The Parable Of The Ten Virgins (Matthew 25:1-­13)

Of all the parables attributed to Jesus in the Synoptic Gospels, none is more ambiguous in terms of its origin and meaning than the Parable of the Ten Virgins. Everything depends on the correspondence between content and context, and especially the issue of literary form and function, regardless of whether the story is interpreted in terms of its present location in Matthew’s Gospel or in an earlier setting. No one denies that the parable appears to have a certain allegorical character, but is it an allegory in its form and function? And is the content of the story so completely determined by the crisis of the delay of the Parousia that its conception as an allegorical illustration must be allocated in the context of Matthew 24-25 or the early Church? The application of 25:13, an admonition that concludes the story, supports such a possibility, but, as everyone recognizes, it is a Matthean redaction. If, however, the narrative is pre-determined by its apparent Christian motifs, its dismissal as an allegorically fashioned story originating within the context of the early Church would appear to be justified.