{"id":37459,"date":"2018-08-26T05:06:34","date_gmt":"2018-08-26T09:06:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/?p=37459"},"modified":"2018-08-23T07:29:55","modified_gmt":"2018-08-23T11:29:55","slug":"the-gospels-and-comparable-ancient-and-modern-literature","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/2018\/08\/the-gospels-and-comparable-ancient-and-modern-literature.html","title":{"rendered":"The Gospels and Comparable Ancient and Modern Literature"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

Following up on yesterday\u2019s post, there were further topics that Matthew Ferguson explored<\/a> about ancient biographies of a popular sort and questions of historical accuracy. One of the major points that he highlights is that historical accuracy of details is not a reliable guide to genre. That point may seem counterintuitive, but modern examples will help the point become clear. If you read Little Women<\/em>, or watch the TV show Little House on the Prairie<\/em><\/a>, there are lots of details that reflect accurate history \u2013 the impact of war on families in New England, or place names in Minnesota, to just mention a couple of examples. None of that means that specific details are factual, and that includes major characters. I deliberately included the Laura Ingalls Wilder example precisely because that TV show is based on children\u2019s stories<\/a> which are in turn based on the author\u2019s actual experiences<\/a>. As you can hopefully see, the question of what is \u201cfactual\u201d and what is \u201cfictitious\u201d is complex and blurry, often cutting across not only specific works but whole genres as well as individual characters who appear in them.<\/p>\n

In his \u201cpart 1\u201d post on this topic, Matthew<\/a> also explains that ancient Greek readers and authors had different genres than we do, more of them, and those they had did not consistently overlap with our own ideas of fiction and nonfiction. If the fact that the Greek term for one of those genres was\u00a0plasma<\/em> doesn\u2019t persuade you to read the post, probably nothing will.<\/p>\n

In his \u201cpart 2\u201d post, Matthew<\/a> explores how the Alexander Romance provides parallels to the work that source and redaction critics engage in with respect to the New Testament Gospels (and others).<\/p>\n

I\u2019m also grateful that Matthew, in these and other posts of his, cites and interacts with things that I\u2019ve written that are germane to this subject!<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Following up on yesterday\u2019s post, there were further topics that Matthew Ferguson explored about ancient biographies of a popular sort and questions of historical accuracy. One of the major points that he highlights is that historical accuracy of details is not a reliable guide to genre. That point may seem counterintuitive, but modern examples will […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":136,"featured_media":50124,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[39],"tags":[494,3406,4110,4646,4652,15450,15453,15456,7138,8240,10531],"class_list":["post-37459","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-historical-jesus","tag-alexander-the-great","tag-fiction","tag-gospels","tag-historical","tag-historical-jesus","tag-laura-ingalls-wilder","tag-little-house-on-the-prairie","tag-little-women","tag-matthew-ferguson","tag-novels","tag-romance"],"yoast_head":"\nThe Gospels and Comparable Ancient and Modern Literature<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Following up on yesterday's post, there were further topics that Matthew Ferguson explored about ancient biographies of a popular sort and questions of\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/2018\/08\/the-gospels-and-comparable-ancient-and-modern-literature.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The Gospels and Comparable Ancient and Modern Literature\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Following up on yesterday's post, there were further topics that Matthew Ferguson explored about ancient biographies of a popular sort and questions of\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/2018\/08\/the-gospels-and-comparable-ancient-and-modern-literature.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Religion Prof: The Blog of James F. 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