The Place of the Gospels in the General History of Literature

The Place of the Gospels in the General History of Literature PDF Author: Karl Ludwig Schmidt
Publisher: Wipf and Stock Publishers
ISBN: 172528541X
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 125

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Book Description
Karl Ludwig Schmidt’s classic Die Stellung der Evangelien der allgemeinen Literaturgeschichte was one of a handful of twentieth-century essays on the New Testament to set the agenda for an entire generation of New Testament scholars. First published in 1923, the text laid out Schmidt’s contention that the gospels represent a literary genre that does not derive from others in the ancient world. In portraying the gospels as the written record of an oral tradition rather than as biographical or historical text, the German scholar found points of comparison with Sayings of the Desert Fathers and the later collections of Faust legends. Schmidt’s powerful argument has commanded attention in Germany for decades but has never before been fully available in English. In recent years the question of gospel genre has reemerged as an issue of debate. With this translation, Byron R. McCane enables a new generation of English-speaking scholars to engage with Schmidt’s classic perspective on an enduring question. In an introduction to the volume, John Riches places Schmidt’s landmark study in its context. He locates the text among the writings of the form critics, with whom Schmidt allied himself, and relates it to Schmidt’s own still untranslated study of the topography and chronology of the gospels. He documents the essay’s reception in the English-speaking world and critically examines the way Schmidt is understood in present-day discussion of the genre of the gospels. Riches also explores how recent efforts to classify the gospels as ancient biographies have in many ways misread and misrepresented Schmidt’s views - errors that this translation will help rectify.

The Place of the Gospels in the General History of Literature

The Place of the Gospels in the General History of Literature PDF Author: Karl Ludwig Schmidt
Publisher: Wipf and Stock Publishers
ISBN: 172528541X
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 125

Get Book Here

Book Description
Karl Ludwig Schmidt’s classic Die Stellung der Evangelien der allgemeinen Literaturgeschichte was one of a handful of twentieth-century essays on the New Testament to set the agenda for an entire generation of New Testament scholars. First published in 1923, the text laid out Schmidt’s contention that the gospels represent a literary genre that does not derive from others in the ancient world. In portraying the gospels as the written record of an oral tradition rather than as biographical or historical text, the German scholar found points of comparison with Sayings of the Desert Fathers and the later collections of Faust legends. Schmidt’s powerful argument has commanded attention in Germany for decades but has never before been fully available in English. In recent years the question of gospel genre has reemerged as an issue of debate. With this translation, Byron R. McCane enables a new generation of English-speaking scholars to engage with Schmidt’s classic perspective on an enduring question. In an introduction to the volume, John Riches places Schmidt’s landmark study in its context. He locates the text among the writings of the form critics, with whom Schmidt allied himself, and relates it to Schmidt’s own still untranslated study of the topography and chronology of the gospels. He documents the essay’s reception in the English-speaking world and critically examines the way Schmidt is understood in present-day discussion of the genre of the gospels. Riches also explores how recent efforts to classify the gospels as ancient biographies have in many ways misread and misrepresented Schmidt’s views - errors that this translation will help rectify.

The Place of the Gospels in the General History of Literature

The Place of the Gospels in the General History of Literature PDF Author: Karl Ludwig Schmidt
Publisher: Univ of South Carolina Press
ISBN: 9781570034305
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 138

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Book Description
KARL LUDWIG SCHMIDT'S classic Die Stellung der Evangelien der allgemeinen Literaturgeschichte was one of a handful of twentieth-century essays on the New Testament to set the agenda for an entire generation of New Testament scholars. First published in 1923, the text laid out Schmidt's contention that the gospels represent a literary genre that does not derive from others in the ancient world. In portraying the gospels as the written record of an oral tradition rather than as biographical or historical text, the German scholar's powerful argument has commanded attention in Germany for decades. With this translation, Byron R. McCane enables a new generation of English-speaking scholars to engage with Schmidt's classic perspective on an enduring question. In an introduction to the volume, John Riches locates the text among the writings of the form critics, with whom Schmidt allied himself, and relates it to Schmidt's own still untranslated study of the topography and chronology of the gospels. Riches also explores how recent efforts to classify the gospels as ancient biographies have in many ways misread and misrepresented Schmidt's views.

Ancient Christian Gospels

Ancient Christian Gospels PDF Author: Helmut Koester
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780334049616
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 482

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Book Description
In this magisterial volume, which is destined to become the standard text for studying the tradition and history of the early Christian Gospel literature, the author treats more than a dozen Gospel writings from the first two centuries. These Gospels include more than the standard canonical Gospels, covering also such writings as the Gospel of Thomas, the Apocryphon ofJames, the Gospel of Mary and others.

Gospels or Biographies? The Gospels as Folk Literature

Gospels or Biographies? The Gospels as Folk Literature PDF Author: Ryder Wishart
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9004687165
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 306

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Book Description
Challenging the widely accepted classification of the canonical gospels as biographies or historiographies, the author argues that they should be classified as collections of folk literature from early Christianity. Drawing on comparative register analysis and re-introducing literary and sociolinguistic insights from the twentieth-century form critics, this insightful study challenges readers to rethink the significance of gospels for understanding Jesus’s historical context and relevance for modern readers. The gospels are not merely designed to inform readers about the life of Jesus but also to push readers into accepting or rejecting his teaching. It is a must-read for anyone seeking a deeper understanding of the gospel genre and the intentions of the evangelists who compiled them.

Paul Before the Areopagus

Paul Before the Areopagus PDF Author: Ned B. Stonehouse
Publisher: Wipf and Stock Publishers
ISBN: 166674736X
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 208

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Book Description


Paul the Reluctant Witness

Paul the Reluctant Witness PDF Author: Blake Shipp
Publisher: Wipf and Stock Publishers
ISBN: 159752400X
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 189

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Book Description
In this stimulating analysis, Shipp provides the reader with an introduction and critique of literary-rhetorical analysis as well as an in-depth treatment of the triple account of Paul's Damascus Road experience in Acts. Luke used the repetition of the Damascus narrative as a literary device identifying Pauline disobedience and resistance and the transformation of these characteristics. With the first Damascus narrative, Luke provided the reader with a paradigmatic image of resistance transformed. . . . Luke used the Damascus narratives and these themes to bracket the 'Paulusbild,' fashioning the trial narrative into an extended period of transformation of Pauline resistance. Beginning in 19:21, Paul resisted the leading of the Holy Spirit and his appointed location of witness. He was an intentionally forceful actor resisting God. God bound this intentionally forceful actor in chains. In this opening scene of the 'Paulusbild' Luke included the second Damascus narrative (21:33--22:24a). The themes emphasized in the narrative were those of Saul intentionally resisting gospel expansion and God's subsequent overcoming of Saul. Saul was physically restored through Ananias but not fully transformed. He is not yet an empowered and intentionally forceful witness. At the end of the 'Paulusbild,' as Paul is headed to Rome, Luke included the final Damascus narrative (25:23--26:32). Paul was headed to Rome, but not in the freedom intended by God. He remained in chains because of his own actions. Thus, his character was one of tension. The Damascus narrative that Luke included demonstrates Saul's intentionally forceful resistance to the gospel. However, the vacating of power and overcoming of Saul is suppressed, and the theme of the transformation of resistance to empowered witness is emphasized. Nonetheless, the character of Saul in the speech does not match the character of Paul in the narrative. Tension remains, but the projected direction of transformation is evident. Paul is headed to Rome. The 'vision of grace' has effected a transformation in Saul but not yet in Paul. If the trajectory of transformation continues, then Paul should once again be an intentionally forceful, empowered witness for the gospel when he arrives in Rome.Ó --from Chapter 5

Social & Historical Approaches to the Bible

Social & Historical Approaches to the Bible PDF Author: Douglas Mangum
Publisher: Lexham Press
ISBN: 1577997069
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 313

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Book Description
The Bible was not written and received in a historical vacuum—in fact, the social and historical context of the Bible illuminates key understandings that may have been otherwise missed. Biblical scholars use many different approaches to uncover this context, each engaging various aspects of the social and historical world of the Bible—from religious ritual to scribal practice to historical event. In Social & Historical Approaches to the Bible, you will learn how these methods developed and see how they have been used. You will be introduced to the strengths and weaknesses of each method, so you may understand its benefits as well as see its limitations. Many of these approaches are still in use by biblical scholars today, though often much changed from their earliest form as ideas were revised in light of the challenges and questions posed by further research.

The Interface of Orality and Writing

The Interface of Orality and Writing PDF Author: Annette Weissenrieder
Publisher: Wipf and Stock Publishers
ISBN: 1498237428
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 459

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Book Description
How did the visual, the oral, and the written interrelate in antiquity? The essays in this collection address the competing and complementary roles of visual media, forms of memory, oral performance, and literacy and popular culture in the ancient Mediterranean world. Incorporating both customary and innovative perspectives, the essays advance the frontiers of our understanding of the nature of ancient texts as regards audibility and performance, the vital importance of the visual in the comprehension of texts, and basic concepts of communication, particularly the need to account for disjunctive and non-reciprocal social relations in communication. Thus the contributions show how the investigation of the interface of the oral and written, across the spectrum of seeing, hearing, and writing, generates new concepts of media and mediation.

Questioning the Historicity of Jesus

Questioning the Historicity of Jesus PDF Author: Raphael Lataster
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9004408789
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 508

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Book Description
This volume moves beyond the mainstream scholarly scepticism over the Christ of Faith and considers if there is sufficient evidence to establish the existence of the more mundane Historical Jesus. Using the logical tools of the analytic philosopher, Lataster finds that the relevant sources are unreliable as historical documents, and that the key method of those purporting that the Historical Jesus existed is to appeal to sources that do not exist. Considering an ancient hypothesis suggesting that Jesus began as a celestial messiah that certain Second Temple Jews already believed in, and was later allegorised in the Gospels, Lataster discovers that it is more reasonable to at least be agnostic over Jesus’ historicity.

How the Gospels Became History

How the Gospels Became History PDF Author: M. David Litwa
Publisher: Yale University Press
ISBN: 0300242638
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 311

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Book Description
A compelling comparison of the gospels and Greco-Roman mythology which shows that the gospels were not perceived as myths, but as historical records Did the early Christians believe their myths? Like most ancient--and modern--people, early Christians made efforts to present their myths in the most believable ways. In this eye-opening work, M. David Litwa explores how and why what later became the four canonical gospels take on a historical cast that remains vitally important for many Christians today. Offering an in-depth comparison with other Greco-Roman stories that have been shaped to seem like history, Litwa shows how the evangelists responded to the pressures of Greco-Roman literary culture by using well-known historiographical tropes such as the mention of famous rulers and kings, geographical notices, the introduction of eyewitnesses, vivid presentation, alternative reports, and so on. In this way, the evangelists deliberately shaped myths about Jesus into historical discourse to maximize their believability for ancient audiences.