There’s a compelling case that the reason there’s a ‘secret’ explanation for the sower parable in the Synoptics is because the original parable was actually about evolutionary thinking.
While a lot of people think evolutionary theory was a more modern concept, the following are all from a book published in the Roman empire 50 years before Jesus was allegedly born:
Especially since this world is the product of Nature, the happenstance Of the seeds of things colliding into each other by pure chance In every possible way, no aim in view, at random, blind, Till sooner or later certain atoms suddenly combined So that they lay the warp to weave the cloth of mighty things: Of earth, of sea, of sky, of all the species of living beings.
Lucretius De Rerum Natura book 2 lines 1058-1063
I cannot hold The race of mortal beings was lowered on a rope of gold To the fields down from the lofty heavens, nor that mortals came From the sea, nor from the waves that smash the rocks. It’s from the same Earth that feeds them from her body now that they were born.
book 2 lines 1153-1157
Sometimes children take after their grandparents instead, Or great-grandparents, bringing back the features of the dead. This is since parents carry elemental seeds inside – Many and various, mingled many ways – their bodies hide Seeds that are handed, parent to child, all down the family tree. Venus draws features from these out of her shifting lottery – Bringing back an ancestor’s look or voice or hair. Indeed These characteristics are just as much the result of certain seed As are our faces, limbs and bodies. Females can arise From the paternal seed, just as the male offspring, likewise, Can be created from the mother’s flesh. For to comprise A child requires a doubled seed – from father and from mother. And if the child resembles one more closely than the other, That parent gave the greater share – which you can plainly see Whichever gender – male or female – that the child may be.
book 4 lines 1217-1232
For obviously the primary particles did not scheme to fit Themselves each in their proper order by their cunning wit. Nor did they strike a deal amongst themselves exactly how Each should move. Rather, for time infinite up to now Myriad primary particles moving in many directions, whether Driven by blows, or their own weight, were wont to come together Every which way and experiment with every permutation And everything that they could fashion by their combination, And as a result, the particles, spread out over a vast Span of time, by trying each movement and combination, at last Suddenly hit upon the combinations that can be
The building blocks of greater things, the earth, the sky, the sea, And all the generations of living beings.
book 5 lines 419-431
In the beginning, there were many freaks. Earth undertook Experiments - bizarrely put together, weird of look Hermaphrodites, partaking of both sexes, but neither; some Bereft of feet, or orphaned of their hands, and others dumb, Being devoid of mouth; and others yet, with no eyes, blind. Some had their limbs stuck to the body, tightly in a bind, And couldn’t do anything, or move, and so could not evade Harm, or forage for bare necessities. And the Earth made Other kinds of monsters too, but in vain, since with each, Nature frowned upon their growth; they were not able to reach The flowering of adulthood, nor find food on which to feed, Nor be joined in the act of Venus.
For all creatures need Many different things, we realize, to multiply And to forge out the links of generations: a supply Of food, first, and a means for the engendering seed to flow Throughout the body and out of the lax limbs; and also so The female and the male can mate, a means they can employ In order to impart and to receive their mutual joy.
Then, many kinds of creatures must have vanished with no trace Because they could not reproduce or hammer out their race. For any beast you look upon that drinks life-giving air, Has either wits, or bravery, or fleetness of foot to spare, Ensuring its survival from its genesis to now.
book 5 lines 837-859
Lucretius, writing in Latin, didn’t have the Greek word atomos (‘indivisible’) to use to describe the building blocks of matter, so he used ‘seeds’ instead.
What does this have to do with Jesus’s parables? There’s only one alternative recorded explanation for the sower parable from antiquity, which is the following:
For the ends, he says, are the seeds scattered from the unportrayable one upon the world, through which the whole cosmical system is completed; for through these also it began to exist. And this, he says, is what has been declared: “The sower went forth to sow. And some fell by the wayside, and was trodden down; and some on the rocky places, and sprang up,” he says, “and on account of its having no depth (of soil), it withered and died; and some,” he says, “fell on fair and good ground, and brought forth fruit, some a hundred, some sixty, and some thirty fold.”
Pseudo-Hippolytus Refutations 5.3
Not only does the description of seeds scattered that caused the cosmos to exist parallel Lucretius, in book 4 lines 1269-1273 Lucretius even described failed biological reproduction as “By doing this, she turns the furrow away from the straight and true Path of the ploughshare, and the seed falls by the wayside too.”
Their interpretation of the mustard seed parable is also quite similar to Lucretius’s seeds.
That which is, he says, nothing, and which consists of nothing, inasmuch as it is indivisible — (I mean) a point — will become through its own reflective power a certain incomprehensible magnitude. This, he says, is the kingdom of heaven, the grain of mustard seed […]
Refutations 5.4
This group was following a text called the Gospel of Thomas which has other overlaps with Lucretius from the discussion of souls that depend on bodies, entertaining spirit arising from flesh and the greater wonder compared to the opposite, and discussing the idea the cosmos was like a body that was dead (Lucretius described the cosmos as like a body that would one day die, and the Gospel of Thomas is largely structured around the idea of an over-realized eschatology, thus in it the cosmos body is already dead).
In that text, it’s actually very interesting to look at what the sower parable is located next to given the above:
Jesus said, “Lucky is the lion that the human will eat, so that the lion becomes human. And foul is the human that the lion will eat, and the lion still will become human.”
And he said, “The human being is like a wise fisherman who cast his net into the sea and drew it up from the sea full of little fish. Among them the wise fisherman discovered a fine large fish. He threw all the little fish back into the sea, and easily chose the large fish. Anyone here with two good ears had better listen!”
Jesus said, "Look, the sower went out […]
Gospel of Thomas sayings 7-9
So we have a saying about how no matter who ate whom, becoming human was the inevitable result. Then a saying comparing the human being to a large fish selected from small fish, and then a saying about how only the seed that survived to reproduce multipled.
And the only group recorded following this text offers up the only non-canonical explanation for the parable as referring to seeds scattered at the dawn of existence by which everything that exists was formed. Seeds elsewhere described as indivisible parts making up all things using the specific language of the author who wrote about indivisible seeds making up all things and causing the cosmos to exist - 50 years before Jesus was even born.
Which starts to fill in the picture as to why the sower parable is the only parable in the earliest gospel (Mark) to be given an alleged secret explanation, at odds with things like John 18:20’s “I said nothing in secret” or Papias describing the parables of a lost sayings work as being left up to each person to interpret as best they could.
Why was a public parable about randomly thrown seeds so dangerous it needed a canonical secret explanation? Could it be because it was about a topic that would have been extremely sacrilegious to conservative Judaism endorsing the belief in intelligent design?
TL;DR: There’s quite a bit of irony in looking at how a canonical tradition which may have been trying to “correct the record” 2,000 years ago away from evolutionary thinking endorsed by the original historical figure is today being used to try to deny the legitimacy of evolutionary thinking two millennia later.
I may read through that later to see if it’s covered but I want to remind everyone there a difference between evolution and evolution by natural selection. I often hear Muslim scholars says Islam is so smart because it talks about evolution, but it’s not evolution by natural selection.
Lucretius was definitely talking about evolution from natural selection (especially look at the last one from book 5 about the intermediate freaks where only what survived to reproduce continued to exist), including what was nearly a Mendelian picture of trait inheritance from each parent.
As for whether that picture of things was being conveyed by a historical Jesus, it really depends on how one interprets the broader context of the sower parable regarding what survived multiplying (i.e. is canon more accurate or the Naassenes).
But I’d strongly suggest at least reading through the first part of my comment of the De Rerum Natura quotes. Your mind will be blown (when I was first researching this material I had to keep checking it wasn’t a hoax or overly forgiving modern translation, as it was strikingly at odds with the accuracy of what I thought was capable of being theorized in antiquity).
What is the difference? Evolution as a word can mean a few things but the concept of evolution from a biological perspective is the same as natural selection. There is no difference. Natural selection is the theory by which we explain observed biological evolution.
I suspect they mean the broad concept of “life came from other stuff that was different before it” vs “life came from other stuff based on what survived to reproduce.”
Not that neutral selection is overly broad vs evolution, but that the term evolution is sometimes too loosely applied to ideas in an attempt to give them greater credence while the thing it is applied to is ignoring the mechanics of how those changes were propagated.
It’s a fair point even if it doesn’t really apply to what I commented as Leucretius not only explicitly described the relevance of surviving to reproduce on the survival or failure of intermediate mutations, but even was aware that trait inheritance depended on a doubled seed from each parent.
So it was kind of like “I didn’t bother reading this but I’m going to assume it’s wrong in this way” where the way discussed is a legit point but not applicable to the thing they are replying to as would have been immediately apparent had they read it.
I suspect they are simply being dishonest which is why I asked. They probably don’t know and don’t care about the various methods of inheritance. They just want to try and claim that natural selection is wrong.
Nah. I’m familiar with Lamarckian evolutionary theories and there’s no evidence for them. Although many evolutionary traits and effects seem Lamarckian in the ways they affect species, they are completely defined by natural selection processes and mechanisms.
I can’t tell if you’re bringing this up in bad faith because you’re a religious person or if this is a genuine attempt at separating the hypothesis from the effect and you’re just a bit ignorant.
As an example, epigenetic inheritance, which has been dishonestly used as an example of Lamarckian evolution, has evidence for it. Contrary to that idea, though, it has never been observed to have an effect on actual evolution because the environment of the species in which the inheritance occurs is still selected for by their environment.
I think there is more evidence for lmarckian thinking now than when it was proposed. I don’t think it really works but the environment can activate genes. As for whats the difference is natural selection is the source of evolution whereas god evolved creatures over time with his god powers as part of his great plan. well that would not be.
Not in the way he meant it. We’ve confirmed that inheritance is a thing but not in the way he described. In one of his writings, he gave an example of how a blacksmith, for example, could grow his muscles because of the rigor of his work and that he could pass that down to his children to give them an affinity for the same type of work. We now know that that’s not only not true but that, even in his example, the environment is the driving factor there.
There’s a compelling case that the reason there’s a ‘secret’ explanation for the sower parable in the Synoptics is because the original parable was actually about evolutionary thinking.
While a lot of people think evolutionary theory was a more modern concept, the following are all from a book published in the Roman empire 50 years before Jesus was allegedly born:
Lucretius, writing in Latin, didn’t have the Greek word atomos (‘indivisible’) to use to describe the building blocks of matter, so he used ‘seeds’ instead.
What does this have to do with Jesus’s parables? There’s only one alternative recorded explanation for the sower parable from antiquity, which is the following:
Not only does the description of seeds scattered that caused the cosmos to exist parallel Lucretius, in book 4 lines 1269-1273 Lucretius even described failed biological reproduction as “By doing this, she turns the furrow away from the straight and true Path of the ploughshare, and the seed falls by the wayside too.”
Their interpretation of the mustard seed parable is also quite similar to Lucretius’s seeds.
This group was following a text called the Gospel of Thomas which has other overlaps with Lucretius from the discussion of souls that depend on bodies, entertaining spirit arising from flesh and the greater wonder compared to the opposite, and discussing the idea the cosmos was like a body that was dead (Lucretius described the cosmos as like a body that would one day die, and the Gospel of Thomas is largely structured around the idea of an over-realized eschatology, thus in it the cosmos body is already dead).
In that text, it’s actually very interesting to look at what the sower parable is located next to given the above:
So we have a saying about how no matter who ate whom, becoming human was the inevitable result. Then a saying comparing the human being to a large fish selected from small fish, and then a saying about how only the seed that survived to reproduce multipled.
And the only group recorded following this text offers up the only non-canonical explanation for the parable as referring to seeds scattered at the dawn of existence by which everything that exists was formed. Seeds elsewhere described as indivisible parts making up all things using the specific language of the author who wrote about indivisible seeds making up all things and causing the cosmos to exist - 50 years before Jesus was even born.
Which starts to fill in the picture as to why the sower parable is the only parable in the earliest gospel (Mark) to be given an alleged secret explanation, at odds with things like John 18:20’s “I said nothing in secret” or Papias describing the parables of a lost sayings work as being left up to each person to interpret as best they could.
Why was a public parable about randomly thrown seeds so dangerous it needed a canonical secret explanation? Could it be because it was about a topic that would have been extremely sacrilegious to conservative Judaism endorsing the belief in intelligent design?
TL;DR: There’s quite a bit of irony in looking at how a canonical tradition which may have been trying to “correct the record” 2,000 years ago away from evolutionary thinking endorsed by the original historical figure is today being used to try to deny the legitimacy of evolutionary thinking two millennia later.
Ironic and sad, really.
I may read through that later to see if it’s covered but I want to remind everyone there a difference between evolution and evolution by natural selection. I often hear Muslim scholars says Islam is so smart because it talks about evolution, but it’s not evolution by natural selection.
Lucretius was definitely talking about evolution from natural selection (especially look at the last one from book 5 about the intermediate freaks where only what survived to reproduce continued to exist), including what was nearly a Mendelian picture of trait inheritance from each parent.
As for whether that picture of things was being conveyed by a historical Jesus, it really depends on how one interprets the broader context of the sower parable regarding what survived multiplying (i.e. is canon more accurate or the Naassenes).
But I’d strongly suggest at least reading through the first part of my comment of the De Rerum Natura quotes. Your mind will be blown (when I was first researching this material I had to keep checking it wasn’t a hoax or overly forgiving modern translation, as it was strikingly at odds with the accuracy of what I thought was capable of being theorized in antiquity).
What is the difference? Evolution as a word can mean a few things but the concept of evolution from a biological perspective is the same as natural selection. There is no difference. Natural selection is the theory by which we explain observed biological evolution.
I suspect they mean the broad concept of “life came from other stuff that was different before it” vs “life came from other stuff based on what survived to reproduce.”
Not that neutral selection is overly broad vs evolution, but that the term evolution is sometimes too loosely applied to ideas in an attempt to give them greater credence while the thing it is applied to is ignoring the mechanics of how those changes were propagated.
It’s a fair point even if it doesn’t really apply to what I commented as Leucretius not only explicitly described the relevance of surviving to reproduce on the survival or failure of intermediate mutations, but even was aware that trait inheritance depended on a doubled seed from each parent.
So it was kind of like “I didn’t bother reading this but I’m going to assume it’s wrong in this way” where the way discussed is a legit point but not applicable to the thing they are replying to as would have been immediately apparent had they read it.
I suspect they are simply being dishonest which is why I asked. They probably don’t know and don’t care about the various methods of inheritance. They just want to try and claim that natural selection is wrong.
Look up Lamarckian.
Nah. I’m familiar with Lamarckian evolutionary theories and there’s no evidence for them. Although many evolutionary traits and effects seem Lamarckian in the ways they affect species, they are completely defined by natural selection processes and mechanisms.
I can’t tell if you’re bringing this up in bad faith because you’re a religious person or if this is a genuine attempt at separating the hypothesis from the effect and you’re just a bit ignorant.
As an example, epigenetic inheritance, which has been dishonestly used as an example of Lamarckian evolution, has evidence for it. Contrary to that idea, though, it has never been observed to have an effect on actual evolution because the environment of the species in which the inheritance occurs is still selected for by their environment.
I think there is more evidence for lmarckian thinking now than when it was proposed. I don’t think it really works but the environment can activate genes. As for whats the difference is natural selection is the source of evolution whereas god evolved creatures over time with his god powers as part of his great plan. well that would not be.
Not in the way he meant it. We’ve confirmed that inheritance is a thing but not in the way he described. In one of his writings, he gave an example of how a blacksmith, for example, could grow his muscles because of the rigor of his work and that he could pass that down to his children to give them an affinity for the same type of work. We now know that that’s not only not true but that, even in his example, the environment is the driving factor there.
I won’t even comment on the god powers.