Mind, Morality and Magic: Cognitive Science Approaches in Biblical Studies

I INTRODUCTION 1. The Problem 2. Previous Research and Its Evaluation 2.1. The Legacy of Julicher and Gressmann 2.2. The Key Issues in More Recent Research A Story Composed of Two Parts? An Original Teaching of Jesus? A Derivative of a Demotic Folktale? 3. The Purpose of This Study II DIVIDING THE DEAD: THE HELLENISTIC MATRIX 4. Preliminary Remarks: From Fixed Parallels to Intertextuality 5. Differentiated Fates in Greco-Roman Sources 5.1. Death in the Homeric Epics 5.2. Towards an Individual Treatment of the Dead Rewards and Punishments after Death The Question of "Orphic Influence" 5.3. Concepts of Afterlife in Hellenistic and Roman Times Philosophical Treatments of the Fate of the Soul The Immortal Soul in Cicero, Pseudo-Plato, and Plutarch 6. Differentiated Fates: Only an Elite View? 6.1. The Ambiguity of the Epigraphic Sources 6.2. Popular Views Reflected in Literary Sources 7. Differentiated Fates in Jewish Sources 7.1. The Fate of the Dead in the Hebrew Bible 7.2. Apocalyptic Eschatology and Individual Afterlife 1 Enoch 22 Other Apocalypses Other Accounts of Differentiated Fates 7.3. Divergent Beliefs within First Century Judaism 8. Summary of Part Two III LUKE'S DESCRIPTION OF THE HEREAFTER IN CONTEXT 9. Preliminary Remarks: The Function of the Afterlife Scene 10. The Structural Themes of the Story 10.1. Reversal of Fates after Death Lucian: Death as the Great Equalizer Epistle of Enoch: Struggle between the Righteous and Sinners The Finality of the Reversal 10.2. Message from the World of the Dead 11. Details of the Description 11.1. Angels Escorting the Dead 11.2. Abraham in the Hereafter 11.3. Torment of the Rich Man, Consolation of Lazarus 11.4. The Separating Chasm 11.5. Bodily Existence 12. Summary of Part Three IV AFTERLIFE IMAGERY IN LUKE-ACTS 13. Preliminary Remarks: A Consistent Eschatological Scheme? 14. The Rich Man and Lazarus and Luke's Eschatology 14.1. Jesus' Role in the Eschatological Salvation 14.2. Eschatology - Future or Present, Collective or Individual Resurrection - When and for Whom? 15. The Fate of the Individual after Death 15.1. Hades - Interim Abode or Final Destiny? Hades and Gehenna 15.2. The Good Lot of the Righteous Paradise Eternal Habitations Kingdom of God, Eternal Life, Heaven 16. Summary of Part Four V CONCLUSIONS BIBLIOGRAPHY A. Texts, Translations, and Reference Works B. Secondary Literature

The Afterlife Imagery in Luke's Story of the Rich Man and Lazarus

Despite the almost universal recognition that the Jesus tradition was, from its very beginning, oral tradition, scholars have continued to approach the question of Synoptic interrelationships from a strictly literary perspective. This study is an attempt to take seriously the Sitz im Leben within which the Synoptic Gospels were written, and to examine the possible role that oral tradition might have in determining, not only the scope of a Q text, but the way in which we envision the development of the Synoptic tradition. Previous attempts to take seriously the role of oral tradition in the formation of the Synoptic Gospels are examined, exposing the need for a much more careful analysis of the relationship between oral communication and written texts. Following such an analysis, it is suggested that solutions to the Synoptic Problem which do not take into serious account the possible influence of oral tradition in the process of Gospel composition must be deemed less than adequate. Seeking a way forward in the debate, we determined that a more thoroughly thought-through model of how oral communication functions is needed. It is proposed that the genre of folklore, while not replacing traditional literary designations, provides us with another interpretive framework through which we may gain new insight into the development of the Synoptic tradition. The folkloristic characteristics of variability and stability are discussed, followed by the presentation of recent work suggesting that these characteristics are prevalent in the Synoptic tradition. We suggest that recent studies on Q and the Synoptic Problem have not given adequate attention to the internal variability present within double tradition pericopes. A methodology is developed which will allow us to examine how the internal variability within selected double tradition pericopes might, to some extent, reflect the process of tradition transmission which preceded the tradition’s inclusion in a Gospel text. A selection of double tradition pericopes are examined, and the model of tradition transmission proposed by K. E. Bailey and J. D. G. Dunn is evaluated. The study concludes that there is a sufficient convergence of evidence to suggest that such a model is feasible for at least portions of the double tradition.

Oral Tradition and Literary Dependency: Variability and Stability in the Synoptic Tradition and Q

In his controversial 2006 publication Jesus and the Eyewitnesses, Richard Bauckham outlines his theory that accounts of Jesus' life and ministry that appear in the NT are eyewitness testimonies or very close to eyewitness testimonies.1 In saying this, he opposes the generally accepted view of form critics that the Gospels are records of collective communal traditions that were in circulation in the early church for quite some time before they were written down, and that in the process of transmission and recording they were redacted to serve the theological purposes of the different communities from which they arose.2 Based on this more generally accepted understanding, scholars who have looked at what we can know about the historical Jesus from the Gospels have generally decided that the answer is "not much."3 Bauckham suggests that this is not so. Basing his premise on Samuel Byrskog's work on the historical methods of ancient historians such as Herodotus, Thucydides, and Tacitus, he asserts that historians of the time used eyewitness testimony as the preferred source of information for their histories and that the Gospel writers would have looked for eyewitnesses to the events that they recorded rather than simply recording community traditions.4 He says that the eyewitnesses "remained the living and active guarantors of the traditions" in whose name they were transmitted, and that "[t]estimony offers us ... a theological model for understanding the Gospels as the entirely appropriate means of access to the historical reality of Jesus."5 He also argues that research into oral transmission shows that custodians of oral tradition are able to transmit large blocks of material very accurately over time.6 Thus, Bauckham suggests that we can be (significantly) more confident than form critics suggest about the historicity of the Gospel accounts. I will not attempt here to evaluate the technical aspects of Bauckham's argument about which parts of the Gospel are likely to be eyewitness accounts or close to eyewitness accounts and who the eyewitnesses might be. These aspects have recently been evaluated effectively by a number of scholars in the Journal for the Study of the Historical Jesus (JSHJ) and the Journal for the Study of the New Testament (JSNT).7 Rather, I pose this question: What consequences does accepting (parts of) the Gospels as eyewitness accounts have for biblical studies? In doing so, I ask: * What light does psychological research shed on the extent to which information obtained from eyewitness accounts could be considered to be accurate information about the historical Jesus?8 * What consequences does this have for the way biblical scholarship might treat eyewitness accounts? In the course of answering these questions, there is a need to move somewhat beyond what psychologists define as eyewitness testimony to include an examination of research into retelling stories. Psychology would not consider this to be eyewitness testimony, because the events being recounted in the story are not part of the lived experience of the person telling the stories. In the context of Jesus' teaching, however, the content of the story is as important as is the fact that he told it, so a faithful eyewitness testimony needs to include the content of the stories, even if they are fiction rather than fact. Thus, any consideration of eyewitness testimony to Jesus' ministry also needs to include what might be termed "earwitness" testimony- how people reported Jesus' words. I. EYEWITNESS TESTIMONY IN PSYCHOLOGICAL RESEARCH Most people perceive eyewitness testimony to be accurate, presumably because the eyewitness was present when an event occurred and therefore must know what happened. There are, however, a number of court cases where someone has been wrongly convicted on the testimony of an eyewitness despite the availability of conflicting evidence from other sources.9 In research published in 1904, William Stern demonstrated that eyewitness testimony is not necessarily accurate. …

How Accurate are Eyewitnesses? Bauckham and the Eyewitnesses in the Light of Psychological Research

TEAMING WITH LAY LEADERS TO IMPROVE APOLOGETIC UNDERSTANDING IN THE LOCAL CHURCH

Teaming with lay leaders to improve apologetic understanding in the local church

Professor Bailey was formerly Theologian in Residence in the Episcopal Church in Jerusalem and the Middle East (Cyprus) and Research Professor of Middle Eastern NT Studies (Jerusalem). He has had extensive experience of Middle Eastern life which, in this article, he uses to examine the traditions that lie behind the Synoptic Gospels. This article was originally published in the Asia Journal of Theology 5 (1991), pp. 34-54.

Informal Controlled Oral Tradition and the Synoptic Gospels

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Kenneth E. Bailey

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Informal Controlled Oral Tradition and the Synoptic Gospels