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Quaestor
Joined: 25 Jun 2007
Posts: 58
Location: Chorleywood UK
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 Posted: Thu Jul 26, 2007 7:36 pm Post subject: ST. PAUL VERSUS ST. PETER by MICHAEL GOULDER |
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Thank you Richard for pointing me in the direction of Michael Goulder. This book is a fascinating dissection of the Gospels comparing similar accounts in each of them in order to establish the writer's bias. Merely by looking at the evangelists' handling of any incident in the gospel stories Michael Goulder is able to establish that Luke was a liberal Pauline and Matthew a liberal Petrine.
I have always felt it was important to establish why a writer was writing and to find out exactly what his motives were. This particular method of enquiry is fully satisfied in Friedman's book "Who wrote the Bible"in which it becomes very apparent that the main motivation in the separate accounts is the desire of various sections of the priesthood to establish their position in the pecking order enabling them to travel first class on the gravy train.
It is not difficult to see that there were considerable tensions between the Jerusalem church with their adherence to Judaic observances and Paul, from the diaspora, who wished to proselytise the Gentiles and saw strict Judaic observance as a major obstacle. Michael Goulder, in this book, enables one to see exactly how each of the gospel writers framed his story in such a way as to shed a better light on the position of which of the two protagonists he favoured and, at the very least, to damn with faint praise the other side.
Dennis
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rgoode
Site Admin
Joined: 24 May 2007
Posts: 46
Location: Tysoe, Warwickshire
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| Posted: Fri Jul 27, 2007 11:57 am Post subject: |
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Dennis,
Glad you are enjoying Goulder! I must admit my introduction to Redaction Criticism is what got me into Biblical studies in the first place. From time to time it gets some bad press - mainly because of the extremes to which some scholars have taken it. Nevertheless it is a fascinating and hugly enjoyable area. Funnily enough I'm working on some material for the main site which looks at this approach.
Richard
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