Why Bos? On the Relationship Between Gospel Genre and Implied Audience (Paperback)

Dr Justin Marc Smith

ISBN 10: 0567669556 / ISBN 13: 9780567669551

Published by Bloomsbury Publishing PLC, Edinburgh, 2016

About this Item

Paperback. Justin Marc Smith argues that the gospels were intended to be addressed to a wide and varied audience. He does this by considering them to be works of ancient biography, comparative to the Greco-Roman biography. The earliest Christian interpreters of the Gospels did not understand their works to be sectarian documents. Rather, the wider context of Jesus literature in the second and third centuries points toward the broader Christian practice of writing and disseminating literary presentations of Jesus and Jesus traditions as widely as possible. Smith addresses the difficulty in reconstructing the various gospel communities that might lie behind the gospel texts and suggests that the all nations motif present in all four of the canonical gospels suggests an ideal secondary audience beyond those who could be identified as Christian. This item is printed on demand. Shipping may be from our UK warehouse or from our Australian or US warehouses, depending on stock availability.

Seller Inventory # 9780567669551

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Why Bos? On the Relationship Between Gospel Genre and Implied Audience (Paperback)
• Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing PLC, Edinburgh
• Publication Date: 2016
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0567669556
• ISBN 13: 9780567669551
• Binding: Paperback
• Condition: new

About this title

Synopsis

Justin Marc Smith argues that the gospels were intended to be addressed to a wide and varied audience. He does this by considering them to be works of ancient biography, comparative to the Greco-Roman biography. The earliest Christian interpreters of the Gospels did not understand their works to be sectarian documents. Rather, the wider context of Jesus literature in the second and third centuries points toward the broader Christian practice of writing and disseminating literary presentations of Jesus and Jesus traditions as widely as possible.

Smith addresses the difficulty in reconstructing the various gospel communities that might lie behind the gospel texts and suggests that the 'all nations' motif present in all four of the canonical gospels suggests an ideal secondary audience beyond those who could be identified as Christian.

About the Authors

Justin Marc Smith is Assistant Professor at Azusa Pacific University, USA.

Chris Keith is Research Professor of New Testament and Early Christianity at MF Norwegian School of Theology, Religion and Society, Norway. He is the author of The Pericope Adulterae, the Gospel of John and the Literacy of Jesus, a winner of the 2010 John Templeton Award for Theological Promise, and Jesus' Literacy: Scribal Culture and the Teacher from Galilee. He is also the co-editor of Jesus among Friends and Enemies: A Historical and Literary Introduction to Jesus in the Gospels, and was recently named a 2012 Society of Biblical Literature Regional Scholar.