Jeffrey Gibson

In the hell has frozen over category, I echo Spin's question.

Jeffrey

Toto

I am not out of the loop (and have already had this discussion with Ben Smith.) I know about this trend and have read some of Burridge. But he doesn't solve any problems of historiography. The Greco-Roman bioi were a literary genre, sometimes written about gods or mythological personages, and not guaranteed to be historical reportage.

If the gospels are classified as bioi, we still don't know if they were intended to contain history, or how that history can be extracted.

Doug Shaver

Capt. James T. Kirk has had a tremendous impact on American history.

Yellum Notnef

Yes, but he was more of a ladies man than a genius. Jesus was a genius.

Jeffrey Gibson

Ah yes, so says Brunner. But Brunner's characterization is circular. He posits "genius" as a criterion by which we can evaluate figures in history and then creates a portrait of Jesus through an uncritical selection and amalgamation of Gospel texts to "show" that Jesus fits the category supremely. In other words, he gets what he already wants to see, and sees what he wants to get when he approaches the Gospels.

Brunner also engages in a wholly question begging move similar to that used by Muslim apologists when they appeal to the "fact" that Mohammed was "illiterate" to show that the Quran is obviously inspired, when he posits that the Am ha-haretz would not have produced the literature they did unless Jesus was the "genius" that Brunner claims he was.

Plus, he reads the Gospels just as Renan did -- through the lenses of the Romantic movement -- and with a wholly inadequate and woefully under informed (pre Schweitzer and pre DSS and pre-Hengel) "Strack Billerbeck" influenced understanding of first century Judaism.

For a good review and evaluation of the usefulness (and circularity) of the criteria of "genius" as a means of reconstructing who Jesus was, see pp. 42-66 (and especially 46-56) of The Quest for the Plausible Jesus: The Question of Criteria (or via: amazon.co.uk) by Gerd Theissen and Dagmar Winter.

Jeffrey

No Robots

Thanks for the reference. It is most excellent, and provides much of the background for Brunner's work on Christ. All the relevant portions can be read in preview on Google books here. It is amazing to me that Brunner is not so much as mentioned. It is this curious absence of any sustained analysis of Brunner in the critical literature that intrigues me.

Jeffrey Gibson

That Brunner is not mentioned is hardly amazing given that he was obviously not original in what he said, that his views about Jesus are grounded in a priori philosophical considerations, not exegesis of the Gospels, that he was hardly a good NT scholar, and that his conclusions, let alone his belief that he knew (or could know) the mind of Christ, are unsustainable.

His book is Romantic rubbish. And it seems that you are the only one who does not -- or cannot -- see this.

Jeffrey

No Robots

My point is that all the work of similar ilk is mentioned, but not his. I find that strange. And as for being rubbish, I will have to say that the little critical commentary I can find is not so dismissive. Catholic theologian Xavier Tilliette, for example, refers to Brunner's book as, "sa magnifique théorie du Christ" (Review by Xavier Tilliette of Michel Baraz's La révolution inespérée. Études v.367 (1987), p. 423).

Jeffrey Gibson

Tilliette was not a NT scholar, let alone an exegete. He was a philosopher who specialized in Schelling and Jaspers, and who worked, when dealing with Christology, in the tradition of the modern neo-Platonist Maurice Blondel.

BTW, have you actually read this review, or is your claim there based upon what you found in a contribution by a subscriber to the Tilliette Facebook page?

No Robots

There is also Protestant theologian Kornelis Miskotte, who, in his When the Gods are Silent, quotes Brunner at length on the subject of Jewish literature, including the NT. Miskotte attempts a critical assessment of Brunner, writing:

Constantin Brunner declared that when Jesus said 'Father,' this was a veiled rejection of the religion of the disciples and a hidden profession of 'atheistic' salvation. Naturally this raised a storm of indignation among the religious liberals. We too believe that Brunner's assertion is untenable, but that it comes closer to the mystery of this giving of a new name to God than does the interpretation which regards the name 'Father' as the apex of general religious experience.--When the Gods are Silent / Kornelis H Miskotte, p. 120