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Old 12-24-2011, 12:31 AM   #1
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Default Gospels as movie scripts

Gospels in Rewrite

University of Texas at Austin Classics and Religious Studies Professor L. Michael White's latest book is "Scripting Jesus: The Gospels in Rewrite." (or via: amazon.co.uk)

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Careful reading of the gospels reveals moments when the authors winked at the audience and the audience winked back.

“You can catch moments within each of these stories where the author and the audience are interacting,” White said. “You can really get that going. And once you catch that then we’ve just gotten inside of the situation for which each gospel was being written.”

He compares these moments of author-audience interaction to moments in “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off.”

“This movie does something that movies aren’t supposed to do,” White says. “Namely you have your lead character talk to the camera. And he does so with great dramatic effect because it’s part of his character that he’s got this insightful way of looking at his own situation.”

The gospels, White says, are not historical documents detailing what really happened. They’re more like movies that are based to some extent on a true story. The authors had different things they wanted to get across to different audiences.
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Old 12-24-2011, 02:40 PM   #2
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Michael's a cool guy. He actually spent time listening to my stupid theories (even with the pressures of managing a university department). And even though he walked away unconvinced he actually took the time to engage a nobody like me. He's interested in figuring out the truth whatever path he has to take to get there and even if it means engaging the odd nut along the way
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Old 12-25-2011, 01:10 AM   #3
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He seems restricted at present to the canonical gospels, but the same thesis may be emminently applied to the gnostic gospels and acts. Many of these gnostic scripts already manifestly exhibit different voices and persons, and the classic of all time is IMHO the recently discovered "Acts of Peter and the Twelve Apostles" from NHC 6.1. As the first tract in the 6th book it sits bound with the heaviest pagan tracts found at Nag Hammadi. It is a script. These scripts were designed to be read out
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Old 12-25-2011, 09:37 PM   #4
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What if the recently discovered Gospel of Judas is another example of a text that is best reconstructed as a "theatre script"?
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Old 12-26-2011, 02:31 PM   #5
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Christmas 2010 I worked up a script not on the Gospel of John only, but how it got written (then cutting to relevant scenes). With our paragraphing problems, here, it's best to just link to it, Post #5 in my thread "Source Strata in the Gospel of John":

http://www.theologyweb.com/campus/sh...of-John/page15

and with this excerpt illustrating theological nuances regarding the Johannine Discoruses:

[Nicodemus] Time now, Geneve, for more theological discussions about what Jesus really meant in my notes?

[Geneve] Our previous conversations have been very helpful, but I still need help on how to present the various contrasts. There’s what the Jews said Jesus said, there’s what you wrote down in your notes, there’s what Jesus really said, and there’s what Jesus really meant underlying His words.

[Nicodemus] Not to mention that there’s what we should present to our readers as our clarifying insertions and what we add as preaching. As you know, in my Aramaic original I did not alter my assigned project to present a court case against Jesus. So that includes the first two items you mentioned. Where I could recall additional words, phrases, or sentences Jesus said, I included that. As for Jesus meant or what you or I add as comment, we’ll have to discuss that as we go along.

Cut to various scenes of Jesus’s visit to Nicodemus, then to Jesus’s conflicts with authorities in John 8, 10, and/or 12, plus something from the Farewell Discourse or 18:33-38a, 19:39. Very sophisticated techniques could be employed to suggest what Jesus really said from what Nicodemus recorded as Devil’s Advocate, and what Geneve interpreted in (in consultation with Nicodemus), but that might be too difficult to convey.
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Old 12-26-2011, 02:44 PM   #6
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Toto View Post
Gospels in Rewrite

University of Texas at Austin Classics and Religious Studies Professor L. Michael White's latest book is "Scripting Jesus: The Gospels in Rewrite." (or via: amazon.co.uk)
I read all the reviews I could find online about White's book and his earlier book,
From Jesus to Christianity: How Four Generations of Visionaries & Storytellers Created the New Testament and Christian Faith.

Apparently he doesn't get around to talking about the gospels until the third generation (110-150 CE). That should be popular here.
Most of the reviews were favorable, but it's clear that White has neither new ideas, fresh ways of presenting them, nor good arguments when he does avoid just relying upon others. He's happy to use the consensus whenever he can without embroiling himself in controversy.
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Old 12-27-2011, 07:09 AM   #7
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The gospels, White says, are not historical documents detailing what really happened. They’re more like movies that are based to some extent on a true story. The authors had different things they wanted to get across to different audiences.
The truth of the story is in the readers(or listeners of viewers) lives. Whatever truth is in the NT is not historical truth, but mythical truth.
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Old 12-27-2011, 07:57 AM   #8
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Wait, so Ferris Bueller's Day Off was a true story?
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Old 12-27-2011, 08:07 AM   #9
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Wait, so Ferris Bueller's Day Off was a true story?
Is it a true story, I think you mean. Not to me.
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Old 12-27-2011, 08:10 AM   #10
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Wait, so Ferris Bueller's Day Off was a true story?
It features Ben Stein, an actual economist, lecturing on supply side economics.

Ben Stein
Quote:
STEIN: Richard Nixon introduced me to a man named Bill Safire, who`s a "New York Times" columnist. He introduced me to a guy who`s an executive at Warner Brothers. He introduced me to a guy who`s a casting director. He introduced me to John Hughes. John Hughes and I are among the only Republicans in the picture business, and John Hughes put me in the movie.

I was just going to do it off camera, but the student extras laughed so hard when they heard my voice that he said do it on camera, improvise, something you know a lot about.

When I gave the lecture about supply side economics, I thought they were applauding. Everybody on the set applauded. I thought they were applauding because they had learned something about supply side economics. But they were applauding because they thought I was boring.
And the rest is true in a mythical sense.
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