Andreas has reminded me of my challenge on the parables episode for folks to give us your most innovative/bizarre interpretations of The Ten Virgins parable.
Here it is copied from Wikipedia:
Then the Kingdom of Heaven will be like ten virgins, who took their lamps, and went out to meet the bridegroom. Five of them were foolish, and five were wise. Those who were foolish, when they took their lamps, took no oil with them, but the wise took oil in their vessels with their lamps. Now while the bridegroom delayed, they all slumbered and slept. But at midnight there was a cry, "Behold! The bridegroom is coming! Come out to meet him!" Then all those virgins arose, and trimmed their lamps. The foolish said to the wise, "Give us some of your oil, for our lamps are going out." But the wise answered, saying, "What if there isn't enough for us and you? You go rather to those who sell, and buy for yourselves." While they went away to buy, the bridegroom came, and those who were ready went in with him to the marriage feast, and the door was shut. Afterward the other virgins also came, saying, "Lord, Lord, open to us." But he answered, "Most certainly I tell you, I don't know you." Watch therefore, for you don't know the day nor the hour in which the Son of Man is coming.
— Matthew 25:1-13, World English Bible
Clearly the story here is about improper tooth brushing technique. Now you have to keep in mind that in the olden days, what with all the people getting smashed in the face by things and bad oral hygiene in general, it was about average for people to have only 10 teeth, such that if you had more than that, you were considered a heretic and "encouraged" to donate your some of your "extra" teeth to the military for use in fashioning arrowheads. Ignorance of these basic historical facts has left many unable to properly interpret this parable.
What still speaks to today's society is that often people brushing their teeth will just lightly rub the front teeth, forgetting to reach the brush into their mouths to reach the molars and even the back of the incisors. The brusher fails to "oil" the back teeth (the term "oil" is a dead giveaway if you understand that ancient brushers employed petroleum, routinely referred to in the scriptures as "black gold" or "Texas tea"), and so when the "bridegroom" comes (this referring to The Doctor, who with his strange blue box can be seen throughout history, albeit often with a glamour to distort historical records of him, though in this case his presence in Jesus's time is clearly indicated by the lack of a Doctor Who episode about Jesus that would settle the "historical Jesus" questions once and for all... Clearly the Doctor's presence has only been revealed by the modern historical record in less controversial settings such as when he discovered the moon to actually be a giant hatching egg), then he will "not know," i.e. not want to smell, those back teeth, since they are decayed and smelly. Don't just wait for gingivitis! Be prepared, says Jesus! Sound advice, and it's good that Jesus used the parable presentation so that everyone could understand, except of course only those in the know get to understand, as was Jesus's intention.
While my account above clearly leaves no room for other interpretations, I encourage one and all to reply to this post on partiallyexaminedlife.com with your take on the matter. The one with the objectively best interpretation will gain the Kingdom of Heaven.
-Mark Linsenmayer
Oil preparation is the secret to life. If you are an always prepared virgin, you will stock up on your slippery lubrications in case your bridegroom shows up out of the blue (or in the dark of night), and you better not count on anyone else to stock up for you. If you do, you will loose your ability to loose your virginity and not be able to appear on Housewives of Israel 🙁
That post completely reminds me of your podcast on the Purloined Letter “interpretations” by Lacan and Derrida. You are not being any more ludicrous then them.
Ludicrocity rules!
Sorry, can’t beat Mr. Linsenmayer’s take. It’s the most coincidental reading I’ve ever seen.
Given this sorry state of things, I’ll resort to a ponderous note, if I may.
The bridegroom says: “Watch therefore, for you don’t know the day nor the hour in which the Son of Man is coming”.
Better sources may very well be found, but it might be what Daniel Defoe had in mind when he had Moll Flanders stealing Go(l)d Watches, believing both that she was unseen and that man alone was keeping time.
The key to understanding this parable is Luke 8:16 in the Tyndale Bible: “Neither do men light a candle, and put it under a bushel”. Revisionist historians take us for naive when they claim that ‘bushel’ originally meant ‘bowl’- it is clearly an antiquated form of ‘bush’ or pubic hair. This is incontrovertible when we are presented with the blatant phallic imagery of the candle. Jesus was no doubt prohibiting pubic hair (he’d been burning bush since back in Exodus), and hence when the virgins trim their lamps this refers to the hair around their own genitals- after all, candles go inside lamps.
But if these are lamps with candles inside, why the need for oil? It couldn’t be more obvious. Jesus is well known as the one who sets people’s hearts on fire, which is an allusion to his real identity as the Soul Arsonist, a celebrity bad boy who all the young ladies (and not a few men) love. The virgins have oil because they are waiting to meet him so they can have the chance to be his accomplices on a crime spree. Naturally, the arsonist is delayed because he has to give the Roman anti-vandalism squad the slip like a thief in the night.
But hang on, you ask, why would the virgin’s lamps go out without oil? Well, given what their lamps are, they are not going to get them ‘lit up’ unless they become groupies of the arsonist and party with him, which they can only do if they bring him oil. Hence why if they don’t have oil, in order to have their lamps lit up they will have to “go rather to those who sell”, i.e. prostitutes, and buy for themselves.”