FABLE, (μῦθος, G3680, talk, tale, legend, myth). A literary genre in the form of a short story embodying a moral and making use of animals, birds, or inanimate things like trees, as persons or actors. This form of writing was wellknown in ancient lit., esp. in Sumer. and Akkad. According to Trench, a principal difference between a fable and a parable is that the former tries to inculcate maxims of prudential morality—like industry, foresight, and caution; while the latter teaches spiritual virtues.

There are two fables in the OT. In the first, found in Judges 9:8-15, Jothan, standing on Mount Gerizim and speaking to the people of Shechem in the valley below, tried to show them the folly of choosing as king a worthless fellow like his brother, who had just murdered seventy sons of Gideon. The trees of the forest asked an olive tree, a fig tree, and a vine, to rule over them, but they all refused, saying that they were too busy serving the community to waste their time waving their branches over their fellows. Finally they chose a useless bramble (representing his brother Abimelech), a dangerous choice, for conflict would result in all perishing in the forest fire.

In the other OT fable, Jehoash, king of Israel, told Amaziah, king of Judah, who had challenged him to a fight, that he would demean himself by accepting the challenge. “A thistle on Lebanon sent to a cedar on Lebanon, saying, ‘Give your daughter to my son for a wife’; and a wild beast of Lebanon passed by and trampled down the thistle” (2 Kings 14:9). Jehoash was not dissuaded, and in the battle that followed was roundly defeated.

Some OT prophets employ illustrations which approach the status of fable, like Isaiah’s poem about the vineyard (Isa 5:1-7), and Ezekiel’s poems concerning the lioness and her whelps (Ezek 19:2-9), the vine (Ezek 19:10-14), and the great eagle (Ezek 17:3-10).

The KJV uses the word “fable” in the NT to refer to some false teachings which were coming into the Church, but in each instance the RSV more accurately trs. the Gr. word muthos, “myth” (1 Tim 1:4; 4:7; 2 Tim 4:4; Titus 1:14; 2 Pet 1:16). It is difficult to determine the exact nature of the heresy. It may have been a kind of Judaizing Gnosticism or an elaboration of legends out of OT narratives similar to those in Rabbinic haggadah, the Book of Jubilees, and Philo.

Bibliography R. C. Trench, Notes on the Parables (1882), 1-5; F. J. A. Hort, Judaistic Christianity (1894), 135ff.