About the Reading Scripture Together: The Parable of the Prodigal Son course
Of all the parables that Jesus preached, the Parable of the Prodigal Son is one of the most popular and is a story that has captured Christian imagination over millennia in relation to how we understand sin, forgiveness, and redemption. It is so familiar to us and we know what this story means, but there are Jewish roots to the parable form of teaching and ways in which the story is constructed with certain parts emphasised that offers different perspectives worth considering.
Like previous sessions on Jesus’s parables, this session, which will be held in person, will explore the Jewish assumptions underlying this story and what it might have meant to Jesus’s audience at the time. We will look at the role of the characters present; the family dynamics at work; alternative titles for this story and art that arises from it, and perhaps even do a bit of dramatization to deepen our understanding of the characters and their motivations.
We expect after this session that you will never read this story the same way!