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Rating: 
Summary: Excellent resource
Review: I have used this book as a resource in teaching an adult Sunday School class series on the parables of Jesus. It provides detail on the Jewish environment of Jesus' time and a perspective not found in the usual Bible study materials.
Rating: 
Summary: 15 Years of indepth study went into this excellent book!
Review: Recently Hendrickson's publisher took this book to a major book fair where it sold 5000 copies AND 5 seminaries picked it up as a textbook! Excellent for pastors and lay persons on teaching the parables of both the Jews and the Christians. A topic that most pastors never studied in seminiary from a Jewish perspective. A thorough examination of the topic and a presentation of new insights is presented in a very readable format. I highly recommend this book to our homeschooling families around the world!
Rating:
Summary: Context Creates Meaning, but Young Uses Context Selectively
Review: The main strength of this book is that it is an excellent resource for doing comparative studies between Jesus as presented in the Gospels and the Rabbis as presented in the Rabbinics. Each of Jesus' parables is put against the backdrop of similar parables told by different Rabbis in the Talmud and other Rabbinic writings. It's interesting to see the overlap between the two which is, at points, quite substantial.Young is quite adamant in his view that Jesus must be dropped back into the world of second temple Judaism. While context does create meaning, the main fault that I have with Young's approach is that by using the Rabbinic writings as the main source of comparison, whole bodies of Jewish literature are overlooked (he does bring the Dead Sea Scrolls and the Pseudepigrapha in at points, but the bulk of the book deals with Jesus and the Rabbis). So, while there are strengths to this approach, there are also weaknesses; Rabbinic Judaism is hardly representative of the Judaisms of Jesus' day. Furthermore, Jesus wasn't a rabbi like Hillel or Akiba, so the usefulness of comparisons primarily between the Gospels and Rabbinics is further diminished. Dr. Young also seems quite interested in debunking the allegorical interpretations of the parables of Jesus as taught by early church fathers such as Origen. While this may help to clear up the meanings of the prables from a historical perspective, is it really necessary to do so? One can teach accurate history without debunking the views of others. The result ends up being that Young comes across as rather argumentative and standoff-ish and overall it is just plain annoying to read. I would recommend Young's book to anyone interested in a comparison between Jesus' parables and those of the Rabbis - in this area, Young hits the bull's eye. However, as a book about Jesus' parables where the goal is less to contrast and compare than to enlightend and educate, Young hits a little too left of center.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent resource
Review: This author is quickly becoming one of my favorites. His study of the Second Temple Period along with his insighful parallels between Judaism and Christianity are worth more than gold in my opinion. In this book, Young examines Christ's parables from both the Jewish and Christian perspective. What I like about this book is that it helps the reader obtain the correct context of the readings, something that I push for with fervor. Just published, this book is a good read and an excellent resource for future study.
Rating:
Summary: The Parables of Christ in their proper context.
Review: This author is quickly becoming one of my favorites. His study of the Second Temple Period along with his insighful parallels between Judaism and Christianity are worth more than gold in my opinion. In this book, Young examines Christ's parables from both the Jewish and Christian perspective. What I like about this book is that it helps the reader obtain the correct context of the readings, something that I push for with fervor. Just published, this book is a good read and an excellent resource for future study.
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