La semilla de mostaza

 

Seeds of Dissent

Stacia McKeever

Was Jesus wrong in Matthew 13:31–32 when He said that

the mustard seed was the “least of all the seeds”?

Another parable He put forth to them, saying: “The kingdom

of heaven is like a mustard seed, which a man took

and sowed in his field, which indeed is the least of all the

seeds; but when it is grown it is greater than the herbs and

becomes a tree, so that the birds of the air come and nest in

its branches” (Matthew 13:31–32).

Skeptics claim that Jesus was wrong in saying that the mustard

seed was the least of all the seeds, or that He was accommodating

the knowledge of His listeners. The late Professor of New Testament

Language and Literature W. Harold Mare covered this topic

more than adequately when he responded to the critics in a paper

published in the Grace Theological Journal (which was published by

Grace Theological Seminary from 1960–1991). In it, he says:

Jesus’ statement in Matthew 13:32 about the size of the mustard

seed need not, and has no reason to, be interpreted as

contradictory to scientific evidence for the following reasons.

In the first place, although, the orchid seed may be the smallest,

or one of the smallest plant seeds, and thus smaller than

the mustard seed, it is not necessary to consider Jesus’ statement

in Matthew 13:32 as containing scientific error since

the class of seeds with which the mustard seed is associated is

the garden herb group (lachana) which may possibly be interpreted

as being the “all the seeds” category to which reference

is made in the earlier part of the statement, “all” there being

limited to the specific group (lachana) under consideration in

the total context of the verse. Since the mustard seed probably

was cultivated in Palestine in ancient times, for its oil, it may be argued that Jesus, when speaking of this type of

seed, was talking about it in a comparison with all those seeds

which were planted by farmers for food. Since panton is used

with the lachana group in the parallel passage in Mark 4:31, it

may be further argued that the panton ton spermaton group

in both Matthew 13:32 and Mark 4:31 is intended to mean

only the lachana species, the “all the garden herb” group. In

this limited context of garden herbs then, Jesus speaks of the

mustard seed as extremely small.

With “all the seeds” being understood as limited in this way by

the context, the minute orchid seed need not be considered as

being included by Jesus in His statement. It is to be observed

that if Jesus had said, “The mustard seed is smaller than the

orchid seed,” He would have seemed to have spoken erroneously;

but this He did not say.

Secondly, that the expression comparing smallness with the

size of mustard seed was a common Jewish saying argues for

the fact that scientific literalness and preciseness need not be

pressed upon it, it being able to be understood then, as men

certainly understand it now, as a general and popular expression

of smallness.

However, it is to be realized that Jesus, in using the common

Jewish proverbial expression of the mustard seed as a figure

of smallness, did so only because the proverbial expression

so used was a true and accurate statement, including those

implications involving scientific data regarding the mustard

seed, both as to its very smallness as a seed and to its moderate

largeness when grown.25

25. W. Harold Mare, “The Smallest Mustard Seed — Matthew 13:32,” Grace Theological

Journal 9.3 (1968): 3–11; online here: http://faculty.gordon.edu/hu/bi/ted_hildebrandt/

NTeSources/NTArticles/GTJ-NT/Mare-MatMustard-GTJ-68.htm.