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Pearls Before Swine? A Reinterpretation of Matt. 7.6*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 July 2016

Henry Kahane  and
Renée Kahane
Henry Kahane
Affiliation:
University of Illinois
Renée Kahane
Affiliation:
University of Illinois
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Extract

Tradition and habit over many centuries have led Western civilization to take for granted the idiom, throwing pearls before swine. Yet, as numerous interpreters of its source, Matt. 7.6, have puzzled, why pearls? The principal exegetic difficulty of the passage, in other words, consists in the analysis of the literal rather than the idiomatic meaning. The conventional semantic rationalizations can be illustrated by quotations from two of many commentators: J. P. Lange calls the act of casting pearls before swine ‘foolish’; O. Baumgarten et al. consider the expression ‘ein derb volkstümliches Gleichnis: man wird doch nicht den Säuen Perlen als Futter vorwerfen.’ Various attempts have been made to change the reading of the passage: while these provide no satisfactory solution to the problem, they are, obviously, expressions of dissatisfaction. The present note is a suggestion that the correct interpretation may be reached by a study of the stylistic pattern of the passage.

Type
Miscellany
Information
Traditio , Volume 13 , 1957 , pp. 421 - 424
Copyright
Copyright © Fordham University Press 

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References

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