ISBN-13: 9780872432260

In this brilliant examination of forty of Jesus' parables Josef Imbach traces their origins to prototypes in early Jewish folklore. He also finds in a wide-ranging review of world literature similar themes in the work of Dostoevski, Kafka, Tolstoy, Alberto Moravia, Isaac Bashevis Singer and others. He relates these themes not only to the concerns of the earliest Christian communities but also to the modern crisis of belief and contemporary religious problems. As we have come to expect from the work of Josef Imbach, the message is luminously presented and previously obscure passages are brought vividly to life. Josef Imbach, a native of Switzerland, was born in 1945. He studied philosophy and theology in Rome and was later a member of the theological faculty in Lucerne. Since 1975 he has been professor of fundamental theology at St. Bonaventure Pontifical University in Rome. He is the author of the widely acclaimed Three Faces of Jesus: How Jews, Christians and Muslims See Him.