The first Gospel has traditionally been considered a very Jewish work. Recent scholarship has suggested some Hellenistic influence. The issue is explored in this work with attention focused on the dream narratives of the first two chapters. An investigation is carried out using a new methodology. The memory techniques used in an oral or semi-literate society are explored. A search is made for such techniques in Matthew and these are then compared with similar devices in a wide range of literature, Old Testament, contemporary Jewish, Greek and Roman. The intention is that literary practice should help to clarify the cultural setting in which Matthew functions. This is a work which will interest New Testament scholars with a focus on Gospel studies and oral transmission. It may also appeal to some classical scholars or those with a specialized interest in Josephus.

The first Gospel has traditionally been considered a very Jewish work. Recent scholarship has suggested some Hellenistic influence. The issue is explored in this work with attention focused on the dream narratives of the first two chapters. An investigation is carried out using a new methodology. The memory techniques used in an oral or semi-literate society are explored. A search is made for such techniques in Matthew and these are then compared with similar devices in a wide range of literature, Old Testament, contemporary Jewish, Greek and Roman. The intention is that literary practice should help to clarify the cultural setting in which Matthew functions. This is a work which will interest New Testament scholars with a focus on Gospel studies and oral transmission. It may also appeal to some classical scholars or those with a specialized interest in Josephus.

In this groundbreaking book, Dennis R. MacDonald offers an entirely new view of the New Testament gospel of Mark. The author of the earliest gospel was not writing history, nor was he merely recording tradition, MacDonald argues. Close reading and careful analysis show that Mark borrowed extensively from the Odyssey and the Iliad and that he wanted his readers to recognise the Homeric antecedents in Mark's story of Jesus. Mark was composing a prose anti-epic, MacDonald says, presenting Jesus as a suffering hero modeled after but far superior to traditional Greek heroes. Much like Odysseus, Mark's Jesus sails the seas with uncomprehending companions, encounters preternatural opponents, and suffers many things before confronting rivals who have made his house a den of thieves. In his death and burial, Jesus emulates Hector, although unlike Hector Jesus leaves his tomb empty. Mark's minor characters, too, recall Homeric predecessors: Bartimaeus emulates Tiresias; Joseph of Arimathea, Priam; and the women at the tomb, Helen, Hecuba, and Andromache. And, entire episodes in Mark mirror Homeric episodes, including stilling the sea, walking on water, feeding the multitudes, the Triumphal E

How does the world's oral majority--adults with limited formal education (ALFE)--really prefer to learn? Few pause long enough to ask those who eschew print. The result of scholarly research and prolonged immersion in the Cambodian culture, Connected Learning exposes the truth about orality--the shame associated with limited formal education; the unfortunate misnomer that is orality; the place of spirituality, grace, and hope; and the obvious but overlooked learning preferences. ALFE have different ways of learning and knowing, a different epistemology and culture from print learners, even though we all begin alike. The choice is not between Ong's orality or literacy, but between learning from people or from print. Dr. Thigpen, a veteran cross-cultural worker, shares remedies for the hegemony and inequities unwittingly fostered by the literate minority. In a dominant culture where learning from people is prime, how can educators with a preference for print adapt? Providing an important tool in the Learning Quadrants diagram, Connected Learning advises teaching to the quadrant and calls for seven necessary shifts in teaching. Anyone versed in orality will admit these findings have "global implications and applications" (Steffen). The reader who heeds will positively impact a huge portion of humanity.

Explore the Book is not a commentary with verse-by-verse annotations. Neither is it just a series of analyses and outlines. Rather, it is a complete Bible survey course. No one can finish this series of studies and remain unchanged. The reader will receive lifelong benefit and be enriched by these practical and understandable studies. Exposition, commentary, and practical application of the meaning and message of the Bible will be found throughout this giant volume. Bible students without any background in Bible study will find this book of immense help as will those who have spent much time studying the Scriptures, including pastors and teachers. Explore the Book is the result and culmination of a lifetime of dedicated Bible study and exposition on the part of Dr. Baxter. It shows throughout a deep awareness and appreciation of the grand themes of the gospel, as found from the opening book of the Bible through Revelation.

Here in one volume are two of Birger Gerhardsson's much-debated works on the transmission of tradition in Rabbinic Judaism and early Christianity. In Memory and Manuscript (1961), Gerhardsson explores the way in which Jewish rabbis during the first Christian centuries preserved and passed on their sacred tradition, and he shows how early Christianity is better understood in light of how that tradition developed in Rabbinic Judaism. In Tradition and Transmission in Early Christianity (1964), Gerhardsson further clarifies the discussion and answers criticism of his earlier book. This Biblical Resource Series combined edition corrects and expands Gerhardsson's original works and includes a new preface by the author and a lengthy new foreword by Jacob Neusner that summarizes the works' importance and subsequent influence.

Though he died at the age of thirty-four, the Muscogee (Creek) poet, journalist, and humorist Alexander Posey (1873-1908) was one of the most prolific and influential American Indian writers of his time. This volume of nine stories, five orations, and nine works of oral tradition is the first to collect these entertaining and important works of Muscogee literature. Many of Posey's stories reflect trickster themes; his orations demonstrate both his rhetorical prowess and his political stance as a "Progressive" Muscogee; and his works of oral tradition reveal his deep cultural roots. Most of these pieces, which first appeared between 1892 and 1907 in Indian Territory newspapers and magazines, have since become rarities, many of the original pieces surviving only as single clippings in a few archives.