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Edwin K. Broadhead challenges the traditional assumption that the meaning and identity of New Testament texts rest in the intentions of an author expressed in a foundational narrative fixed in writing. He argues that for ancient literature the decisive factor is the viability and variability of a text's tradition history, encompassing composition, preservation, transmission, editing, interpretation, memory, and performance. These developments draw intermittently and interchangeably upon oral, scribal, memorial, and performative modes and respond to the needs of communities of tradents. The author maintains that the writings of the followers of Jesus belong to this ancient, normative way of Traditionshandlung and Traditionsverhalten, making it unlikely that these writings provide unmediated access to intentions of an author.
Employing a formalistic analysis set within a history of traditions context, the author seeks to move beyond the myopic focus on written manuscript and the attachment to the image of the New Testament author as a consistent theologian and literary genius. This renewed attention to Traditionshandlung in wider literature highlights two key traits of the New Testament material. First, the New Testament appears as a collection of traditions in a wide variety of forms: oral traditions such as hymn, story, preaching, prayer; performed traditions such as worship, eucharist, baptism, blessings; and iconic traditions such as sign, symbol, icon. Secondly, because these writings were shaped over time within communities of believers and developed across generations for changing contexts, they come to us as living traditions. This metabolic quality becomes fully visible only when we look beyond the authors - beyond the vision of a personal and punctiliar production of unchanging texts.
Price: £101.00
Pages: 270
Publisher: Mohr Siebeck
Imprint: Mohr Siebeck
Series: Wissenschaftliche Untersuchungen zum Neuen Testament
Publication Date:
29 May 2026
ISBN: 9783161640155
Format: Hardcover
BISACs:
Prologue
Introduction Text, Author, Authority
Part One Mouvance as a Literary Norm
Chapter One Mouvance: Definition and Phenomenology
1.1 Mouvance, Variability, Viability
1.2 Traits, Regions, and Modes of Mouvance
1.3 Prospects
Chapter Two Mouvance as an Ancient Norm: Graeco-Roman Literature
2.1 Epic Materials: Composition and Performance in the Iliad
2.2 Mouvance and Greek Drama
2.3 Mouvance in Ancient Schools and Literary Circles
Chapter Three Mouvance as an Ancient Norm: Hebraic Tradition
3.1 The Larger Dynamics of the Hebraic Literary Tradition
3.2 The Mouvance of Specific Traditions
Chapter Four Mouvance and the Medieval
4.1 The Medieval Shift: The Typographic Apotheosis of the Bible
4.2 The Enduring Power of Tradition
4.3 MS9381 of St. Petroc's
Chapter Five Mouvance and the Emergence of Modernity
5.1 The Writings of William Shakespeare
5.2 The Origin of A Course in General Linguistics
5.3 The Founding Documents of the United States
5.4 Who Wrote Satan in Goray?
5.5 Who Killed Atticus Finch?
5.6 Who Wrote Brer Rabbit?
5.7 The Dynamics of Hymn and Homily
5.8 Thomas Jefferson: Editor in Chief
5.9 The Digital Revolution
Part Two Mouvance and the Writings of the New Testament
Chapter Six The Gospel of Mark
6.1 Author, Time, Place, Audience
6.2 Manuscripts and Texts
6.3 Mouvance Embedded and Embodied within the Gospel of Mark
6.4 Transmission History
6.5 History of Interpretation
Chapter Seven The Gospel of Matthew
7.1 Author, Time, Place, Audience
7.2 Manuscripts and Texts
7.3 Mouvance Embedded within the Gospel of Matthew
7.4 Transmission History
7.5 History of Interpretation
Chapter Eight The Gospel of Luke and the Book of Acts
8.1 Author, Time, Place, Audience
8.2 Manuscripts and Texts
8.3 Mouvance Embedded within the Gospel of Luke
8.4 Mouvance Embedded in the Book of Acts: Jerusalem and Judaism: Part III
8.5 Transmission History
8.6 History of Interpretation
Chapter Nine Johannine Literature
9.1 Mouvance in the Fourth Gospel
9.2 Mouvance exemplified: the wider Johannine corpus
Chapter Ten Epistles
10.1 Pauline Literature
10.2 Other Epistles
10.3 The Collections
Chapter Eleven Hebrews
11.1 Mouvance
11.2 Intertwined Christological Traditions
11.3 Summation and Analysis
Chapter Twelve The Revelation
12.1 Mouvance
12.2 Dialectical Engagements
Part Three The New Testament on the Wider Landscape of Human Discourse
Chapter Thirteen Overview: The Question of History and the History of the Question
Chapter Fourteen Mouvance and Discursivity in Anthropological Perspective
Chapter Fifteen The Prospect of a Discursive Anthropology