Parable of the talents or minas


The Parable of the Talents is one of the parables of Jesus. It appears in two of the synoptic, canonical gospels of the New Testament:
Although the basic theme of each of these parables is essentially the same, the differences between the parables in the Gospel of Matthew and in the Gospel of Luke are sufficient to indicate that the parables are not derived from the same source. In Matthew, the opening words link the parable to the preceding Parable of the Ten Virgins, which refers to the Kingdom of Heaven. The version in Luke is also called the Parable of the Pounds.
In both Matthew and Luke, a master puts his servants in charge of his goods while he is away on a trip. Upon his return, the master assesses the stewardship of his servants. He evaluates them according to how faithful each was in making wise investments of his goods to obtain a profit. It is clear that the master sought some profit from the servants' oversight. A gain indicated faithfulness on the part of the servants. The master rewards his servants according to how each has handled his stewardship. He judges two servants as having been "faithful" and gives them a positive reward. To the single unfaithful servant, who "played it safe", a negative compensation is given.
A thematically variant parable appears in the non-canonical Gospel of the Hebrews.

Settings

While the basic story in each of these parables is essentially the same, the settings are quite different.

Parable of the Talents

The "Parable of the Talents", in tells of a master who was leaving his house to travel, and, before leaving, entrusted his property to his servants. According to the abilities of each man, one servant received five talents, the second had received two, and the third received only one. The property entrusted to the three servants was worth 8 talents, where a talent was a significant amount of money. Upon returning home, after a long absence, the master asks his three servants for an account of the talents he entrusted to them. The first and the second servants explain that they each put their talents to work, and have doubled the value of the property with which they were entrusted; each servant was rewarded:
The third servant, however, had merely hidden his talent, burying it in the ground, and was punished by his master:

Parable of the Minas

In Luke's Gospel, Jesus told this parable because he was near Jerusalem and because his disciples thought the kingdom of God would appear immediately. The objective of investing or trading during the absence of the master was intended to counter expectations of the immediate appearance of God's kingdom. The parable of the minas is generally similar to the parable of the talents, but differences include the inclusion of the motif of a king obtaining a kingdom and the entrusting of ten servants with one mina each, rather than a number of talents. Only the business outcomes and consequential rewards of three of the servants' trading were related. Additionally, Luke included at the beginning an account of citizens sending a message after the nobleman to say that they did not want him as their ruler; and, at the end, Luke added that the nobleman instructed that his opponents should be brought to him and slain, as well as the unprofitable servant deprived of his mina.
The parallels between the Lukan material and Josephus' writings have long been noted. The core idea, of a man traveling to a far country being related to a kingdom, has vague similarities to Herod Archelaus traveling to Rome in order to be given his kingdom; although this similarity is not in itself significant, Josephus' account also contains details which are echoed by features of the Lukan parable. Josephus describes Jews sending an embassy to Augustus, while Archelaus is travelling to Rome, to complain that they do not want Archelaus as their ruler; when Archelaus returns, he arranges for 3000 of his enemies to be brought to him at the Temple in Jerusalem, where he has them slaughtered.

Version in the Gospel of the Hebrews

includes a paraphrased summary of a parable of talents taken from a "Gospel written in Hebrew script" ; this gospel was presumably destroyed in the destruction of the Theological Library of Caesarea Maritima in the 7th century and has yet to be found. In that gospel, Eusebius writes that while the man who had hid the talent was rebuked for his burial, only the man who had received two talents had invested and gained a return on his investment. The recipient of the five talents instead "wasted his master's possessions with harlots and flute-girls;" it was he, in the Hebrew gospel, that was sent into the darkness.

The values of a talent

A talent was a unit of weight of approximately, and when used as a unit of money, was valued for that weight of silver. As a unit of currency, a talent was worth about 6,000 denarii. A denarius was the usual payment for a day's labour. At one denarius per day, a single talent was therefore worth 16 years of labor.

Depositing funds with the bankers

The third servant in Matthew's version was condemned as wicked and lazy, because he should have deposited his talent with the bankers. The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges notes that this was "the very least the slave could have done, to make money in this way required no personal exertion or intelligence", and Johann Bengel commented that the labour of digging a hole and burying the talent was greater than the labour involved in going to the bankers.

Interpretations

In Matthew, the opening words appear to link the parable to the parable of the Ten Virgins, which immediately precedes it. That parable deals with wisdom in an eschatological context. This parable, however, has been interpreted in several ways.

As a teaching for Christians

As personal abilities

Traditionally, the parable of the talents has been seen as an exhortation to Jesus' disciples to use their God-given gifts in the service of God, and to take risks for the sake of the Kingdom of God. These gifts have been seen to include personal abilities, as well as personal wealth. Failure to use one's gifts, the parable suggests, will result in negative judgment. From a psychological point of view, the failure is the immediate result of the failure of feeling God's love. The first two servants are able to see God in a positive perception, as understanding, generous, and kind, while the third servant sees God as harsh, demanding, and critical.
Finley suggests these interpretations among the teachings for Christians:
The poet John Milton was fascinated by the parable, referring to it repeatedly, notably in the sonnet "When I Consider How My Light is Spent":

When I consider how my light is spent
Ere half my days, in this dark world and wide,
And that one Talent, which is death to hide,
Lodg'd with me useless, though my Soul more bent
To serve therewith my Maker, and present
My true account, lest he, returning, chide
Doth God exact day-labour, light denied?"
I fondly ask. But Patience to prevent
That murmur, soon replies: "God doth not need
Either man's work or his own gifts; who best
Bear his mild yoke, they serve him best. His state
Is kingly. Thousands at his bidding speed
And post o'er land and ocean without rest:
They also serve who only stand and wait."

Some critics interpret the poem's exhortation to be ready to receive God's will as a critique of a misunderstanding of the parable as literal or economic, and that waiting, rather than amassing wealth to prove one's worth, is the proper way to serve God. While the narrator worries over his limited accomplishments, Patience reminds him that God does not need "man's work". Milton may even be contrasting God with the lord of the parable.

As love or mercy

Catholic Bishop Robert Barron says that the talents in this parable are "a share in the mercy of God, a participation in the weightiness of the divine love," rather than personal abilities or wealth. He utilizes the interpretation of Old Testament professor Robert Schoenstene, who argues that a talent in ancient Jewish times was very weighty thus five talents was extremely heavy. Such heaviness would remind to the heaviest weight of all, the kabod of God in the Temple of Jerusalem, accordingly the most heavy of all is the mercy of God. Similarly, a reflection in the Carmelites' website defines the talents as "love, service, sharing", the "money of the master". In other words, Erasmo Leiva-Merikakis says, "Our greatest talent and treasure is our ability to love, and in this enterprise the champion is the greatest risk taker, which means the one most willing to invest himself where the odds appear most against him."

As a critique of religious leaders

believed that the original meaning of the parable was not an ethical one about every man. Instead, he saw it as aimed at the scribes who had withheld "from their fellow men a due share in God's gift." In his view, Jesus is saying that these scribes will soon be brought to account for what they have done with the Word of God which was entrusted to them.
Jeremias also believed that in the life of the early church the parable took on new meaning, with the merchant having become an allegory of Christ, so that "his journey has become the ascension, his subsequent return... has become the Parousia, which ushers his own into the Messianic banquet."

As social critique

In Parables as Subversive Speech: Jesus as Pedagogue of the Oppressed, William R. Herzog II presents a liberation theology interpretation of the "Parable of the Talents", wherein the absentee landlord reaps where he didn't sow, and the third servant is a whistle-blower who has "unmasked the 'joy of the master' for what it is — the profits of exploitation squandered in wasteful excess." Hence, the third servant is punished for speaking the truth, and not for failing to make a profit. From the critical perspective of liberation theology, the message of the "Parable of the Talents" is that man must act in solidarity with other men when confronting social, political, and economic injustices.
To describe how scientists are awarded authorial credit for their work, the sociologist Robert K. Merton applied the term The Matthew effect of accumulated advantage, in which the rich get richer and the poor get poorer. With the "Parable of the Talents", Merton metaphorically described the system of authorial rewards used, among the community of scientists, whereby famous scientists usually are awarded credit that is disproportionately greater than their contributions, while less-famous scientists are awarded lesser credit than is merited by their contributions; see also Stigler's law of eponymy: "No scientific discovery is named after its original discoverer."

Depictions in the arts

The "Parable of the Talents" has been depicted by artists such as Rembrandt, Jan Luyken, and Matthäus Merian. In literature, the Threepenny Novel, by Bertolt Brecht, presents a social critique of the parable as an ideological tool of capitalist exploitation of the worker and of society.
In religious music, the hymn "Slave of God, Well Done!", by John Wesley, notably alludes to the "Parable of the Talents", which was written on the occasion of the death of George Whitefield, the English Anglican cleric who was instrumental to the First Great Awakening in Britain and in the American colonies.
The hymn "Slave of God, Well Done!" begins thus:

Slave of God, well done!
Thy glorious warfare's past;
The battle's fought, the race is won,
And thou art crowned at last.