Gospels or Biographies? The Gospels as Folk Literature

Ryder A. Wishart, PhD (2023), McMaster Divinity College, has edited and published on a number of subjects including Greek grammar, computational linguistics, New Testament studies, Pauline studies, and theology.

• ContentsList of Figures and TablesAbbreviationsIntroduction1 From Form to Genre1 Genre Criticism before Form Criticism2 Form instead of Genre3 Redaction instead of Form4 Literature instead of Redaction5 Genre instead of Form or Redaction6 Summary2 From Genre to Register1 The Consensus View’s Model of Genre2 Burridge’s Model of Genre3 Burridge’s Selection Bias4 Problems with Burridge’s Criteria for Genre Classification5 Register as the Confluence of Sociological and Genre Criticism6 Summary3 A Proposal Regarding the Gospels as Folk-Literature Collections1 Can the Gospels Be Considered Folklore?2 Can Gospel Be Considered a Genre?3 Can Gospel Be Considered a Register?4 Folk Literature Collections5 Summary4 A Methodology for Analyzing Situations to Describe What Texts Do1 Methodological Steps2 Situations as Contextual Configurations3 Situation Boundaries4 Dynamic Situations5 Methodological Tools6 Summary5 Patterns of Situational Variation in the Gospels1 Variation in the Gospel Pericopes2 Summary6 Types of Situations in the Gospels1 Situation Types2 Summary7 What Does a Gospel Do?1 Logistics and Definitions Relating to Discourse Patterns2 Analyzing Language for Grammatical Register Probabilities3 The Likely Situational Contexts of the Gospels4 SummaryConclusionAppendix: Example DataBibliographyIndex of Modern AuthorsIndex of Ancient Sources