Download or read book Two Shipwrecked Gospels written by Dennis R. MacDonald and published by Society of Biblical Lit. This book was released on 2012-06-29 with total page 729 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: With characteristic boldness and careful reassessment of the evidence, MacDonald offers an alternative reconstruction of Q and an alternative solution to the Synoptic Problem: the Q+/Papias Hypothesis. To do so, he reconstructs and interprets two lost books about Jesus: the earliest Gospel, which was used as a source by the authors of Mark, Matthew, and Luke; and the earliest commentary on the Gospels, by Papias of Hierapolis, who apparently knew Mark, Matthew, and the lost Gospel, which he considered to be an alternative Greek translation of a Semitic Matthew. MacDonald also explores how these two texts, well known into the fourth century, shipwrecked with the canonization of the New Testament and the embarrassment at outmoded eschatologies in both the lost Gospel and Papias’s Exposition.

Download or read book Acts written by N.T. Wright and published by InterVarsity Press. This book was released on 2011-08-30 with total page 133 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: With a scholar's mind and a pastor's heart, N. T. Wright guides us through the New Testament book of Acts, moving us from the world in which it was lived into the world in which we must live it again. Twenty-four sessions for group or personal study.

Download or read book Knowable Word written by Peter Krol and published by . This book was released on 2022-05-26 with total page 170 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Knowable Word offers a foundation on why and how to study the Bible. Through a running study Genesis 1, this new edition illustrates how to Observe, Interpret, and Apply the Scripture-and gives the vision behind each step.

Download or read book The Dionysian Gospel written by Dennis R. MacDonald and published by Fortress Press. This book was released on 2017-04-01 with total page 268 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood abide in me, and I in them.” Dennis R. MacDonald offers a provocative explanation of those scandalous words of Christ from the Fourth Gospel—an explanation that he argues would hardly have surprised some of the Gospel’s early readers. John sounds themes that would have instantly been recognized as proper to the Greek god Dionysos (the Roman Bacchus), not least as he was depicted in Euripides’s play The Bacchae. A divine figure, the offspring of a divine father and human mother, takes on flesh to live among mortals, but is rejected by his own. He miraculously provides wine and offers it as a sacred gift to his devotees, women prominent among them, dies a violent death—and returns to life. Yet John takes his drama in a dramatically different direction: while Euripides’s Dionysos exacts vengeance on the Theban throne, the Johannine Christ offers life to his followers. MacDonald employs mimesis criticism to argue that the earliest Evangelist not only imitated Euripides but expected his readers to recognize Jesus as greater than Dionysos.

Download or read book The Case for Proto Mark written by Delbert Burkett and published by Mohr Siebeck. This book was released on 2018-02-27 with total page 330 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The most common explanation for the material shared by Matthew and Luke (the double tradition) is that Matthew and Luke both used a source now lost, called Q. If we adopt the Q hypothesis to account for the double tradition, then what theory best accounts for the material that Matthew and Luke share with Mark? Three main theories have been proposed: Matthew and Luke used the Gospel of Mark as a source (the standard theory of Markan priority), Matthew and Luke used a revised version of Mark's gospel (the Deutero-Mark hypothesis), or all three evangelists used a source similar to, but earlier than, the Gospel of Mark (the Proto-Mark hypothesis). Delbert Burkett provides new data that calls into question the standard theory of Markan priority and the Deutero-Mark hypothesis. He offers the most comprehensive case to date for the Proto-Mark hypothesis, concluding that this theory best accounts for the Markan material.

Download or read book Tax Collector to Gospel Writer written by Michael J. Kok and published by Fortress Press. This book was released on 2023-02-07 with total page 247 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The text entitled as the "Gospel according to Matthew" was written anonymously. Matthew, the formerly despised tax collector whom Jesus appointed as one of his twelve apostles, is just briefly mentioned twice within its pages. The internal evidence within the text offers little support for the long-standing tradition accepted by innumerable Christians throughout the last two millennia that the Apostle Matthew was the evangelist who composed it. This has led Michael J. Kok to investigate anew the origins and development of the Patristic traditions about the Evangelist Matthew. Kok's investigation starts by tackling the question about why the Gospel of Matthew disagrees with the Gospels of Mark and Luke over the identity of the person whom Jesus approached when he was sitting at a toll booth near the Galilean village of Capernaum. Although it distinctively names Matthew as the tax collector in the narrative, it does not identify him as the one responsible for its composition. Kok's next step, then, is to ascertain why a tradition emerged in the early second century CE that Matthew recorded the oracles about the Lord in his native language before they were translated into Greek. Matthew's work was contrasted with Mark's rough draft documenting the words and deeds of Jesus that was based on his memories of what the Apostle Peter had preached. These traditions about the two evangelists may have had few adherents at first, but they eventually commanded unanimous consent among Christian interpreters once titles were affixed to the four Gospels identifying their authors as Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John in the late second century. The postulation that there was an original edition of Matthew's Gospel in a Semitic language had far-reaching consequences when the "Gospel according to the Hebrews" was eventually ascribed to Matthew too. This re-examination of the internal and external evidence regarding Matthew's authorship of a Gospel has important historical and theological implications.

Download or read book The Identity of John the Evangelist written by Dean Furlong and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2020-01-23 with total page 168 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book examines the various Johannine narratives found in writings in the period from Papias (early second century) to Eusebius (early fourth century). Dean Furlong argues that the first major revision of the Johannine narrative was the identification of John the Evangelist with John the Apostle, the son of Zebedee, at the beginning of the third century. This in turn initiated a process of reinterpretation, as the previously-separate narratives of the two figures were variously spun into new configurations during the third and fourth centuries. This process culminated with Eusebius’s synthesis of the Johannine traditions, which came to form the basis of what is considered the “traditional” Johannine story. Furlong concludes that in the earliest narrative, found in Papias, John the Evangelist was identified, not with the Apostle, but with another disciple of Jesus known as John the Elder.

Download or read book Hellenistic Dimensions of the Gospel of Matthew written by Robert S. Kinney and published by Mohr Siebeck. This book was released on 2016-04-11 with total page 364 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the search for Matthean theology, scholars overwhelmingly approach the Gospel of Matthew as the "the most Jewish Gospel." Studies of its Sitz im Leben focus on its relationship to Judaism, whether arguing from the perspective that Matthew wrote from a cloistered Jewish community or as the leader of a Gentile rebellion against such a Jewish community. While this is undoubtedly an important and necessary discussion for understanding the Gospel, it often assumes too much about the relationship between Judaism and Hellenism (via Martin Hengel). Robert S. Kinney argues for a hybridized perspective in which Matthew's attention to Jewish sources and ideas is not denied, but in which echoes of Greek and Roman sources can be observed, focusing on identifying Matthew's use of rhetoric and its possible echoes of Greco-Roman philosophical disciple-gathering teachers.

Download or read book From the Earliest Gospel Q to the Gospel of Mark written by Dennis R. MacDonald and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2019-10-17 with total page 219 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the Earliest Gospel (Q+) to the Gospel of Mark focuses on the remarkable overlaps between Jesus’s teachings in the lost Gospel Q and Mark. Dennis R. MacDonald argues Synoptic intertextuality is best explained not as the redaction of sources but more flexibly as the imitation of literary models. Part One applies the criteria of mimesis criticism in a running commentary on Q+ to demonstrate that it polemically imitated Deuteronomy. Part Two argues that Mark in turn tendentiously imitated Logoi. The Conclusion proposes that Matthew and Luke in turn brilliantly and freely imitated both Logoi and Mark and by doing so created scores of duplicate sayings and episodes (doublets).

Download or read book The Gospels and Homer written by Dennis R. MacDonald and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2014-11-05 with total page 441 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: These two volumes of The New Testament and Greek Literature are the magnum opus of biblical scholar Dennis R. MacDonald, outlining the profound connections between the New Testament and classical Greek poetry. MacDonald argues that the Gospel writers borrowed from established literary sources to create stories about Jesus that readers of the day would find convincing. In The Gospels and Homer MacDonald leads readers through Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey, highlighting models that the authors of the Gospel of Mark and Luke-Acts may have imitated for their portrayals of Jesus and his earliest followers such as Paul. The book applies mimesis criticism to show the popularity of the targets being imitated, the distinctiveness in the Gospels, and evidence that ancient readers recognized these similarities. Using side-by-side comparisons, the book provides English translations of Byzantine poetry that shows how Christian writers used lines from Homer to retell the life of Jesus. The potential imitations include adventures and shipwrecks, savages living in cages, meals for thousands, transfigurations, visits from the dead, blind seers, and more. MacDonald makes a compelling case that the Gospel writers successfully imitated the epics to provide their readers with heroes and an authoritative foundation for Christianity.

Download or read book Mythologizing Jesus written by Dennis R. MacDonald and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2015-05-07 with total page 179 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Our culture is well-populated with superheroes: Superman, Wonder Woman, Spider-Man, and more. Superheroes are not a modern invention; in fact, they are prehistoric. The gods and goddesses of the Greeks, for example, walked on water, flew, visited the land of the dead, and lived forever. Ancient Christians told similar stories about Jesus, their primary superhero—he possessed incredible powers of healing, walked on water, rose from the dead, and more. Dennis R. MacDonald shows how the stories told in the Gospels parallel many in Greek and Roman epics with the aim of compelling their readers into life-changing decisions to follow Jesus. MacDonald doesn’t call into question the existence of Jesus but rather asks readers to examine the biblical stories about him through a new, mythological lens.

Download or read book Luke at the Birth of the Gospels written by Sylvie Chabert d'Hyères and published by Cambridge Scholars Publishing. This book was released on 2024-07-03 with total page 205 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book provides a new view on Luke’s Gospel by introducing it as the source of the New Testament. A close reading of the works of Flavius Josephus and Latin inscriptions confirms the validity of the chronological landmarks delivered by the Evangelist. Together these three sources form a cohesive whole like a puzzle with finely-tuned pieces. The Codex Bezae Cantabrigiensis, which preserves the oldest known text of the Gospels and Acts written in Greek, attests that the Evangelist fulfilled the purpose of veracity advertised in the preface. The reliability of his work is linked to its early publication, in the decade following the events so that even Mark and Paul had knowledge of it. From this point of view, the “Lukan priority” that preserves the historical truth about Jesus’ life, would no longer be just an assumption. In this context, the conditions under which the Third Gospel was written are revealed, and with them, the objectives pursued by those who assumed responsibility for it, and who can be identified. Let us hope these pages will encourage other biblical Scholars to investigate the Third Gospel and Acts from the perspective of the “Lukan priority”.

Download or read book Feasting on the Gospels Luke Volume 1 written by Cynthia A. Jarvis and published by Westminster John Knox Press. This book was released on 2014-10-06 with total page 354 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Feasting on the Gospels is a new seven-volume series that follows up on the success of the Feasting on the Word series to provide another trusted preaching resource, this time on the most prominent and preached upon most preached upon books in the Bible: the four Gospels. With contributions from a diverse and respected group of scholars and pastors, Feasting on the Gospels includes completely new material that covers every single passage in the Gospels, making it suitable for both pastors who preach from the lectionary and pastors who do not. Moreover, these volumes incorporate the unique format of Feasting on the Word, giving preachers four perspectives to choose from for each Gospel passage: theological, pastoral, exegetical, and homiletical. Feasting on the Gospels offers a unique resource for all who preach, either continuously or occasionally, on the Gospels.

Download or read book The Gospel on the Margins written by Michael J. Kok and published by Augsburg Fortress Publishers. This book was released on 2015 with total page 396 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Despite virtually unanimous patristic association of the Gospel of Mark with the apostle Peter, the Gospel was mostly neglected by those same writers. Michael J. Kok surveys the second-century reception of Mark, from Papias of Hierapolis to Clement of Alexandria, and finds that the patristic writers were hesitant to embrace Mark because they perceived it to be too easily adapted to rival Christian factions. Kok describes the story of Marks Petrine origins as a second-century move to assert ownership of the Gospel on the part of the emerging Orthodox Church.

Download or read book Redescribing the Gospel of Mark written by Barry S. Crawford and published by SBL Press. This book was released on 2017-06-16 with total page 709 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A collaborative project with a variety of critical essays This final volume of studies by members of the Society of Biblical Literature’s consultation, and later seminar, on Ancient Myths and Modern Theories of Christian Origins focuses on Mark. As with previous volumes, the provocative proposals on Christian origins offered by Burton L. Mack are tested by applying Jonathan Z. Smith's distinctive social theorizing and comparative method. Essays examine Mark as an author’s writing in a book culture, a writing that responded to situations arising out of the first Roman-Judean war after the destruction of the Jerusalem temple in 70 CE. Contributors William E. Arnal, Barry S. Crawford, Burton L. Mack, Christopher R. Matthews, Merrill P. Miller, Jonathan Z. Smith, and Robyn Faith Walsh explore the southern Levant as a plausible provenance of the Gospel of Mark and provide a detailed analysis of the construction of Mark as a narrative composed without access to prior narrative sources about Jesus. A concluding retrospective follows the work of the seminar, its developing discourse and debates, and the continuing work of successor groups in the field. Features A thorough examination of the relation between structure and event in social and anthropological theory that provides conceptual tools for representing the project of the author of Mark An exploration of the southern Levant as a plausible provenance of the Gospel, a permanent site of successive imperial regimes and culturally related peoples A detailed analysis of the construction of Mark as a narrative composed without access to prior narrative sources about Jesus

Download or read book Gospels before the Book written by Matthew Larsen and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2018-07-02 with total page 337 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What does it look like to read the texts we now call the gospels like first- and second-century readers? There is no evidence of anyone regarding the gospel as a book published by an author until the end of the second century. So, put differently, what does it mean to read the gospels "before the book"? For centuries, the ways people discuss the gospels have been shaped by later ideas that have more to do with the printing press and modern notions of the author than ancient writing and reading practices. In Gospels before the Book, Matthew D. C. Larsen challenges several subtle yet problematic assumptions about authors, books, and publication at work in early Christian studies. He then explores a host of under-appreciated elements of ancient textual culture such as unfinished texts, accidental publication, post-publication revision, and the existence of multiple authorized versions of the same work. Turning to the gospels, he argues that the earliest readers and users of the text we now call the Gospel according to Mark treated it not as a book published by an author, but as an unfinished, open, and fluid collection of notes (hypomnmata). In such a scenario, the Gospel according to Matthew would not be regarded as a separate book published by a different author, but as a continuation of the same unfinished gospel tradition. Similarly it is not the case that, of the five different endings in the textual tradition we now call the Gospel according to Mark, one is "right" and the others are "wrong." Rather each represents its own effort to fill a perceived deficiency in the gospel. Larsen offers a new methodological framework for future scholarship on early Christian gospels.

Download or read book Christianizing Asia Minor written by Paul McKechnie and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2019-08 with total page 343 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Explores the growth of Christianity in inland Roman Asia, as cities and rural communities moved away from polytheistic Greco-Roman religion.