Smith's Bible Dictionary

Fable A fable is a narrative in which being irrational, and sometimes inanimate, are, for the purpose of moral instruction, feigned to act and speak with human interests and passions. --Encyc. Brit. The fable differs from the parable in that --

• 1. The parable always relates what actually takes place, and is true to fact, which the fable is not; and
• 2. The parable teaches the higher heavenly and spiritual truths, but the fable only earthly moralities. Of the fable, as distinguished from the parable [Parable], we have but two examples in the Bible:
• 3. That of the trees choosing their king, addressed by Jotham to the men of Shechem, (Judges 9:15)
• 4. That of the cedar of Lebanon and the thistle, as the answer of Jehoash to the challenge of Amaziah. (2 Kings 14:9) The fables of false teachers claiming to belong to the Christian Church, alluded to by writers of the New Testament, (1 Timothy 1:4; 1 Timothy 4:7; Titus 1:14; 2 Peter 1:16) do not appear to have had the character of fables, properly so called.