Luke and the Politics of Homeric Imitation

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Author :
Publisher : Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN 13 : 197870139X
Total Pages : 279 pages
Book Rating : 4.9/5 (787 download)

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Book Synopsis Luke and the Politics of Homeric Imitation by : Dennis R. MacDonald

Download or read book Luke and the Politics of Homeric Imitation written by Dennis R. MacDonald and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2018-10-25 with total page 279 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Luke and the Politics of Homeric Imitation: Luke–Acts as Rival to the Aeneid argues that the author of Luke–Acts composed not a history but a foundation mythology to rival Vergil’s Aeneid by adopting and ethically emulating the cultural capital of classical Greek poetry, especially Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey and Euripides's Bacchae. For example, Vergil and, more than a century later, Luke both imitated Homer’s account of Zeus’s lying dream to Agamemnon, Priam’s escape from Achilles, and Odysseus’s shipwreck and visit to the netherworld. Both Vergil and Luke, as well as many other intellectuals in the Roman Empire, engaged the great poetry of the Greeks to root new social or political realities in the soil of ancient Hellas, but they also rivaled Homer’s gods and heroes to create new ones that were more moral, powerful, or compassionate. One might say that the genre of Luke–Acts is an oxymoron: a prose epic. If this assessment is correct, it holds enormous importance for understanding Christian origins, in part because one may no longer appeal to the Acts of the Apostles for reliable historical information. Luke was not a historian any more than Vergil was, and, as the Latin bard had done for the Augustine age, he wrote a fictional portrayal of the kingdom of God and its heroes, especially Jesus and Paul, who were more powerful, more ethical, and more compassionate than the gods and heroes of Homer and Euripides or those of Vergil’s Aeneid.

The Gospels and Homer

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Author :
Publisher : Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN 13 : 1442230533
Total Pages : 441 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (422 download)

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Book Synopsis The Gospels and Homer by : Dennis R. MacDonald

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.

Luke and Vergil

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Author :
Publisher : Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN 13 : 144223055X
Total Pages : 273 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (422 download)

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Book Synopsis Luke and Vergil by : Dennis R. MacDonald

Download or read book Luke and Vergil written by Dennis R. MacDonald and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2014-11-05 with total page 273 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 Luke and Vergil MacDonald proposes that the author of Luke-Acts followed Mark’s lead in imitating Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey, but greatly expanded his project, especially in the Acts, but adding imitations not only of the epics but also of Euripides’ Bacchae and Plato’s Socratic dialogues. The potential imitations include spectacular miracles, official resistance, epiphanies, prison breaks, and more. The book applies mimesis criticism and uses side-by-side comparisons to show how early Christian authors portrayed the origins of Christianity as more compelling than the Augustan Golden Age.

The Homeric Epics and the Gospel of Mark

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Author :
Publisher : Yale University Press
ISBN 13 : 9780300080124
Total Pages : 284 pages
Book Rating : 4.0/5 (81 download)

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Book Synopsis The Homeric Epics and the Gospel of Mark by : Dennis Ronald MacDonald

Download or read book The Homeric Epics and the Gospel of Mark written by Dennis Ronald MacDonald and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 2000-01-01 with total page 284 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this groundbreaking book, Dennis R. MacDonald offers an entirely new view of the New Testament gospel of Mark. The author of the earliest gospel was not writing history, nor was he merely recording tradition, MacDonald argues. Close reading and careful analysis show that Mark borrowed extensively from the Odyssey and the Iliad and that he wanted his readers to recognise the Homeric antecedents in Mark's story of Jesus. Mark was composing a prose anti-epic, MacDonald says, presenting Jesus as a suffering hero modeled after but far superior to traditional Greek heroes. Much like Odysseus, Mark's Jesus sails the seas with uncomprehending companions, encounters preternatural opponents, and suffers many things before confronting rivals who have made his house a den of thieves. In his death and burial, Jesus emulates Hector, although unlike Hector Jesus leaves his tomb empty. Mark's minor characters, too, recall Homeric predecessors: Bartimaeus emulates Tiresias; Joseph of Arimathea, Priam; and the women at the tomb, Helen, Hecuba, and Andromache. And, entire episodes in Mark mirror Homeric episodes, including stilling the sea, walking on water, feeding the multitudes, the Triumphal E

Does the New Testament Imitate Homer?

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Author :
Publisher :
ISBN 13 : 9780300097702
Total Pages : 227 pages
Book Rating : 4.0/5 (977 download)

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Book Synopsis Does the New Testament Imitate Homer? by : Dennis Ronald MacDonald

Download or read book Does the New Testament Imitate Homer? written by Dennis Ronald MacDonald and published by . This book was released on 2003 with total page 227 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The book traces the influence of passages from the Iliad on subsequent ancient literature, showing how the story generated a vibrant mimetic literary tradition long before Luke composed the Acts. Educated readers would have recognized Luke's transformation of these tales and seen that the Christian God and heroes were superior to Homeric gods and heroes, MacDonald contends. With this radical reappraisal of the Acts of the Apostles, MacDonald sheds new light not only on a single book of the New Testament but also on the composition of early Christian narrative in general.

The Formal Education of the Author of Luke-Acts

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Author :
Publisher : Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN 13 : 0567705897
Total Pages : 288 pages
Book Rating : 4.5/5 (677 download)

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Book Synopsis The Formal Education of the Author of Luke-Acts by : Steve Reece

Download or read book The Formal Education of the Author of Luke-Acts written by Steve Reece and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2022-06-16 with total page 288 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Steve Reece proposes that the author of Luke-Acts was trained as a youth in the primary and secondary Greek educational curriculum typical of the Eastern Mediterranean during the Roman Imperial period, where he gained familiarity with the Classical and Hellenistic authors whose works were the focus of study. He makes a case for Luke's knowledge of these authors internally by spotlighting the density of allusions to them in the narrative of Luke-Acts, and externally by illustrating from contemporary literary, papyrological, and artistic evidence that the works of these authors were indeed widely known in the Eastern Mediterranean at the time of the composition of Luke-Acts, not only in the schools but also among the general public. Reece begins with a thorough examination of the Greek educational system during the Hellenistic and Roman Imperial periods, emphasizing that the educational curriculum was very homogeneous, at least at the primary and secondary levels, and that children growing up anywhere in the Eastern Mediterranean could expect to receive quite similar educations. His close examination of the Greek text of Luke-Acts has turned up echoes, allusions, and quotations of several of the very authors that were most prominently featured in the school curriculum: Homer, Aesop, Euripides, Plato, and Aratus. This reinforces the view that Luke, along with other writers of the New Testament, lived in a cultural milieu that was influenced by Classical and Hellenistic Greek literature and that he was not averse to invoking that literature when it served his theological and literary purposes.

From the Earliest Gospel (Q+) to the Gospel of Mark

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Author :
Publisher : Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN 13 : 1978703406
Total Pages : 219 pages
Book Rating : 4.9/5 (787 download)

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Book Synopsis From the Earliest Gospel (Q+) to the Gospel of Mark by : Dennis R. MacDonald

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).

Scripture Study & Scholarship

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Author :
Publisher : Lulu.com
ISBN 13 : 1312756470
Total Pages : 432 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (127 download)

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Book Synopsis Scripture Study & Scholarship by : G. G. Bolich

Download or read book Scripture Study & Scholarship written by G. G. Bolich and published by Lulu.com. This book was released on 2015-01-09 with total page 432 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume provides a working introduction to the scholarly study of Jewish and Christian sacred texts. Included are thorough explanations of 5 general methods and 8 chapters covering specialized methods. Readers are presented with step-by-step "how to" guides for each, and exercises to test their skills.

Does the New Testament Imitate Homer?

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Author :
Publisher : Yale University Press
ISBN 13 : 0300129890
Total Pages : 240 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (1 download)

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Book Synopsis Does the New Testament Imitate Homer? by : Dennis R. MacDonald

Download or read book Does the New Testament Imitate Homer? written by Dennis R. MacDonald and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 2008-10-01 with total page 240 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: div In this provocative challenge to prevailing views of New Testament sources, Dennis R. MacDonald argues that the origins of passages in the book of Acts are to be found not in early Christian legends but in the epics of Homer. MacDonald focuses on four passages in the book of Acts, examines their potential parallels in the Iliad, and concludes that the author of Acts composed them using famous scenes in Homer’s work as a model. Tracing the influence of passages from the Iliad on subsequent ancient literature, MacDonald shows how the story generated a vibrant, mimetic literary tradition long before Luke composed the Acts. Luke could have expected educated readers to recognize his transformation of these tales and to see that the Christian God and heroes were superior to Homeric gods and heroes. Building upon and extending the analytic methods of his earlier book, The Homeric Epics and the Gospel of Mark, MacDonald opens an original and promising appreciation not only of Acts but also of the composition of early Christian narrative in general. /DIV

Acting Gods, Playing Heroes, and the Interaction between Judaism, Christianity, and Greek Drama in the Early Common Era

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Author :
Publisher : Taylor & Francis
ISBN 13 : 1000910288
Total Pages : 180 pages
Book Rating : 4.0/5 (9 download)

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Book Synopsis Acting Gods, Playing Heroes, and the Interaction between Judaism, Christianity, and Greek Drama in the Early Common Era by : Courtney J. P. Friesen

Download or read book Acting Gods, Playing Heroes, and the Interaction between Judaism, Christianity, and Greek Drama in the Early Common Era written by Courtney J. P. Friesen and published by Taylor & Francis. This book was released on 2023-07-07 with total page 180 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: While many ancient Jewish and Christian leaders voiced opposition to Greek and Roman theater, this volume demonstrates that by the time the public performance of classical drama ceased at the end of antiquity the ideals of Jews and Christians had already been shaped by it in profound and lasting ways. Readers are invited to explore how gods and heroes famous from Greek drama animated the imaginations of ancient individuals and communities as they articulated and reinvented their religious visions for a new era. In this study, Friesen demonstrates that Greek theater’s influence is evident within Jewish and Christian intellectual formulations, narrative constructions, and practices of ritual and liturgy. Through a series of interrelated case studies, the book examines how particular plays, through texts and performances, scenes, images, and heroic personae, retained appeal for Jewish and Christian communities across antiquity. The volume takes an interdisciplinary approach involving classical, Jewish, and Christian studies, and brings together these separate avenues of scholarship to produce fresh insights and a reevaluation of theatrical drama in relation to ancient Judaism and Christianity. Acting Gods, Playing Heroes, and the Interaction between Judaism, Christianity, and Greek Drama in the Early Common Era allows students and scholars of the diverse and evolving religious landscapes of antiquity to gain fresh perspectives on the interplay between the gods and heroes—both human and divine—of Greeks and Romans, Jews and Christians as they were staged in drama and depicted in literature.

Reading and Teaching Ancient Fiction

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Publisher : SBL Press
ISBN 13 : 0884142604
Total Pages : 338 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (841 download)

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Book Synopsis Reading and Teaching Ancient Fiction by : Sara R. Johnson

Download or read book Reading and Teaching Ancient Fiction written by Sara R. Johnson and published by SBL Press. This book was released on 2018-03-23 with total page 338 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The third volume of research on ancient fiction This volume includes essays presented in the Ancient Fiction and Early Christian and Jewish Narrative section of the Society of Biblical Literature. Contributors explore facets of ongoing research into the interplay of history, fiction, and narrative in ancient Greco-Roman, Jewish, and Christian texts. The essays examine the ways in which ancient authors in a variety of genre and cultural settings employed a range of narrative strategies to reflect on pressing contemporary issues, to shape community identity, or to provide moral and educational guidance for their readers. Not content merely to offer new insights, this volume also highlights strategies for integrating the fruits of this research into the university classroom and beyond. Features Insight into the latest developments in ancient Mediterranean narrative Exploration of how to use ancient texts to encourage students to examine assumptions about ancient gender and sexuality or to view familiar texts from a new perspective Close readings of classical authors as well as canonical and noncanonical Jewish and Christian texts

Envisioning God in the Humanities

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Publisher : Wipf and Stock Publishers
ISBN 13 : 1532656130
Total Pages : 367 pages
Book Rating : 4.5/5 (326 download)

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Book Synopsis Envisioning God in the Humanities by : Courtney J. P. Friesen

Download or read book Envisioning God in the Humanities written by Courtney J. P. Friesen and published by Wipf and Stock Publishers. This book was released on 2018-11-09 with total page 367 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The humanities offer insights into the highest (and lowest) capabilities of our own natures and, at their best, they function as prophetic champions of human dignity and as inspired celebrants of beauty. Envisioning God in the Humanities pays tribute to the career of Melissa Harl Sellew, a scholar and teacher who embodies the ideals of these academic disciplines. The collaboration of these essays attests to the potentialities for transcendence that emerge from rigorous and collective reflection on the texts, images, and ideas produced in ancient societies. Taking its cue from Professor Sellew's own distinguished scholarship, this collection of studies begins with analyses of the New Testament Gospels, then moves more broadly toward the religious life of the ancient world as attested both in literature and materiality, among Jews and Christians, Greeks and Romans. Just as Sellew has done throughout her career, so this volume invites us into to the joy of exploring distant societies and, in so doing, into the fuller discovery of one's own self.

Relating the Gospels

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Publisher : Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN 13 : 0567681114
Total Pages : 240 pages
Book Rating : 4.5/5 (676 download)

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Book Synopsis Relating the Gospels by : Eric Eve

Download or read book Relating the Gospels written by Eric Eve and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2021-01-14 with total page 240 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume examines the synoptic problem and argues that the similarities between the gospels of Matthew and Luke outweigh the objections commonly raised against the theory that Luke used the text of Matthew in composing his gospel. While agreeing with scholars who suggests that memory played a leading role in ancient source-utilization, Eric Eve argues for a more flexible understanding of memory, which would both explain Luke's access of Matthew's double tradition material out of the sequence in which it appears in Matthew, and suggest that Luke may have been more influenced by Matthew's order than appears on the surface. Eve also considers the widespread ancient practice of literary imitation as another mode of source utilization the Evangelists, particularly Luke, could have employed, and argues that Luke's Gospel should be seen in part as an emulation of Matthew's. Within this enlarged understanding of how ancient authors could utilize their sources, Luke's proposed use of Matthew alongside Mark becomes entirely plausible, and Eve concludes that the Farrer Hypothesis of Matthew using Mark, and Luke consequently using both gospels, to be the most likely solution to the Synoptic Problem.

The Acts of the Apostles

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Author :
Publisher : InterVarsity Press
ISBN 13 : 0830899804
Total Pages : 268 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (38 download)

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Book Synopsis The Acts of the Apostles by : Osvaldo Padilla

Download or read book The Acts of the Apostles written by Osvaldo Padilla and published by InterVarsity Press. This book was released on 2016-03-02 with total page 268 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Osvaldo Padilla explores fresh avenues of understanding the book of Acts by examining the text in light of the most recent research on the book itself, philosophical hermeneutics, genre theory and historiography. This advanced introduction to the study of Acts covers important questions about authorship, genre, history, and theology and interpretation.

Political Issues in Luke-Acts

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Author :
Publisher : Wipf and Stock Publishers
ISBN 13 : 1725235382
Total Pages : 192 pages
Book Rating : 4.7/5 (252 download)

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Book Synopsis Political Issues in Luke-Acts by : Richard J. Cassidy

Download or read book Political Issues in Luke-Acts written by Richard J. Cassidy and published by Wipf and Stock Publishers. This book was released on 2015-02-25 with total page 192 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "The contributors represent varying outlooks in New Testament study so that the book offers a continuation of the current debate rather than a set of agreed conclusions. The editors of this symposium deserve our thanks for bringing together this series of useful essays which no student of the social teaching in the New Testament and of Luke's writings in particular ought to miss." --I. Howard Marshall, Professor of New Testament Exegesis, University of Aberdeen "Various phases of Luke's challenge (to the powers of his day) are discussed in some detail by the contributors to this symposium; and, in consequence, much light is thrown on Luke's purpose in writing. I am happy to commend this new volume of studies to the serious attention of students and teachers of the New Testament and early Christian history." --F. F. Bruce, Rylands Professor of Biblical Criticism and Exegesis, University of Manchester "These lively, provocative, and well-informed essays center around the thesis of Dr. Richard J. Cassidy in his Jesus, Politics, and Society, in which he challenges the notion that Luke-Acts was written as a political apologetic. The result is a stimulating debate, as though one were participating in a discussion, at once learned and relevant, on the exegetical issue of Lukan redaction, and of course, on the moral question of Jesus' attitude toward civil authority." -Howard Clark Kee, William Goodwin Aurelio Professor of Biblical Studies, Boston University "Here we have ten studies which sharply probe aspects of the political Luke and/or Luke's political Jesus, including a study by Cassidy himself as well as studies which take him to task on various counts. All told, Political Issues in Luke-Acts is an extremely valuable showcase of the most current research in Luke-Acts and its societal concerns." --Edward C. Hobbs, Professor of Religion, Wellesley College, Visiting Professor of New Testament, Harvard University

The Christian Invention of Time

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Publisher : Cambridge University Press
ISBN 13 : 1009080830
Total Pages : 517 pages
Book Rating : 4.0/5 (9 download)

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Book Synopsis The Christian Invention of Time by : Simon Goldhill

Download or read book The Christian Invention of Time written by Simon Goldhill and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2022-02-03 with total page 517 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Time is integral to human culture. Over the last two centuries people's relationship with time has been transformed through industrialisation, trade and technology. But the first such life-changing transformation – under Christianity's influence – happened in late antiquity. It was then that time began to be conceptualised in new ways, with discussion of eternity, life after death and the end of days. Individuals also began to experience time differently: from the seven-day week to the order of daily prayer and the festal calendar of Christmas and Easter. With trademark flair and versatility, world-renowned classicist Simon Goldhill uncovers this change in thinking. He explores how it took shape in the literary writing of late antiquity and how it resonates even today. His bold new cultural history will appeal to scholars and students of classics, cultural history, literary studies, and early Christianity alike.

Slavery, Gender, Truth, and Power in Luke-Acts and Other Ancient Narratives

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Author :
Publisher : Springer
ISBN 13 : 3030056899
Total Pages : 247 pages
Book Rating : 4.0/5 (3 download)

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Book Synopsis Slavery, Gender, Truth, and Power in Luke-Acts and Other Ancient Narratives by : Christy Cobb

Download or read book Slavery, Gender, Truth, and Power in Luke-Acts and Other Ancient Narratives written by Christy Cobb and published by Springer. This book was released on 2019-04-25 with total page 247 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book examines slavery and gender through a feminist reading of narratives including female slaves in the Gospel of Luke, the Acts of the Apostles, and early Christian texts. Through the literary theory of Mikhail Bakhtin, the voices of three enslaved female characters—the female slave who questions Peter in Luke 22, Rhoda in Acts 12, and the prophesying slave of Acts 16—are placed into dialogue with female slaves found in the Apocryphal Acts, ancient novels, classical texts, and images of enslaved women on funerary monuments. Although ancients typically distrusted the words of slaves, Christy Cobb argues that female slaves in Luke-Acts speak truth to power, even though their gender and status suggest that they cannot. In this Bakhtinian reading, female slaves become truth-tellers and their words confirm aspects of Lukan theology. This exegetical, theoretical, and interdisciplinary book is a substantial contribution to conversations about women and slaves in Luke-Acts and early Christian literature.