Toto

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)

stephan huller

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

mountainman

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

mountainman

What if the recently discovered Gospel of Judas is another example of a text that is best reconstructed as a "theatre script"?

Adam

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.

Adam

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.

Horatio Parker

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.

nogods4me

Wait, so Ferris Bueller's Day Off was a true story?

Horatio Parker

Is it a true story, I think you mean. Not to me.

Toto

It features Ben Stein, an actual economist, lecturing on supply side economics.

Ben Stein And the rest is true in a mythical sense.