Includes index.

"One of the main ways Jesus taught people was through the use of parables. Through an exploration of the literary genre popular in the ancient world, distinguished Jesus scholar John Dominic Crossan dissects the versions we read in the Gospels to get back to what Jesus really intended to teach. Next, Crossan reveals how Jesus's use of parables inspired the Gospel writers themselves to come up with meaningful, metaphorical stories of Jesus to help them explain their own views of who they thought this Messiah really was. By unlocking the meaning and purposes of the Gospel's parables, we can arrive at a better portrait of this enigmatic and charismatic Jewish figure who transformed his world and the next two thousand years of history"--