Behind the Gospels: Understanding the Oral Tradition
Overview
In Behind the Gospels, Eric Eve provides a critical introduction to a major storm center of debate in New Testament studies: oral tradition and memory theory. Eve gives both a helpful survey of the scholarly literature and original proposals for clarifying and advancing our understanding of these key issues. He explores the media contrast model, the rabbinic model, informal controlled oral tradition, and much more, offering judicious assessments of recent influential studies by Richard Bauckham, James D. G. Dunn, Richard Horsley, and Kenneth E. Bailey among others. Scholarly, engaging, and clearly written, Eve’s study is a useful gem among many texts on the subject—a great place to begin or deepen your study of the oral tradition and the New Testament.
- Provides an introduction to New Testament studies of oral tradition and memory theory
- Offers a survey of existing scholarly literature on the subject
- Includes helpful background and context on the oral tradition and writing in antiquity
- The Ancient Media Situation
- Form Criticism
- The Rabbinic Model
- The Media Contrast Model
- Informal Controlled Oral Tradition
- Memory and Tradition
- Memory and Orality in the Jesus Tradition
- The Role of Eyewitnesses
- Probing the Tradition
- Conclusion
Top Highlights
“Fourth, speech (in a situation devoid of electronic media) always involves immediate face-to-face interaction with an audience of one or more other people.” (Page 3)
“Sixth, face-to-face oral communication consists of more than just words; it includes a whole range of more or less subtle cues including gesture, facial expression, bodily deportment, and, of course, the rhythm, pacing, intonation and stress with which the words are spoken.” (Page 3)
“First, unlike a written or printed text, speech is an event, not a thing.” (Page 2)
“To survive, an oral tradition has to be both memorable and significant to the society or group that transmits it, which means among other things that it must be shaped in such a way as to allow it to endure.” (Page 1)
“Fifth, a speech act always takes place in a particular social situation, which may be more or less formal (for example, a casual conversation is very different from a lecture), but which will always tend to constrain what can be said and how it can be said.” (Page 3)
Eve surveys the major proposals, offers critical and constructive commentary, and makes appropriately nuanced suggestions of his own. On this topic, his work is now the place to start.
—Dale C. Allison, Jr., professor of New Testament, Pittsburgh Theological Seminary
Eric Eve has written a magnificent guide to one of the most exciting areas in Gospels studies today—oral tradition and memory theory.
—Chris Keith, professor of New Testament and early Christianity, St Mary’s University College, London
This is a foundational book both for Jesus research and for our understanding of the literary history of the New Testament.
—Gerd Theissen, professor emeritus of New Testament, University of Heidelberg
- Title: Behind the Gospels: Understanding the Oral Tradition
- Author: Eric Eve
- Publisher: SPCK
- Print Publication Date: 2013
- Logos Release Date: 2014
- Language: English
- Resources: 1
- Format: Digital › Logos Research Edition
- Subject: Bible. N.T. Gospels › Criticism, interpretation, etc
- ISBNs: 9780281062553, 9780281070497, 9781451469400, 0281062552, 0281070490, 1451469403
- Resource ID: LLS:BEHINDGOSPELS
- Resource Type: Monograph
- Metadata Last Updated: 2022-09-29T22:11:05Z
Sample Pages from the Print Edition
Reviews
3 ratings
Alessandro
10/14/2022
Veli-Pekka Haarala
6/21/2017
Jim Wait
8/23/2014
