Rick Sumner

I can't be sure what he means, except that gospels themselves are a wholly unique genre.

He defined it as all gospels, canonical and non-canonical.

I agree. These are the types of things I would like clarified.

Regards,
Rick Sumner

Rick Sumner

"X" was just an oversimplification, I'm too lazy to type "A, B, C, D. . ." We can call "X" the combination of factors F, F(1), F(2). . .F(N) if you like.

Again, I'm going to have to know what you mean by "similar," to assess this. Surely comparisons between the gospels and a huge swath of literature are commonplace--to use an example often cited here, MacDonald thinks Mark is similar to the Homeric Epics (though I'm unpersuaded, as you know).

Regards,
Rick Sumner

Toto

I have not been able to keep up with discussion this in real time, and I am not sure why the question is posed so sharply.

Would it help to be more specific?

Apologists argue that the gospels are historical type documents. In opposition to this, it can be argued that they do not contain the author's name and credentials, do not contain specific dates, do not contain the sort of incidental happenings that round out most histories. The narrative consists of pericopes that are strung together, with little connection. Supernatural events are part of the entire document, as opposed to supernatural explanations or a few supernatural incidents. You cannot reasonably read Mark on the one hand, and Herodotus or Josephus on the other, and think that you are reading the same sort of document.

Richard Pervo has argued that Acts is a sort of Hellenistic romance novel, and this is accepted by a number of non-apologists. Luke-Acts has some of the trappings of a historical document - an attempt to fix a specific date on the events - but it contains a number of stock events from Hellenistic romances of the era. (The argument is much more involved that this, but I do not have my resources with me.) See Richard I. Pervo: Profit with Delight: The Literary Genre of the Acts of the Apostles (Philadelphia 1987, unfortunately out of print). This would class Acts (perhaps also gLuke) along with some books of the Jewish Scriptures that may be regarded as historical novels. (See this review of Lawrence M. Wills, The Jewish Novel in the Ancient World)

Viewing these religious documents as historical novels indicates that the authors did not intend them to be taken as 100% literal fact, which makes much more sense to me than the idea that they were written as disinterested history.

jbernier

Yes. I feel the same way. I am not sure that it is worth getting involved in this discussion as it seems to be a squabble between two individual posters as opposed to something meant for the participation of anyone who wants to join in.

Rick Sumner

But there are absolutely points on which the two are comparable. You can't read Josephus in the same light as the Dead Sea Scrolls either, but again there are points where they are comparable, which helps us to shed more light on both. Neither of them are wholly "unique."

Depending on the topic, one could find working analogies to the gospels in a wide swath of literature, which is why the claim of their uniqueness puzzles me.

Incidentally, I'm a "non-apologist" who has argued that they are "historical type documents." The description of people holding various positions as "apologists" or "non-apologists" does nothing to foster an analysis of the arguments rather than the presenters.

ABEBooks has it, for anyone interested. I'm not terribly keen on a $50 used book written by a pedophile on a topic that's only of incidental interest to me. I'll try and track it down though.

It would be helpful if you would point to some examples he provides. We'll need to look at the argument itself, not appeals to anonymous "non-apologists."

I'm not sure what this has to do with the "uniqueness" of the gospels though, you seem to be suggesting that it fits a different genre. That's not unique.

But does that make them unique?

I'm certainly not suggesting they were written as "disinterested" anything.

And the question is whether we *should* view them as such, not what is indicated by doing so. Again, it would be helpful if you would point to some examples.

Regards,
Rick Sumner

Amaleq13

Yepperdoodle.

Turns out I'm not alone in this but I'm a bit surprised at some of the company:

“Mainstream Roman Catholic and Protestant Bible scholars consider the gospels a unique form that combines Jesus’ biography and Christian theology.� (from http://www.faithandvalues.com/tx/ELCA-182/2/ )

“So far as we know, Mark was the first to create a distinctive literary form by combining the church's preaching about Jesus (his words and deeds) with a narrative account of Jesus' life and ministry.� (from http://www.anova.org/sev/es/intro_gospels.htm )

“Gospels are a genre of ancient literature concerning the life of Jesus .�
(from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gospels )

Toto

I am not arguing for "uniqueness." The idea of dividing documents up into genres is a modern convenience. You may find some similarities between the gospels and other Hellenistic writings from the 1st-2nd c. Roman Empire - it would be strange if there were no similarities. But you seem to want to say that because there are similarities, that it shows that the gospels were written as history. I see no reason to draw this conclusion. You may find some similarities between modern histories and political propaganda and historical fiction - but those are three different categories of writings, and you could not conclude that the historical fiction was written as literal history.

Amaleq13

I don't blame you but I would appreciate input from anyone interested and knowledgeable. I suspect that it will be difficul to find many who qualify for both.

Meanwhile, Rick, here is what I've managed to cobble together:

A collection of anonymous narratives focusing on the theologically significant actions/events related to the central figure of a shared belief system with at least two authors independently rewriting an earlier version apparently to suit their individually differing theological views.

The original story establishes a specific historical setting maintained throughout all subsequent versions but all versions appear to rely heavily on the Hebrew Bible for specific details (sometimes independent of the original context) and known historical characters are not depicted in a way that is consistent with independent accounts that explicitly claim to be recording history.

No sources are explicitly identified for the details of the story but comparison across versions suggests fabrication of some individual scenes has taken place. Comparison across versions also suggests that collections of sayings and/or collections of scenes with a shared theme (eg miracle stories) but unconnected by narrative were used in the creation of the narratives.


I started out trying to be as general as possible but it is the specifics, IMO, that make them unique. I suspect this is why "gospel" is considered its own, unique genre by the sources I quoted above.

Rick Sumner

Why does it matter that at least two authors have done so, if they've done so independently of each other? Matthew needs to be analyzed as having used Mark, Luke needs to be analyzed as having used Mark. Their use of it needs to be analyzed exactly as you've suggested implicity--independently.

Is the genre characterized by use of later sources? Mark wasn't a gospel until Matthew and Luke used it? What was Mark before that? Was it still unique, even without the suggested uniquely identifying characteristic?

And how securely can we state that Matthew and Luke are really independent?

A collection of anonymous narratives is nothing unique. The DSS are rife with them.

Again, how is this unique? For a good example, how is it distinct from the Pesharim, which are not only "heavily" reliant, but totally reliant.

And again, why is the fact that they made things up uniquely identifying? Lots of texts made up a lot of things. In fact, it happened so often we've developed rules of thumb for it--for example, among historians in antiquity, any long speech represents authorial redaction rather than historical presentation.

Regards,
Rick Sumner

Rick Sumner

I'm not. The argument for the uniqueness of the gospels is usually presented by apologists, which is what I was referring to when I said it's usually the product of semantic nitpicking--McDowell waxes lyrical about how unique the Bible is through superficial distinctions, for example.

I'll get back to you after I read the links.

Regards,
Rick Sumner