“... According to Mark, a vineyard owner leaves his vineyard in the hands of tenants while he is away. When he sends a servant to receive the owner’s portion of the harvest, the tenants beat him and send him away empty handed. The owner sends a second servant, whom they beat about the head and insult. The third servant they kill, “and so it was with many others” (12:5). Finally, he sends his own son. Thinking they will inherit the vineyard if they kill the heir, the wicked tenants kill the owner’s son. Jesus then poses the question, what will the owner do? He will come and destroy those tenants and give the vineyard to others. The quotation from Psalm 118 that follows, which looks beyond the death of the son, may not have been part of the original parable. The Gospel of Thomas contains a simpler, and hence possibly more primitive, form of this parable that lacks many of the allegorical features found in the Synoptics. In Thomas, there is no reference to Isaiah 5, only two servants are sent before the son, neither of the servants is killed, there is no interior monologue or question, “what shall I do?” (as in Luke), the son is not called “beloved,” the owner says “perhaps” they will respect his son, and the parable ends immediately following the report of the killing of the son. ...”