THE MEDIA MATRIX OF EARLY JEWISH AND CHRISTIAN NARRATIVE

Description

This volume compares two seemingly dissimilar ancient texts, the Gospel of Mark and Joseph and Aseneth. The former is a product of the nascent Jesus movement and influenced by the Greco-Roman Bioi (“Lives”). It details the life, ministry, death, and resurrection of a wandering Galilean. The latter is a Hellenistic Jewish narrative influenced by Jewish novellas and Greek romances. It expands the laconic account of Joseph’s marriage to Aseneth in Genesis 41 into a full-fledged love and adventure story. Generically, theologically, and concerning content the two texts are quite different. Nonetheless, Mark and Joseph and Aseneth exhibit a number of remarkable similarities. This book suggests that Mark and Joseph and Aseneth are alike because of their medium and mode of composition. Each was composed via dictation. They are “textualized oral narratives.” As such they represent one instantiation of the complex relationship between orality and textuality in early Judaism and Christianity. Title Page Copyright Page Contents Preface Acknowledgments Abbrevations Chapter 1: Mark and Aseneth Chapter 2: Media Theory, Ancient Media, and Orally Composed Narratives from the Papyri Mixed-media theory Features of oral and literary registers Criterion #1: Parataxis, apposition, and the idea unit Criterion #2: Repetition of syntactical patterns, words, phrases, and ideas Criterion #3: Verb employment Criterion #4: Multiform tradition Criterion # 5: Embedded textuality and intertextuality Composition by dictation in Greco-Roman antiquity Orally composed papyri narratives BGU I.27 P.Oxy. 903 The purposes, features, and semantic range of ὑπομνήματα in Greco-Roman antiquity Ecclesiastical testimony to Mark’s composition Conclusion Chapter 3: Linguistic Oral Residues Textual traditions, recensions, and reconstructions of Joseph and Aseneth Bilingual influence Residually oral linguistic characteristics Criterion #1: Parataxis, apposition, and the idea unit Apposition, copulative constructions, and the “hitching post” Absence of literarily conceived syntax Parataxis, apposition, and the idea unit in Mark Criterion #2: Repetition of syntactical patterns, words, phrases, and ideas Criterion #3: Verb employment Conclusion Chapter 4: Metalinguistic Oral Residues Criterion #4: Multiform traditions The multiform tradition of Joseph and Aseneth The multiform tradition of Mark Linguistic characteristics of Mark’s longer ending Criterion #5: Intertextuality Intertextuality in Joseph and Aseneth Joseph and Aseneth 1:3 and Gen. 41:46-49 Joseph and Aseneth 4:9 and Gen. 41:38 Joseph and Aseneth 27–29 and 1 Samuel 17 Intertextuality in Mark Mark 2:23-28 and 1 Sam. 21:2-10 Mark 14:27 and Zech. 13:7 Mark 4:35-41, Jon. 1:1-15, and Psalm 106 LXX Mark 5:1-20 and the Book of the Watchers (1 En. 1–36) The geographical mistake in the setting of Mark 5:1-20 Conclusion Chapter 5: Linguistic Trajectories of Joseph and Aseneth and Mark Introduction Redacting parataxis and simplicity of clauses Redacting parataxis and simplicity of clauses in Joseph and Aseneth Redacting parataxis and simplicity of clauses in Mark Redacting verbal mood, tense, and voice Redacting verbal mood, tense, and voice in Joseph and Aseneth Redacting verbal mood, tense, and voice in Mark Redacting repetitive syntactical patterns, words, phrases, and ideas in Mark Intercalations in Mark, Matthew, and Luke The media forms of the Synoptic Gospels Mark’s Gospel (εὐαγγέλιον) Matthew’s book (βίβλος) Luke’s historical prologue Conclusion Results of reading Joseph and Aseneth as a textualized oral narrative Results of reading Mark as a textualized oral narrative Results of reading antique textualized oral narratives Works Cited Subject and Author Index Index os Scripture and Other Ancient Literature