J-D

Has anybody read The Nazarene Gospel Restored, by Robert Graves and Joshua Podro? I'd be interested in critical reactions.

Toto

It appears to be out of print and not readily available, ($200 for a used copy on Amazon!) but there is an excerpt here (scroll down to close to the end)

J-D

Just to clarify: I'm not looking for a copy. I've already read it, and know where I can borrow it again if I want to. I was just interested in hearing how its arguments might be regarded.

(I'm not surprised to hear it's hard to find. It was hard to get published too.)

Ecrasez L'infame

Dear JD.

I've read it, or as much as my poor brain could take - it took me two months, and I confess I skipped the hard bits. In fact I own a copy - English edition to boot (the American one was slightly abridged), one of only 6000 in the world. One of my more expensive purchases, I can tell you.

The thing about Graves - not just here, but in all his prose (I don't know much about Podro) - is how extraordinarily reliable his quoted facts are. Obviously, he makes mistakes; but the more unlikely something he says seems, the more he would have checked and double-checked it. In fact, I don't believe he says anything for which he hasn't a good tradition of some degree of reliability - he has that kind of integrity. And he has a spooky habit of turning up right in the long run - for example, his suggestion (in his novel King Jesus) that Jesus was born in Bethlehem in Galilee, not the bigger Bethlehem in Judea (I started a thread on this here). Graves wrote that in 1946 - in 2005 an archaeologist made the same proposal based on the evidence from his latest dig. And that's not a one off - that kind of thing is always happening with Graves.

On the other hand, he also likes to use what he calls the "analeptic" method - where, by an effort of imagination, he throws himself back to which the relevant moment in the past. To everyone else, this looks strangely like making it up.

Regards

Robert

J-D

Thanks for the response.

Graves is possibly most highly regarded as a poet (but I've only read a little of his poetry, and don't remember much about it). He also wrote a diversity of prose, both fictional and non-fictional: indeed, he wrote one short story whose theme was his proclivity for writing very different kinds of works. Even his fiction, however, shows evidence of a mind well-furnished with diverse and often obscure information.

By way of his 'analeptic' method and other idiosyncrasies, he did produce some very strange stuff, like The White Goddess--which can be extremely entertaining in parts, if you have the right taste for it to appeal to, but leaves you wondering just what, if anything, is supposed to be the point that is intended to be taken seriously. This same peculiar streak shows up in his frankly fictional work King Jesus, which I think is easier to get hold of than The Nazarene Gospel Restored. As I recall he explains the difference between the approaches taken in the two works in the introduction to NGR. Although they're not afraid to speculate in NGR, it lacks the wildly supernatural aspect of KJ. I've often wondered how much this might have to do with the involvement of Podro--but then, Graves did do other quite sober non-fictional work, so it's hard to be sure.

Anyway, I think what I might do is borrow and read the book again, and then post some of the specific ideas here in search of critical response. It doesn't look as if there's anybody apart from you who's familiar with the book itself, but specific aspects might provoke a response in their own right.

Ecrasez L'infame

That sounds great - I at least would be interested. I'm a big fan of the old goat - know most about his poetry and books on poetic theory, and never liked his novels much: too much gadzooks, sir, unhand me! for my taste; tho' I recognise they're all brilliant. And of course nobody can understand the New Age movement in Europe and the US from about 1940 on if they haven't read the White Goddess. As regards BC&H, the important thing is that he (and Podro, and Patai) all had many brilliant and interesting ideas that perhaps need fleshing out with a bit of rigour. To be generous to them, we can say that what is obvious to their great minds needs to have the dots joined for us lesser mortals.

Of course, we discuss "brilliant and interesting ideas" because of where they lead us, not because they are right; but (as I said upthread) Graves has this happy knack of being right as well in the long run.

Keep in touch.

Regards

Robert

Ecrasez L'infame

BTW - Graves's version of Suetonius is still the best and most readable one around. There's a review of it by his opposite number Stateside, Gore Vidal, at http://www.rjgeib.com/thoughts/desol...ore-vidal.html. And last time I looked, Graves's translation of the Golden Ass was still the Penguin standard in the UK.

R