Search Results for: gospel genre

Why the Anonymous Gospels? Failure of Scholarship in Pitre’s The Case for Jesus

It is an abuse of one’s status as a public intellectual to write dogmatic apologetics for lay readers. Professor Brant Pitre cobbles together a grab-bag of rationalisations to promote Catholic dogma and presents it to his lay readers as a work based on superior scholarship. The title of this post might have as well have begun … Continue reading “Why the Anonymous Gospels? Failure of Scholarship in Pitre’s The Case for Jesus“

Lawrence Wills: “The Life of Aesop and the Hero Cult Paradigm in the Gospel Tradition”

Several times I’ve referred to comparisons between the ancient tale of Aesop with the gospel accounts of Jesus, referring readers to Lawrence Wills’ book, The quest of the historical gospel : Mark, John, and the origins of the gospel genre, and Whitney Shiner’s chapter “Creating Plot in Episodic Narratives: The Life of Aesop and the Gospel of Mark” in … Continue reading “Lawrence Wills: “The Life of Aesop and the Hero Cult Paradigm in the Gospel Tradition””

The Gospels: Written to Look Like (the final) Jewish Scriptures?

The genre of the gospels is an important question. Genre is an indication of the author’s intent. Does the author want to make us laugh at human foibles or weep over human tragedy, to escape into an entertaining world of make-believe, to be inspired and instructed by historical or biographical narratives, to mock establishment values, … Continue reading “The Gospels: Written to Look Like (the final) Jewish Scriptures?”

Why Is the Gospel of Mark in the New Testament?

I recently completed Michael J. Kok’s exploration of why the Gospel of Mark came to be associated with the apostle Peter and included in our canon despite appearing at first glance to be little more than a synopsis of the other gospels and little used by the early church according to the extant records, and … Continue reading “Why Is the Gospel of Mark in the New Testament?”

Homer in the Gospels: Recent Thoughts

Matthew Ferguson of the Κέλσος blog has posted an interesting discussion on Dennis MacDonald’s defence at the recent Society of Biblical Literature (SBL) conference of his thesis that a significant influence of the Homeric literature can be found in the New Testament writings, especially the Gospel of Mark and Book of Acts. For those wondering what the … Continue reading “Homer in the Gospels: Recent Thoughts”

Evidence for Pre-Gospel Oral Traditions and Related Questions

It’s easier for me to address these thoughts posted as a comment to my previous post with a new post here. I’ll try to take a crack at it. I’m not saying I agree with all of the following, but I think it’s essentially how we got here. How we got here (i.e. to the … Continue reading “Evidence for Pre-Gospel Oral Traditions and Related Questions”

For Whom Were the Gospels Written?

Before Richard Bauckham wrote Jesus and the Eyewitnesses (2006) he had challenged another common assumption among his peers with The Gospels for All Christians (1998). Since the 1960s it had been the common assumption that each of the canonical gospels had been written for a local religious community. Each gospel had been written for a small “group of churches . . … Continue reading “For Whom Were the Gospels Written?”

Is Oral Tradition Really Behind the Gospels? — another Kelber argument considered

This post continues with the series on Barry W. Henaut’s Oral Tradition and the Gospels, a critique of the assumption that oral traditions lie behind the gospel narratives. I have added to Henaut’s case more extensive quotations from works he is criticizing so we can have a better appreciation of both sides of the question. … Continue reading “Is Oral Tradition Really Behind the Gospels? — another Kelber argument considered”

Constructing Jesus and the Gospels: Apocalyptic Prophecy

Passages that for modern fundamentalist readers refer doctrinally to Jesus’ death and some imaginary “end time” in some indefinite future: Luke 12:49-53 49 I came to cast fire upon the earth; and what do I desire, if it is already kindled? 50 But I have a baptism to be baptized with; and how am I … Continue reading “Constructing Jesus and the Gospels: Apocalyptic Prophecy”

Constructing Jesus and the Gospels: How and Why

Once Clarke W. Owens extracts the Gospels from the Bible and studies them as literary creations on their historical context something most interesting happens. (Owens, I should point out, is not a mythicist. I believe on the basis of his entry in the Christian Alternative website that he is a Christian though one with a … Continue reading “Constructing Jesus and the Gospels: How and Why”

Extracting the Gospels From the Bible

Time to return to one of my favourite books at the moment, Son of Yahweh: The Gospels as Novels by Clarke W. Owens. I have posted on this book five times before but have not yet got to its most interesting ideas. By scholarly training he knows how to read a text. That means he … Continue reading “Extracting the Gospels From the Bible”

Why Gospel Fiction was Written as Gospel Truth — a plausible explanation

Some New Testament scholars have difficulty with the term “midrash”. Goulder stopped using it because of this, though his student Spong has not followed his lead here. I continue to use the term as generally as Spong does because Jewish scholars themselves, especially a number who are specialists in midrashic and Jewish literary studies, use … Continue reading “Why Gospel Fiction was Written as Gospel Truth — a plausible explanation”

Why the Gospels Blend History with Fiction

Associate Professor of Classics specializing in Hellenistic Judaism, Sara Johnson, may suggest an answer to the question implicit in this post’s title even though she does not address the Gospels directly. Johnson has a chapter in Ancient Fiction: the Matrix of Early Christian and Jewish Narrative (2005) discussing the way 3 Maccabees was composed to … Continue reading “Why the Gospels Blend History with Fiction”

Gospels As Historical Sources: How Literary Criticism Changes Everything

This post is best read in the context of the earlier posts on Clarke Owens’ Son of Yahweh: The Gospels as Novels, in particular Jesus Is Not “As Historical As Anyone Else in the Ancient World”. This post considers the different genres qualities (verbal categories, discourse types) between Gospels and historical writings and concludes the … Continue reading “Gospels As Historical Sources: How Literary Criticism Changes Everything”