking about. He said he only says what he hears the Father saying.
Anyone that is happy to be cast into outer darkness, where there will be “weeping and gnashing of teeth”, then the interpretation in the article above is for you.