Can Study of the Historical Jesus Escape its Typographical Captivity?

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-65
Author(s):  
Richard A. Horsley
Keyword(s):  
New Testament ◽  
Oral Communication ◽  
Biblical Studies ◽  
Comprehensive Approach ◽  
Historical Jesus ◽  
Alternative View ◽  
Oral Performance ◽  
Communications Media ◽  
Cultural Assumptions ◽  
New Testament Studies

Abstract As part of the deepening diversification of biblical studies, several lines of research are now undermining the print-cultural assumptions on which New Testament studies developed. The first section offers summaries of important inquiries into ancient communications media: the dominant oral communication and the uses of writing; revisionist text-criticism of manuscripts of texts later included in the Hebrew Bible; the oral-written cultivation of their cultural repertoire by Judean scribes; the parallel oral cultivation of Israelite popular tradition; revisionist criticism of Gospel texts; and the learning and oral performance of Gospel texts. These separate but related lines of research are undermining the standard print-cultural assumptions, concepts, and approaches of Jesus studies. The second section explores the implications of these researches that open toward an alternative view of what the sources are, a more comprehensive approach to the historical Jesus appropriate to ancient communications media, and a reconceptualization of Jesus studies.

Twenty-five Years of Marxist Biblical Criticism

2007 ◽  
Vol 5 (3) ◽  
pp. 298-321 ◽  
Author(s):  
Roland Boer
Keyword(s):  
Literary Criticism ◽  
New Testament ◽  
Hebrew Bible ◽  
Holistic Approach ◽  
Biblical Studies ◽  
Current Status ◽  
New Testament Studies ◽  
Fredric Jameson ◽  
Literary Methods ◽  
Mode Of Production

In the context of a renewed interest in Marxism outside biblical studies, this article surveys and critiques the background and current status of a similar renewal in biblical studies. It begins with a consideration of the background of current studies in liberation, materialist and political theologies, and moves on to note the division between literary and social scientific uses of Marxist theories. While those who used Marxist literary methods were initially inspired by Terry Eagleton and Fredric Jameson, more recent work has begun to make use of a whole tradition of Marxist literary criticism largely ignored in biblical studies. More consistent work, however, has taken place in the social sciences in both Hebrew Bible and New Testament studies. In Hebrew Bible studies, debates focus on the question of mode of production, especially the domestic or household mode of production, while in New Testament studies, the concerns have been with reconstructing the context of the Jesus movement and, more recently, the Pauline correspondence. I close with a number of questions concerning the division into different areas of what is really a holistic approach to texts and history.

scholarly journals Proposing Some New Ecliptics in New Testament Studies Enabled by Digital Humanities-Based Methods

2016 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 89-135
Author(s):  
James A. Libby
Keyword(s):  
New Testament ◽  
Digital Humanities ◽  
Worked Examples ◽  
Biblical Studies ◽  
Face Validity ◽  
Multiple Factors ◽  
Biblical Scholarship ◽  
New Testament Studies ◽  
Computer Based ◽  
Greek New Testament

“Fragmentation” is a well-worn watchword in contemporary biblical studies. But is endless fragmentation across the traditional domains of epistemology, methodology and hermeneutics the inevitable future for the postmodern exercise of biblical scholarship? In our view, multiple factors mitigate against such a future, but two command our attention here. First, digital humanities itself, through its principled use of corpora, databases and computer-based methods, seems to be remarkably capable of producing findings with high levels of face validity (interpretive agreement) across multiple hermeneutical perspectives and communities. Second, and perhaps more subversively, there is a substantial body of practitioners that, per Kearney, actively question postmodernity’s impress as the final port of call for philosophy. For these practitioners deconstruction has become both indispensable — by delegitimizing hegemonies — but, in its own way, metanarratival by stultifying all other iterative, dialectical and critical processes that have historically motivated scholarship. Sensing this impasse, Kearney (1987, pp. 43-45) proposes a reimagining that is not only critical but that also embraces ποίησις, the possibility of optimistic, creative work. Such a stance within digital humanities would affirm that poietic events emerge not only through frictions and fragmentation (e.g. Kinder and McPherson 2014, pp. xiii-xviii) but also through commonalties and convergence. Our approach here will be to demonstrate such a reimagining, rather than to argue for it, using two worked examples in the Greek New Testament (GNT). Those examples – digital humanities-enabled papyrology and digital humanities-enabled statistical linguistics – demonstrate ways in which the data of the text itself can be used to interrogate our perspectives and suggest that our perspectives must remain ever open to such inquiries. We conclude with a call for digital humanities to further leverage its notable strengths to cast new light on old problems not only in biblical studies, but across the spectrum of the humanities.

‘More Ingenious than Learned’? Examining the Quest for the Non-Historical Jesus

2019 ◽  
Vol 65 (4) ◽  
pp. 443-460
Author(s):  
Justin J. Meggitt
Keyword(s):  
New Testament ◽  
Critical Reflection ◽  
Turn Of The Century ◽  
Historical Jesus ◽  
New Testament Studies

This paper seeks to scrutinise the debate about the historicity of Jesus and identify aspects that merit critical reflection by New Testament scholars. Although the question is regularly dismissed, it is a salient one that was formative in the development of the discipline, and has become increasingly visible since the turn of the century. However, the terminology employed by the protagonists is problematic, and the conventional historiography of the debate misleading. The characteristic tropes evident in the contributions are also indicative of substantive issues within the discipline of New Testament studies itself.

scholarly journals A cultural turn in New Testament studies?

2016 ◽  
Vol 72 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
Jeremy Punt
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Studies ◽  
New Testament ◽  
Gender Ideology ◽  
Biblical Studies ◽  
Turn On ◽  
Potential Value ◽  
The New Testament ◽  
New Testament Studies ◽  
Cultural Turn

This article considers intersections between cultural studies and New Testament studies. It ponders and focuses on possible approaches to the bearing of the ‘cultural turn’ on biblical studies. Following a brief consideration of cultural studies and its potential value for New Testament studies, four promising developments in cultural studies approaches to the New Testament are noted.Keywords: Cultural Studies; Postcolonial; Gender; Ideology; Autobiography

Cognitive Dissonance and Early Christianity a Theory and Its Application Reconsidered1

1998 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 138-153
Author(s):  
Nicholas H. Taylor
Keyword(s):  
Cognitive Dissonance ◽  
New Testament ◽  
Early Christianity ◽  
Biblical Studies ◽  
Jewish Law ◽  
Cognitive Dissonance Theory ◽  
Early Christian ◽  
New Testament Studies ◽  
Social Scientific ◽  
Dissonance Theory

AbstractCognitive dissonance was one of the first social scientific concepts to be applied in New Testament studies. J Gager in Kingdom and community (1975) used cognitive dissonance theory to account for Christian responses to disconfirmation of their eschatological expectations. In a later article (1981) he used the theory to illuminate Paul's conversion. It was with the same intention that Segal (1990) applied this among other theories. Räisänen implicitly draws upon, if not the theory, then the thinking and observations which lie behind it in his study of Paul and the Jewish Law (1986). In my own previous work (1992; 1993; 1996) I have sought to apply cognitive dissonance both to Paul's conversion and to its much later repercussions for his views on matters of Jewish heritage and observance. Opposition to the use of cognitive dissonance theory in New Testament Studies has been led by Malina (1986). Drawing upon the cautions raised by Snow and Machalek (1982), Malina argues that cognitive dissonance theory is inappropriate to the early Christian situation, as the culture accommodated anomalous beliefs and practices without any consciousness of their incompatibility. Malina therefore suggests that, rather than Festinger's notion of cognitive dissonance (1957), Merton's conception of normative ambivalence (1976) should be used to account for discrepancies in the records of early Christianity. A corollary of this would be that dissonant information would not generate any pressure towards resolution in the early Christian context. This article will examine Malina's criticisms of the use of cognitive dissonance theory in Biblical Studies. Particular attention will be given to the question whether cognitive dissonance and normative ambivalence can in reality be deemed to be mutually exclusive alternatives. It will be argued that situations do occur where anomalies do not generate cognitive dissonance, and these are more adequately accounted for in terms of normative ambivalence. However, there remain situations where the stress occasioned by discrepant beliefs, practices, and experiences is evident. These situations are more adequately accounted for by cognitive dissonance. The theory therefore remains a valid tool for New Testament studies.

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