Fable

Paul’s letters to Timothy and Titus use “fables” as a warning. Timothy is told not to “give heed to fables and endless genealogies,” which stir up questions instead of building faith, and to “refuse profane and old wives’ fables” and train for godliness instead. Paul foresees a day when people “shall turn away their ears from the truth, and shall be turned unto fables.” Peter says the apostles did not follow “cunningly devised fables” but were “eyewitnesses of his majesty.” The line drawn in all of these is between invented stories and what was seen and heard. Second Peter 1 puts it most clearly.

6 verses

1 Timothy

1 Timothy 1:4

Neither give heed to fables and endless genealogies, which minister questions, rather than godly edifying which is in faith: so do.

1 Timothy 4:7

But refuse profane and old wives' fables, and exercise thyself rather unto godliness.

2 Timothy

2 Timothy 4:4

And they shall turn away their ears from the truth, and shall be turned unto fables.

Titus

Titus 1:7

For a bishop must be blameless, as the steward of God; not selfwilled, not soon angry, not given to wine, no striker, not given to filthy lucre;

Titus 1:14

Not giving heed to Jewish fables, and commandments of men, that turn from the truth.

2 Peter

2 Peter 1:16

For we have not followed cunningly devised fables, when we made known unto you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but were eyewitnesses of his majesty.

From Easton's Bible Dictionary

Matthew George Easton, 1897

Applied in the New Testament to the traditions and speculations, “cunningly devised fables”, of the Jews on religious questions (1 Tim. 1:4; 4:7; 2 Tim. 4:4; Titus 1:14; 2 Pet. 1:16). In such passages the word means anything false and unreal. But the word is used as almost equivalent to parable. Thus we have (1) the fable of Jotham, in which the trees are spoken of as choosing a king (Judg. 9:8-15); and (2) that of the cedars of Lebanon and the thistle as Jehoash’s answer to Amaziah (2 Kings 14:9).

From Smith's Bible Dictionary

William Smith, 1884

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 9:8-15)

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(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; 4:7; Titus 1:14; 2 Peter 1:16) do not appear to have had the character of fables, properly so called.