Text and Tradition in Performance and Writing

Text and Tradition in Performance and Writing PDF Author: Richard A. Horsley
Publisher: Wipf and Stock Publishers
ISBN: 1625641583
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 366

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Book Description
"Embedded in modern print culture, biblical scholars have been projecting the assumptions and concepts of print culture onto the texts they interpret. In the ancient world from which those texts originate, however, literacy was confined to only a small number of educated scribes. And, as recent research has shown, even the literate scribes learned texts by repeated recitation, while the nonliterate ordinary people had little if any direct contact with written scrolls. The texts that had taken distinctive form, moreover, were embedded in a broader and deeper cultural repertoire cultivated orally in village communities as well as in scribal circles. Only recently have some scholars struggled to appreciate texts that later became ""biblical"" in their own historical context of oral communication. Exploration of texts in oral performance--whether as scribal teachers' instruction to their protŽgŽs or as prophetic speeches of Jesus of Nazareth or as the performance of a whole Gospel story in a community of Jesus-loyalists--requires interpreters to relinquish their print-cultural assumptions. Widening exploration of texts in oral performance in other fields offers exciting new possibilities for allowing those texts to come alive again in their community contexts as they resonated with the cultural tradition in which they were embedded."

Text and Tradition in Performance and Writing

Text and Tradition in Performance and Writing PDF Author: Richard A. Horsley
Publisher: Wipf and Stock Publishers
ISBN: 1625641583
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 366

Get Book

Book Description
"Embedded in modern print culture, biblical scholars have been projecting the assumptions and concepts of print culture onto the texts they interpret. In the ancient world from which those texts originate, however, literacy was confined to only a small number of educated scribes. And, as recent research has shown, even the literate scribes learned texts by repeated recitation, while the nonliterate ordinary people had little if any direct contact with written scrolls. The texts that had taken distinctive form, moreover, were embedded in a broader and deeper cultural repertoire cultivated orally in village communities as well as in scribal circles. Only recently have some scholars struggled to appreciate texts that later became ""biblical"" in their own historical context of oral communication. Exploration of texts in oral performance--whether as scribal teachers' instruction to their protŽgŽs or as prophetic speeches of Jesus of Nazareth or as the performance of a whole Gospel story in a community of Jesus-loyalists--requires interpreters to relinquish their print-cultural assumptions. Widening exploration of texts in oral performance in other fields offers exciting new possibilities for allowing those texts to come alive again in their community contexts as they resonated with the cultural tradition in which they were embedded."

Text and Tradition in Performance and Writing

Text and Tradition in Performance and Writing PDF Author: Richard A. Horsley
Publisher: Wipf and Stock Publishers
ISBN: 163087065X
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 417

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Book Description
Embedded in modern print culture, biblical scholars have been projecting the assumptions and concepts of print culture onto the texts they interpret. In the ancient world from which those texts originate, however, literacy was confined to only a small number of educated scribes. And, as recent research has shown, even the literate scribes learned texts by repeated recitation, while the nonliterate ordinary people had little if any direct contact with written scrolls. The texts that had taken distinctive form, moreover, were embedded in a broader and deeper cultural repertoire cultivated orally in village communities as well as in scribal circles. Only recently have some scholars struggled to appreciate texts that later became "biblical" in their own historical context of oral communication. Exploration of texts in oral performance--whether as scribal teachers' instruction to their proteges or as prophetic speeches of Jesus of Nazareth or as the performance of a whole Gospel story in a community of Jesus-loyalists--requires interpreters to relinquish their print-cultural assumptions. Widening exploration of texts in oral performance in other fields offers exciting new possibilities for allowing those texts to come alive again in their community contexts as they resonated with the cultural tradition in which they were embedded.

Empowering the People

Empowering the People PDF Author: Richard A. Horsley
Publisher: Wipf and Stock Publishers
ISBN: 1666730718
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 536

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Book Description
In this innovative study, Horsley builds on his earlier works concerning the problematic and misleading categories of “magic” and “miracle” to examine in-depth the meaning and importance of the narratives of healing and exorcism in the Gospels. Incorporating his work on oral performance and turning to important works in medical anthropology, a new image emerges of how these narratives help us re-evaluate Jesus’s place in first-century Galilee and Judea. In his exorcisms and healings, Jesus-in-interaction was empowering the villagers in their struggles for renewal of personal and communal dignity in resistance to invasive Roman rule.

From Text to Performance

From Text to Performance PDF Author: Kelly R Iverson
Publisher: Lutterworth Press
ISBN: 0718843924
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 216

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Book Description
For the last two centuries biblical interpretation has been guided by perspectives that have largely ignored the oral context in which the gospels took shape. Only recently have scholars begun to explore how ancient media inform the interpretive process and an understanding of the Bible. This collection of essays, by authors who recognize that the Jesus tradition was a story heard and performed, seeks to reevaluate the constituent elements of narrative, including characters, structure, narrator, time, and intertextuality. In dialogue with traditional literary approaches, these essays demonstrate that an appreciation of performance yields fresh insights distinguishable in many respects from results of literary or narrative readings of the gospels.

Oral Tradition and Literary Dependency

Oral Tradition and Literary Dependency PDF Author: Terence C. Mournet
Publisher: Mohr Siebeck
ISBN: 9783161484544
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 356

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Book Description
Revised thesis (Ph.D.) - University, Durham, UK, 2003.

The Oxford Handbook of the Synoptic Gospels

The Oxford Handbook of the Synoptic Gospels PDF Author: Stephen P. Ahearne-Kroll
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0190887451
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 633

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Book Description
"The field of Synoptic studies traditionally has had two basic foci. The question of how Matthew, Mark, and Luke are related to each other, what their sources are, and how the Gospels use their sources constitutes the first focus. Collectively, scholarship on the Synoptic Problem has tried to address these issues, and recent years have seen renewed interest and rigorous debate about some of the traditional approaches to the Synoptic Problem and how these approaches might inform the understanding of the origins of the early Jesus movement. The second focus involves thematic studies across the three Gospels. These are usually, but not exclusively, performed for theological purposes to tease out the early Jesus movement's thinking about the nature of Jesus, the motivations for his actions, the meaning of his death and resurrection, and his relationship to God. These studies pay less attention to the particular voices of the three individual Synoptic Gospels because they are trying to get to the overall theological character of Jesus"--

Boundaries of the Text

Boundaries of the Text PDF Author: Joyce Flueckiger
Publisher: University of Michigan Press
ISBN: 0472901710
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 173

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Book Description
When the Mahabharata and Ramayana are performed in South and Southeast Asia, audiences may witness a variety of styles. A single performer may deliver a two-hour recitation, women may meet in informal singing groups, shaddow puppets may host an all-night play, or professional theaters may put on productions lasting thirty nights. Performances often celebrate ritual passages: births, deaths, marriages, and religious observances. The stories live and are transmitted through performance; their characters are well known and well loved. Yet written versions of the Mahabharata and Ramayana have existed in both South and Southeast Asia for hundreds of years. Rarely have these texts been intended for private reading. What is the relationship between written text and oral performance? What do performers and audiences mean when they identify something as “Ramayana” or “Mahabharata”? How do they conceive of texts? What are the boundaries of the texts? By analyzing specific performance traditions, Boundaries of the Text addresses questions of what happens to written texts when they are preformed and how performance traditions are affected when they interact with written texts. The dynamics of this interaction are of particular interest in South and Southeast Asia where oral performance and written traditions share a long, interwoven history. The contributors to Boundaries of the Text show the difficulty of maintaining sharp distinctions between oral and written patterns, as the traditions they consider defy a unidirectional movement from oral to written. The boundaries of epic traditions are in a state of flux, contracting or expanding as South and Southeast Asian societies respond to increasing access to modern education, print technology, and electronic media.

Critical Essays on Indian English Writing

Critical Essays on Indian English Writing PDF Author: D. Ramakrishna
Publisher: Atlantic Publishers & Dist
ISBN: 9788126904495
Category : Indic literature (English)
Languages : en
Pages : 160

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Book Description
Indian English Has Been Universally Accepted As A Unique Style Of Discourse With Its Own Nuances, Giving Expression To Indian Multiculturalism In The Works Of Writers In India Or Those Abroad. Not Only The New Indian Writers In The West, Expatriates, Second And Third Generation Writers, But Also The Classic Authors Like A.K. Ramanujan, Nissim Ezekiel, Mulk Raj Anand, R.K. Narayan, And Bhabani Bhattacharya Are Being Interpreted In The Old New Critical Mode As Well As The Current Critical Styles Of Multiculturalism, Postcoloniality And Diaspora. V.S. Naipaul Is Being Interpreted Not Only As A Caribbean Or British Author But Also A Diasporic Writer Engaged In A Quest For The Indianness Inherited By Him.The Twelve Essays In This Book Deal With The Various Aspects Of Indian English Writing In The Light Of The Current Critical Trends. The Essays, Originally Published In Reputed Research Journals Or Critical Anthologies Over The Years, Are: Contemporary Indian English Literary Scene, Multiculturalism And Indian (English) Literature, Indian English Prose Writing, A.K. Ramanujan S Credo, Nissim Ezekiel S Credo, Soul-Stuff And Vital Language: The Poetry Of P. Lal, Mulk Raj Anand On The Novel, Anand S Vision Of War And Death In Across The Black Waters, Bhabani Bhattacharya S A Dream In Hawaii: A Study In Postcolonial Spirituality, Philosophers And Lovers: Paradox Of Experience In Shiv K. Kumar S The Bone S Prayer, Technique In The Short Stories Of Tagore, And From Darkness To Light: V.S. Naipaul S Indian Odyssey. The Article On Naipaul Has Been Written Especially For This Book.

Performing the Ramayana Tradition

Performing the Ramayana Tradition PDF Author: Paula Richman
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0197552536
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 393

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Book Description
The Ramayana, one of the two pre-eminent Hindu epics, has played a foundational role in many aspects of India's arts and social norms. For centuries, people learned this narrative by watching, listening, and participating in enactments of it. Although the Ramayana's first extant telling in Sanskrit dates back to ancient times, the story has continued to be retold and rethought through the centuries in many of India's regional languages, such as Hindi, Tamil, and Bengali. The narrative has provided the basis for enactments of its episodes in recitation, musical renditions, dance, and avant-garde performances. This volume introduces non-specialists to the Ramayana's major themes and complexities, as well as to the highly nuanced terms in Indian languages used to represent theater and performance. Two introductions orient readers to the history of Ramayana texts by Tulsidas, Valmiki, Kamban, Sankaradeva, and others, as well as to the dramaturgy and aesthetics of their enactments. The contributed essays provide context-specific analyses of diverse Ramayana performance traditions and the narratives from which they draw. The essays are clustered around the shared themes of the politics of caste and gender; the representation of the anti-hero; contemporary re-interpretations of traditional narratives; and the presence of Ramayana discourse in daily life.

The Columbia Anthology of Chinese Folk and Popular Literature

The Columbia Anthology of Chinese Folk and Popular Literature PDF Author: Victor H. Mair
Publisher: Columbia University Press
ISBN: 0231153120
Category : Literary Collections
Languages : en
Pages : 662

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Book Description
In The Columbia Anthology of Chinese Folk and Popular Literature, two of the world's leading sinologists, Victor H. Mair and Mark Bender, capture the breadth of China's oral-based literary heritage. This collection presents works drawn from the large body of oral literature of many of China's recognized ethnic groups?including the Han, Yi, Miao, Tu, Daur, Tibetan, Uyghur, and Kazak?and the selections include a variety of genres. Chapters cover folk stories, songs, rituals, and drama, as well as epic traditions and professional storytelling, and feature both familiar and little-known texts, from the story of the woman warrior Hua Mulan to the love stories of urban storytellers in the Yangtze delta, the shaman rituals of the Manchu, and a trickster tale of the Daur people from the forests of the northeast. The Cannibal Grandmother of the Yi and other strange creatures and characters unsettle accepted notions of Chinese fable and literary form. Readers are introduced to antiphonal songs of the Zhuang and the Dong, who live among the fantastic limestone hills of the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region; work and matchmaking songs of the mountain-dwelling She of Fujian province; and saltwater songs of the Cantonese-speaking boat people of Hong Kong. The editors feature the Mongolian epic poems of Geser Khan and Jangar; the sad tale of the Qeo family girl, from the Tu people of Gansu and Qinghai provinces; and local plays known as "rice sprouts" from Hebei province. These fascinating juxtapositions invite comparisons among cultures, styles, and genres, and expert translations preserve the individual character of each thrillingly imaginative work.