I've been cherry picking my way through N.T. Wright's Jesus and the Victory of God for material on the parables. I don't know of another living writer who's better at locating Jesus of Nazareth within his cultural/historical context, and in so doing, bringing out his marvelous singularity. This is a massive book in size and scope. Since I'm a classical music lover I was intrigued to see Mozart, W.A. listed in the index of topics in between Mount of Olives and National identity (of Judaism). This led to the following illustration of how Jesus "a prophet mighty in deed and word" (Luke 24:19) was both like and unlike Israel's prophets that came before. I love the illustration even though I think Mozart is overrated.
He [Jesus] was combining in a new way the prophetic styles of oracular prophets on the one hand and leaders of renewal movements on the other. John had combined them already, but not like this. Jesus went further in at least three directions: he was itinerant; he gave extensive teaching which, as we shall see, carried a note of even greater urgency than that of John; and he engaged in a regular programme of healing. . . . At each point the double criteria of similarity and dissimilarity can be invoked. This outline of Jesus' praxis is thoroughly credible within a first-century Jewish context, and makes good sense as part of the presupposition of the early church; at the same time, this praxis breaks the moulds of the Jewish context, and is, in detail, significantly unlike the characteristic activity of most of the early Christians. Mozart's music is incredible without Bach and Haydn as its predecessors, yet it is strikingly different from both; it is the necessary presupposition for Beethoven and Schubert, yet is still gloriously distinct. Jesus' prophetic work makes historical sense, yet remains in a class of its own. (pp. 169-170; emphasis mine)
Later on Wright uses Mozart's nemesis Salieri to illustrate the "scandal", as it would have been to many of Jesus' hearers, that this messenger was the one delivering the message that the kingdom of God was at hand. Wright writes:
Like Salieri in Shaffer's Amadeus, scandalized that his god should choose the disreputable Mozart as the vehicle for divine music, Jesus' hearers could not but be struck, if they realized what was going on, at his extraordinary and shocking implicit claim. (p. 228)
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