Theology of the Gospels Flashcards
How do source, redaction, and form criticism separate transmission by layers?
- The actual event
- The church’s memory of the event
- The composition of the event
What question does redaction criticism seeks to answer?
Why did the gospel writers chose particular narratives and put them in a specific order to emphasize certain aspects of the story?
What is the dominant source critical theory for the Synoptics?
The “two document hypothesis”:
Mark is the oldest and along with “Q” contributed to the other two Synoptics.
What two methodologies come under the term “redaction criticism”?
Composition Criticism
Emendation Criticism
Define Emendation Criticism
EC investigates each work based on source hypothesis asking how the evangelist worked with his sources
Define composition criticism
CC may be defined as “a holistic variation of redaction criticism in which the gospel itself (or Luke-Acts), viewed rigorously and persistently in its entirety, becomes the primary context for interpreting any part of it.”
No comparisons or source theories are used
What are the areas of investigation for Composition criticism?
Explicit statements of purpose Frequently recurring themes Organizational structures Beginnings and endings Editorial remarks. Characterizations Grammatical or rhetorical style
What is necessary for performing emendation criticism?
A source critical hypothesis
What areas does emendation criticism examine?
The selection of pericopes
Arrangement of pericopes.
Alteration of details within pericopes
What are some of the problems with emendation criticism?
It is dependent upon a source critical hypothesis
Some emendation critics attribute too much subtlety to the author by trying to account for the variation in each word.
Some emendation critics attribute too much creativity to the author
it is speculative to reconstruct the sources for Mark or for the distinctive elements of Matthew or Luke
What should one look for when investigating organizational structures in doing CC?
Broad - Observe the book as a whole for organization
Smaller patterns - Observe the smaller structures within the book
Three distinctives of the Gospels and Acts
All are the product of two, usually three, layers of transmission
All are theologically motivated
The Synoptics appear to be literally dependent upon one another
