Accordingly, this paper has these two tasks: In the first part (I) I will try to summarize and criticize previous scholarship on the parable; not to address the issues and assumptions of previous scholarship is to take on the role of a maverick and thus become an unassimilable curiosity rather than a contributor whose views must be taken into account in subsequent studies.3 In the second part (II) I will offer a constructive alternative by proposing a new approach to the parable and the resulting