Behind the Gospels: Understanding the Oral Tradition

New Testament scholars often talk about oral tradition as a means by which material about Jesus reached the writers of the Gospels; but despite the recent flowering of interest in oral tradition, the study of memory, and the role of eye-witnesses, the latest scholarly advances have yet to fully penetrate the mainstream of academic Gospels scholarship, let alone the wider public. There is no convenient book-length treatment that can be used by students, or indeed by anyone else wishing to be informed about this crucial topic.

Behind the Gospels fills this gap, both by offering a general theoretical discussion of the nature of oral tradition and the formation of ancient texts, and by providing a critical survey of the field, from classical form-criticism down to the present day.

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Behind the Gospels: Understanding the Oral Tradition

New Testament scholars often talk about oral tradition as a means by which material about Jesus reached the writers of the Gospels; but despite the recent flowering of interest in oral tradition, the study of memory, and the role of eye-witnesses, the latest scholarly advances have yet to fully penetrate the mainstream of academic Gospels scholarship, let alone the wider public. There is no convenient book-length treatment that can be used by students, or indeed by anyone else wishing to be informed about this crucial topic.

Behind the Gospels fills this gap, both by offering a general theoretical discussion of the nature of oral tradition and the formation of ancient texts, and by providing a critical survey of the field, from classical form-criticism down to the present day.

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Behind the Gospels: Understanding the Oral Tradition

Behind the Gospels: Understanding the Oral Tradition

by Eric Eve
Behind the Gospels: Understanding the Oral Tradition

Behind the Gospels: Understanding the Oral Tradition

by Eric Eve

eBook

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Overview

New Testament scholars often talk about oral tradition as a means by which material about Jesus reached the writers of the Gospels; but despite the recent flowering of interest in oral tradition, the study of memory, and the role of eye-witnesses, the latest scholarly advances have yet to fully penetrate the mainstream of academic Gospels scholarship, let alone the wider public. There is no convenient book-length treatment that can be used by students, or indeed by anyone else wishing to be informed about this crucial topic.

Behind the Gospels fills this gap, both by offering a general theoretical discussion of the nature of oral tradition and the formation of ancient texts, and by providing a critical survey of the field, from classical form-criticism down to the present day.


Product Details

ISBN-13: 9781451487534
Publisher: Augsburg Fortress, Publishers
Publication date: 07/01/2014
Sold by: Barnes & Noble
Format: eBook
Pages: 224
File size: 7 MB

About the Author

Eric Eve is fellow and tutor in theology at Harris Manchester College, Oxford, and is the author of The Jewish Context of Jesus" Miracles (2002) and The Healer from Nazareth: Jesus" Miracles in Historical Context (2009).

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements ix

Note to the reader x

Abbreviations xi

Introduction xiii

1 The ancient media situation 1

What is oral tradition? 1

Some characteristics of orality and oral tradition 2

Writing in antiquity 8

Consequences for the oral Jesus tradition 13

2 Form criticism 15

Martin Dibelius 16

Rudolf Bultmann 21

Evaluation 27

3 The rabbinic model 33

Gerhardsson's thesis 34

Evaluation 39

4 The media contrast model 47

Erhardt Gtittgemanns 48

Werner Kelber 51

Evaluation 61

5 Informal controlled oral tradition 66

Kenneth Bailey's model 66

Bailey's data 68

Evaluation 79

6 Memory and tradition 86

Individual memory 87

Collective or social memory 91

Memory in oral tradition 99

Tradition and performance 103

7 Memory and orality in the Jesus tradition 108

James Dunn - Jesus Remembered 108

Richard Horsley (and Jonathan Draper) 115

Rafael Rodriguez - Structuring Early Christian Memory 123

Other contributions 131

Conclusions 133

8 The role of eyewitnesses 135

Samuel Byrskog - story and history 135

Richard Bauckham - Jesus and the Eyewitnesses 143

9 Probing the tradition 159

Mark and Paul 159

Mark and Josephus 169

Conclusions 175

10 Conclusion 177

Stability, change and the role of individuals 178

Implications for historical Jesus research 181

Implications for source criticism and Gospel interpretation 183

Conclusion 184

Bibliography 186

Index of ancient and biblical texts 195

Index of modern authors 197

Index of subjects 201

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