GakuseiDon

I've often seen the comment that "the Gospels are midrash!", with the implication that they were thought to be fiction. Yet are the Gospels really thought to be midrash? And was midrash thought to be fiction? If Mark was writing midrash, does that mean he was a Jewish Christian writing in a Jewish tradition?

According to this Wikipedia article on midrash:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Midrash

The "classical" Midrash starts off with a seemingly unrelated sentence from the Biblical books of Psalms, Proverbs or the Prophets. This sentence later turns out to metaphorically reflect the content of the rabbinical interpretation offered....

An example of a Midrashic interpretation:

"And God saw all that He had made, and found it very good. And there was evening, and there was morning, the sixth day." (Genesis 1:31) - Midrash: Rabbi Nahman said in Rabbi Samuel's name: "Behold, it was very good" refers to the Good Desire; "And behold, it was very good" refers to the Evil Desire. Can then the Evil Desire be very good? That would be extraordinary! But without the Evil Desire, however, no man would build a house, take a wife and beget children; and thus said Solomon: "Again, I considered all labour and all excelling in work, that it is a man's rivalry with his neighbour." (Kohelet IV, 4) (Genesis Rabbah 9:7, translation from Soncino Publications).

So, are the Gospels currently thought to be "midrash"? And does that then mean that they were considered fiction?

Ray Moscow

I suppose that although we might call "midrash" fiction, its creators might have looked at it quite differently -- it was a way to explain and explore the story more fully.

We tend to think in categories of "fact" or "fiction", but perhaps this is imposing our view onto the genre.

Ray

GakuseiDon

I wonder about that, too. If "the Gospels are midrash", it seems to me that the "midrashic" elements relate to how Jesus was mapped onto the role of the messiah as per the OT. That is, creating Jesus himself doesn't seem to be a function of midrashic literature, at least as far as I can see from the examples that I've read.

Magdlyn

Have you read Robert Price? He answers these questions in great detail.

Deconstructing Jesus

From the Inside Flap
In DECONSTRUCTING JESUS, author Robert M. Price argues that liberal Protestant scholars who produce reconstructions of the "historical Jesus" are, as Albert Schweitzer pointed out long ago, creating their own Jesus icons to authorize a liberal religious agenda. Christian faith, whether fundamentalist or theologically liberal, invariably tends to produce a Jesus capable of playing the role of a religious figurehead.

In this way, "Jesus Christ" functions as a symbolic cloak for several hidden agendas. This is no surprise, Price demonstrates, since the Jesus Christ of the gospels is very likely a fictional amalgam of several first-century prophets and messiahs, as well as of purely mythic Mystery Cult redeemers and Gnostic Aions. To show this, Price follows the noted scholar Burton Mack's outline of a range of "Jesus movements" and "Christ cults," showing the origins of each one's Jesus figures and how they may have finally merged into the patchwork savior of Christian dogma.

Finally, Price argues that there is good reason to believe that Jesus never existed as a historical figure, and that responsible historians must remain agnostic about a "historical Jesus" and what he stood for.

The Incredible Shrinking Son of Man: How Reliable Is the Gospel Tradition?

a reviewer writes:

This fascinating, scholarly book dissects the aspects of the Christ myth, searching for an historical Jesus. Guiding us through the birth narratives, early childhood fables, Jesus' time of teaching, his betrayal, death and resurrection, Price finds that the evidence for validity is scant. The most damning evidence against historicity, and clearly outlined in this book, is the fact that every part of the Jesus story is lifted from another source. The idea that Jesus was god, born of a virgin, a miracle-worker, teacher, died on the cross and resurrected is told to us, not in any original words, but by simply cutting and pasting earlier testimonies of other gods and other events into the Jesus narrative. If Jesus really did walk the earth and do all he is purported to do, why did his chroniclers explain him only in borrowed words? Highly recommended reading.

GakuseiDon

Hi Magdlyn, no, I haven't read those books, though I've heard them being recommended before and I hope to get to them at some stage.

Does Price discuss midrash, and does he claim that the Gospels were midrash?

Toto

Extensively. Click on the Amazon link for the Incredible Shrinking Son and search for "midrash."

No Robots

Here is what it Midrash is:

'Midrash' is based on a Hebrew word meaning 'interpretation' or 'exegesis'.

This is what irritates me about mythicists: They make bold declarations that contort definitions into meeting their own polemical objectives. The absurd thing is that these contorted definitions are easily refuted. In effect, discussion is stunted into being nothing more than the correction of laughable errors. Why don't they just check on the meaning of midrash before claiming that it is basically synonymous with fiction?

The whole of the Bible is essentially midrash. The goal of the reader of midrash is to identify that which is being interpreted.

GakuseiDon

Yes, it appears to have a broader meaning than just "fiction". Many of those who argue that the Gospels are midrash also appear to think that Jesus was historical. Even Price has been largely agnostic towards a historical Jesus, so if he argued that the Gospels are midrash, then that alone doesn't appear to a defining characteristic of non-historicity.

Toto

I don't think that anyone seriously argues that the gospels are midrash therefore they are fictional.

The argument is that if the gospels are midrash, they cannot be used as evidence of historical events.

GakuseiDon

I've certainly seen the former claim being made by mythicists. Even Doherty hints at this:
http://jesuspuzzle.humanists.net/puzzle9.htm

Piece No. 9: THE GOSPELS AS (FICTIONAL) "MIDRASH"

Not only do the Gospels contain basic and irreconcilable differences in their accounts of Jesus, they have been put together according to a traditional Jewish practice known as "midrash", which involved reworking and enlarging on scripture. This could entail the retelling of older biblical stories in new settings. Thus, Mark’s Jesus of Nazareth was portrayed as a new Moses, with features that paralleled the stories of Moses. Many details were fashioned out of specific passages in scripture. The Passion story itself is a pastiche of verses from the Psalms, Isaiah and other prophets, and as a whole it retells a common tale found throughout ancient Jewish writings, that of the Suffering and Vindication of the Innocent Righteous One. It is quite possible that Mark, at least, did not intend his Gospel to represent an historical figure or historical events, and designed it to provide liturgical readings for Christian services on the Jewish model.

It seems to me that if the Gospels are midrash, then the implications are that the writer believed that Jesus was historical (otherwise he wouldn't be a new Moses, for example), at least from what I understand about "midrash", though I'm not pretending to be an expert on the topic.