The Berean Codex™Scripture Research Project
Research library · Reception history · Dependency analysis

Dependency profile — younger son’s return motive

A reusable research record with provenance and relationships kept separate from the presentation layer.

INTERPRETATION_DEPENDENCY_PROFILEDEP_INT_LUK_15_YOUNGER_RETURN_MOTIVE
Interpretation Dependency Profile

Disputed Weighting Of Textual Data

Profiled target: Luke 15:17–21 — how certain is the younger son’s repentance motive?

Argument-dependency analysis. This record identifies premises and inferential steps; it does not increase the target's evidence rank.

Premises

Direct Textual Data · Directly Demonstrated · Core

Hunger and remembered abundance immediately precede the younger son’s decision to return.

Support records: PASSAGE_LUK_15_1_32

Premise P1

Direct Textual Data · Directly Demonstrated · Core

The son plans and then speaks a confession that he has sinned against heaven and his father.

Support records: PASSAGE_LUK_15_1_32

Premise P2

Direct Textual Data · Directly Demonstrated · Contextual

Luke 15:7 and 15:10 explicitly use repentance language in the surrounding lost/found discourse.

Support records: LIT_LUK_15_LOST_FOUND_JOY_REFRAIN

Premise P3

Literary Inference · Disputed · Bridge

One of these observable elements discloses a single exhaustive inner motive for the character.

The narrator does not resolve the weighting of hunger, confession, repentance framing, and possible mixed motive.

Support records: WORK_FORBES_1999_LUKE15

Premise P4

Dependency chain

Observe hunger as an immediate trigger.
Observe planned and spoken confession.
Observe the chapter’s repentance language.
Recognize that assigning one exhaustive inner motive requires weighting these data beyond what the narrator explicitly states.

Curated chronology

State: RELATED_PRECEDENT_IN_CURATED_CORPUS

Record Id: HISTINT_LUK_15_AUGUSTINE_CONF_8_3

Date Label: c. 397–400 CE

Date Sort Key: 398

Note: Augustine is the earliest currently curated reception witness using the younger son as conversion/recovery imagery, but he is not an exact witness to the modern inner-motive dispute. Forbes (1999) is the current curated source documenting that dispute explicitly. This is not a historical-origin claim.

Not an origin claim: this records the earliest currently curated witness relevant to the profile, not the first historical occurrence.

Development threads: THREAD_LUK_15_REPENTANCE_AND_RETURN

What this profile does not establish

The profile does not prove wholly sincere or wholly pragmatic motive.
It does not treat earlier conversion applications as proof that the narrator resolved the son’s inner psychology.

What this does not establish

The profile does not prove wholly sincere or wholly pragmatic motive.
It does not treat earlier conversion applications as proof that the narrator resolved the son’s inner psychology.
Release Introduced
v56
Passage Id
PASSAGE_LUK_15_1_32
Status
CURATED_PUBLIC