The Bible in Ancient and Modern Media: Story and Performance (Biblical Performance Criticism Book 1)

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By signing up as an individual member, you can access various services such as Easy External Access, Alerts, Monthly Report, and Archive. Full-text article downdloads count since Biblical performance criticism is the study of the oral telling of traditions in the biblical world. The approach involves a paradigm shift in biblical studies from scholarship done with a print mentality to scholarship that engages the dynamics of ancient media in a predominantly oral culture.

The focus of this essay is the exploration of performance criticism as it relates to the New Testament in the early Christian world. The essay explores biblical performance criticism in terms of re-imagining ancient Israel and the early church as predominantly oral and memory cultures, explaining the role played by handwritten scrolls, constructing scenarios of ancient performances as means to interpret anew the traditions of the Bible, reconsidering the disciplines we use to study the Bible so as to take account of orality, and developing steps in the process of a performance analysis of biblical texts.

The New Testament as Performance Literature 3. A New Paradigm for an Oral Culture 4. How It Works 6. References 44 Please found references of this article. The Bible as theatre. Rhetoric at the boundaries: The art and theology of New Testament chain-link transitions. The singer of tales Stephen Mitchell and Gregory Nagy, eds. Studies on the media texture of the New Testament. James Word Biblical Commentary Epistolary and rhetorical appeal in an aural setting. University of the Free State.

The letter of James. Grand Rapids and Cambridge: Oral world and written word: Orality and writtenness in Ancient Near Eastern prophecy. James NIV application commentary. The presence of the Word: Some prolegomena for cultural and religious history. University of Minnesota Press.

The technologizing of the Word. London and New York: Homer and Homeric style. The Homeric language as the language of oral poetry. The New Testament in contemporary language. Preminger, Alex, and T. The new Princeton encyclopedia of poetry and poetics. James New American Commentary Exploring the Texture of Texts: A literary introduction to the Bible. The early Jesus traditions in the context of the origins of the New Testament canon.

The lector and the early Christian audience. First-century performance in Mark. Orality, aurality and biblical narrative Semeia Prophetic drama in the Old Testament. Structure and orality in 1 Peter: Literacy and orality in ancient Greece. Van der Toorn, Karel. The case of old Babylonian prophecy. A response to Culley, Crenshaw, and Davies. Reproduced as an Appendix in Wendland From one language to another: Functional equivalence in Bible translating.

Textual criticism of the Bible: Nthano za kwa Kawaza "Folktales from Kawaza-Land"—a collection of Chewa oral narratives with translations and introduction. Stylistic form and communicative function in the Nyanja radio narratives of Julius Chongo. Preaching that grabs the heart: Translating the literature of Scripture [Publications in Translation and Textlinguistics 1]. Some Chinyanja radio plays of Julius Chongo with English translations.

Christian drama and the drama of Christianity in Africa Kachere Monograph Michigan State University Press. A workbook for Bible translators [Publications in Translation and Textlinguistics 2]. Contextual frames of reference in translation: A coursebook for translators and teachers. His point runs along these lines, including now the added pericope of vv. As a Christian community of faith-in-action, you all should strive to control your discourse and speak in a disciplined manner, since what you say has a powerful effect on others, whether good or bad.

It is impossible to thank and praise God if you also speak in a harmful, hurtful way to others. Rather, you must manifest godly wisdom, not only in your speech, but also in your actions. The exercise of earthly wisdom leads only to disorder, discord, and other kinds of destructive behavior. Instead, demonstrate divine wisdom that promotes peace and harmony among the fellowship of faith, along with good and righteous works of every sort. James sees a major congregational problem in jealousy and selfish ambition among his addressees vv. It appears that James may still be thinking here of those who are overly eager to become teachers v.

Is it possible that we face these same problems today, even in some of our long-established congregations? Speaking from my mission experience in Africa, I would say that the issues which James deals with are very current also among newer church communities, and therefore his admonition is most relevant and to the point here as well. Who is wise and understanding among you? The literal RSV translation is given in bold print as a point of initial reference.

James continues his diatribe-like hortatory style by asking another rhetorical question RQ —in this case, to distinguish the start of a new, but related pericope note also the absence of a conjunction. What can control the deadly tongue? This apostolic pastor now addresses those among his readers who consider themselves to be wise and understanding. The RQ is semantically equivalent to a conditional clause that highlights the following consequential appeal.

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This pair of terms is found often in the Old Testament e. Is your life style godly and righteous, then you are living wisely; if not, to use the Proverbial expression, you are a fool! The clause Who is What exactly is the relationship between good life and his works, since the two expressions appear to be a repetition of the same idea? In the context of James, his works must be understood as those works that result from a living faith cf. Godly wisdom is thus the source of, or motivation for, Christian humility. It is often understood as self-effacement or submissiveness and is therefore considered by many as a weakness, rather than a virtue.

In Jesus' teaching, however, it is a most desir-able quality, e. Gentleness, humility, or meekness must be one of the chief characteristics of the Christian cf. It is evidence of true spiritual wisdom, for it reflects the nature of Him who is the wisdom of God 1 Cor. A possible idiomatic translation for this verse is this: Are any of you truly wise?

If so, then you must show this by living an honorable life, that is, by doing good deeds with a humble spirit which reflects your wisdom. He speaks about the motivation v. IF introduces a simple real condition with the indicative: Any and every case is covered. This conditional sentence parallels and contrasts with the implicit one of v.

His readers are left to make this identification self-indictment on their own and then to apply the subsequent admonition to themselves. Both nouns are anarthrous minus the definite article , which is typical of abstracts; there is thus an emphasis on the nature, quality, or essence of their referents. In spite of the fact that the verse begins with the conditional clause But if you have In other words, boasting and lying are wrong and should be prohibited, whether they spring from jealousy and ambition or not.

Does the shoe fit? If so, take it off!

The meaning of this negative prohibition is not very clear though the present tense implies that the guilty parties should stop behavior which was already going on. But what is the object of bragging? There are a number of possibilities here: In this case the negative not goes with both verbs, and a comma or period is usually placed after the verb boast to separate the two clauses, making boasting and lying two actions. In this case the truth is understood to be the object of both verbs, to boast about and to be false to.

This would probably be the assumed meaning for ordinary readers who follow a literal rendering like that of the RSV. This understanding appears to fit the context best. What James is saying here, then, would be that boasting about wisdom, while manifesting a heart attitude of envy or resentment, results in denying or lying against the truth that God desires. His thinking then is this: This second interpretation is perhaps supported by what James goes on to say in the next verse v. If so, you must show it by living the right life and being humble in everything you do.

This is true wisdom. If you do that, you turn what is true into a lie [or, by doing that, you contradict the truth]. That is the worst kind of lie! For wisdom must always be accompanied by humility" Moo This wisdom is not such as comes down from above: The original word order would favor the second reading. NIV described in v. As already mentioned in 1. What James wants to say then is that any wisdom which results in envy and rivalry has nothing to do with God as its Source.

These three adjectives are arranged in the form of a climax, increasing in strength to reach a negative peak, from earthly to unspiritual to devilish, thus expressing increasing alienation from God. Such wicked qualities relate of course to the intertwined three-fold source of sin in our lives: The earthly person, then, is someone who thinks and does things with earth-bound and base motives—someone who is only concerned with things in and of the world.

It is obvious that the word allows for a large area of meaning, and that each of these glosses covers just part of the total semantic range of the original. This word always has a negative sense in the NT i. In some languages, this adjective may need to be translated as a complete predication, e. Devilish is the complete antithesis of what is divine.

This adjective occurs only here in the New Testament. An alternative, easy-English translation of this verse would be: God does not give such wisdom to people. On the contrary, that is the kind of wisdom which worldly people have. God's Spirit does not give it. Rather, it comes from the Devil himself! For where jealousy and selfish ambition exist: Those who make a false claim to wisdom are people with jealousy and selfish ambition, just as described in verse 14 these destructive attributes are here emphasized in a verbless sentence.

Their wisdom is un-heavenly, unspiritual, and ungodly, contributing nothing to the building up of the Christian community. In fact, it works the complete contrary. Again, in some languages this must be expressed verbally: An alternative rendering for this verse, which sounds stylistically like a maxim due to the absence of explicit predicators and articles , may be: Or, how about The Message: In verses James has explained what non-heavenly wisdom is like in terms of motive, source, and outcome. James builds on what he said in v. These adjectives are skillfully and artistically arranged cf.

When reading this text aloud in Greek, the internal rhythm is obvious, and this serves to mark the verse as being important and memorable. Two observations may be made at this point about the eight adjectives: First, although they all describe what true wisdom is character , the focus appears to be on the effects that wisdom should produce behavior. And so we may say that these adjectives describe what true wisdom does rather what it is as in the case of OT sapiential literature.

Secondly, these adjectives are not meant to refer primarily to intellectual qualities and attitudes that each individual believer should have, but rather they refer to the corporate qualities which the Christian community that claims to possess true wisdom should manifest both to each other and also to the world at large. In other words, these adjectives all refer in this context not so much to private attitudes, but to attributes of group life—the life of communal faith in action!

The wisdom from above, again, is that which issues from heaven and therefore from God. To be pure is to be free from self-interest and to serve God single-mindedly. It requires sincerity and ethical integrity, being free from moral imperfection compare 1 Pet. The word peaceable is used only here and Heb.

This indicates that the meanings of these expressions are related and parallel. Such an attribute was essential in the socially and ethnically diverse early Christian community—and so it is also today. The next characteristic is open to reason. Its meaning is very close to gentle. That the word has a wide range of meaning is seen in the various translations: No doubt every rendering brings out just part of the total meaning of the word. True wisdom is also full of mercy and good fruits.

Performance Criticism

Indeed, it is possible to take this as a hendiadys, indicating that the whole statement should be understood as expressing one idea. In Jesus' teaching, it is something God requires of people Mt. James has his own definition of what mercy is: To demonstrate true wisdom, a person has compassion and produces righteous deeds to show it, no matter what the consequences Mt.

James completes his list of attributes with two negative adjectives. This is reflected in a number of different renderings: Here again, all of these components are interrelated and overlapping, and therefore context and general use in a given language will be deciding factors in determining the meaning. This is in accord with James' concern about impartiality expressed in 2. It reflects James' rhetorical penchant for piling up similar or related concepts, as seen also in the use of gentle and open to reason observed above. It describes someone who is genuine, without pretense, truthful to others.

In many languages it is necessary to use verbal expressions all the way through this verse, both for naturalness and to reduce the semantic load. The following illustrates such a translation model: But believers who have this wisdom that God gives, first of all have hearts unstained by sin. They are also peacemakers, tolerant toward others, and willing to listen.

Their hearts are full of mercy for other people, and this produces an abundant crop of kind deeds. They also show no favoritism and are not false in any of their dealings with others. The harvest of righteousness is sown in peace: Obviously, he is very much concerned about real or potential discord and rivalry in the diverse and displaced Christian community which has been sparked by those wannabe leaders? However, verse 18 presents a number of problems or possibilities in interpretation as well as in translation.

This is a familiar expression in the Septuagint Isa. It may be taken in two different ways. This understanding appears to be favored by most commentators. The second difficulty concerns the meaning of the words harvest and righteousness. Strictly speaking, what is sown is seed, not fruit or harvest; the harvest is what is gathered later.

A similar expression used in Pro. In other words, righteousness as a fruit produces seed, which generates even more righteousness. The reason is that to bear the right kind of fruit a person has to be in the right relationship with God. It is, however, a bit awkward to say that such a right relationship with God is sown in peace. Two more likely possibilities present themselves: One is to take the word to mean, as in Jas.

This is a rendering suitable to the context, with the word referring to the good qualities mentioned in verse This indicates two things: First, the two words are closely related in meaning; in fact, they may even be considered the same in some contexts. Is it to be linked to righteousness or to the verb is sown? Grammatically it is more natural perhaps to take the phrase as a dative of advantage. The argument for taking it as dative of agent then is made stronger by the fact that the phrase comes right after the passive verb is sown.

However, a problem with this interpretation is that the expressions sown in peace and by those who make peace sound repetitious. But we may explain this as a device that the author uses to create a rhetorical effect for emphasis. It suggests that the fruit or, seed of righteousness is produced or, sown by those who make peace.

Those who make peace are people who actively promote unity, harmony, and the total well-being of the Christian community. To summarize, this saying may mean either: Moo, while acknowledging that the latter has a "stronger grammatical basis and is supported by a good number of commentators" , prefers the former which he thinks fits the context better. It includes all the virtues of godly wisdom listed in v.

This righteousness cannot be produced in the context of human anger 1. Those who create such an atmosphere are assured by the Lord of their reward: Perhaps, being a proverbial saying, the interpretation cannot be exhausted by a single meaning. Both senses above complement each other and fit the context. Furthermore, in either case the maxim effectively prepares the ground contrastively for the subject of strife, which is taken up at the beginning of the following chapter.

In interpreting and translating this saying then, it is not advisable perhaps to press for precise equivalence in all of the details or aspects. While allowing for other possibilities, we might suggest the following, first more literally: Both the students who want to move on to a post-biblical faith and those who wish to place the physical book in a shrine are frustrated by doctrinal debates about the meaning of scripture. When I began teaching, students tended to mine scripture to shore up their positions.

Now, both sides seem more content to leave the text unread. Liberal students seek a community of like-minded friends as their church. They often dismiss the study of the Bible because people cannot agree upon what it means. There are aspects of the current youth culture that facilitate engaging in performance-based pedagogy. Students love to work in groups.

They tend to trust that learning outcomes will be achieved by doing assigned activities; therefore, they are willing to invest their energy. Knowing that the product of their labor will be a performance adjudicated by their peers with applause rather than a grade provides a strong incentive to strive for good results. These observations have led me to focus upon the role that my students will take in the transmission of scripture.

I no longer seek to train them to do what I do but rather to be what the church needs them to be: Rather than their becoming squinty-eyed readers, I am gradually shifting the focus to their being engaged listeners. I have sought a pedagogy that opens up space for shared experiences of scripture and that allows for differences without falling into divisive doctrinal debates or accusations about the lack of faith or reason.

In my introductory Bible course, each student prepares one episode in a cycle of stories for retelling in a small group. They conduct the same sort of research required to prepare a thesis paper, but the goal is to seek information and insights from historical studies, narrative, form, genre, social science, and rhetorical criticism which allow them to amplify their retelling so that their audience can make good sense of what they hear. Commentaries, journals devoted to biblical studies, concordances, specialized dictionaries, and encyclopedias become helpful reference works for the laity and not just specialists.

They discover that they must situate their story within the broader narrative and fit it into patterns such as covenantal promise and fulfillment. They find themselves making decisions about where they will put emphasis and what interpretation their retelling will promote.

Account Options

The recognition that there are multiple possibilities becomes less alarming when students locate them in their reading rather than seeing them as a problem with the indeterminacy of the text. As they rehearse and perform, they begin to experience what David M. Rhoads calls the emotive and kinetic dimensions of the text. Some students begin the process fearful that they will not be able to complete the assignment because they cannot understand the story they have read.

I encourage them to paraphrase the story but not to abridge it. Students frequently find that when it comes time to tell the story they revert to the actual wording of the translation they have studied, but they now speak as the knowing narrator rather than from rote memory without comprehension. With only a cue card in hand, students may forget a few details, but with very few exceptions their audience reports listening to lively and coherent stories. I require the introductory class to memorize the promises to Abraham Gen.

When scripture becomes passages to recite, students come to understand that the Bible is not a source for doctrine so much as a worship resource book. With a clip from the film X-Men United Bryan Singer, I illustrate how reciting Psalm 23 can help us find words of comfort when emotions leave us speechless. Performing scripture helps students recognize that different genres must be read in different ways.

In my course on Jesus and the Gospels, students recite parts or all of the Sermon on the Mount. As they listen to each other, they recognize where they are being indicted, cajoled, and invited. At the end of the introductory course, we read an abbreviated version of the Revelation of John together, with individuals or groups reading the various voices.

In the discussion that follows, students make observations about the importance of worship within the book, how the various voices praise God for what he has done and will do. They recognize refrains from familiar hymns and praise songs. They note how they as the audience receive divine blessings and words of comfort within the context of trials and tribulations.

Each reading provokes different observations based upon the strengths of individual readers and the dynamic arising between different voices. While I cannot prescribe what students will learn from these activities in the same way that lecture notes identify what I consider most important, I find that exam results indicate greater familiarity with the content and significance of the biblical books that have been the focus of performancebased activities rather than silent readings or lectures.

Not only does the performance create a space for discussion and observation, the text becomes much more memorable and meaningful. Having students perform scripture or receiving it through audition rather than silent reading may strike those raised in the 20th century as a second-best way of receiving the text. With over a billion print runs, most Christians either own a copy of the Bible or have easy access to one.

As a result, we have come to see private devotional reading as a principal means by which the Bible is received. Moreover, with paper and pens or keyboards ready at hand, we have come to see writing as a substitute for memory. In antiquity, writing served as a substitute for speech. Silent reading was not normative.

Given the expense of reproducing a gospel and the low literacy rate in the first century — perhaps as low as 1. Read silently, the repetitive material in the prophets or the Gospel of John strikes them as superfluous and tedious. But when scripture becomes a performance text, the repetition becomes a refrain that the audience can anticipate and speak.