Rewriting Scripture: Authorship, authority, and the elephant in the room

[JoeyWarren]

Hey–I checked your profile–I’m a former Baptist too. Swam Tiber in 88 and nearly drowned so I treaded water a Looooooong time–kissed the Blessed Banks about 7 years ago.

Quick recap:

Born a Baptist at a Catholic Hospital.
Attended a Catholic HeadStart school.
Became a Congregational Holiness/Pentecostal type.
Became an Atheist for a short while.
Married a Cradle Catholic
Eventually became Catholic after 15 years of marriage though I was Catholic at heart a lot longer than that.

 

[bpbasilphx]

Pope Benedict XVI in his new book “Jesus of Nazareth” puts this “textual criticism” bunkem in perspective: when one goes looking for Jesus armed with a mirror, one should not be surprised to find Jesus looks like oneself.

Albert Sweitzer said something similar: When people look down the well of history for the historical Jesus, they always find their own image reflected back.

 

[st_felicity]

Pope Benedict XVI in his new book “Jesus of Nazareth” puts this “textual criticism” bunkem in perspective: when one goes looking for Jesus armed with a mirror, one should not be surprised to find Jesus looks like oneself.

Albert Sweitzer said something similar: When people look down the well of history for the historical Jesus, they always find their own image reflected back.

It’s kinda Biblical too:

James 1:
22 Be doers of the word and not hearers only, deluding yourselves. 23 For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man who looks at his own face in a mirror. 24 He sees himself, then goes off and promptly forgets what he looked like. 25 But the one who peers into the perfect law 12 of freedom and perseveres, and is not a hearer who forgets but a doer who acts, such a one shall be blessed in what he does.

 

[Teflon93]

Pope Benedict XVI in his new book “Jesus of Nazareth” puts this “textual criticism” bunkem in perspective: when one goes looking for Jesus armed with a mirror, one should not be surprised to find Jesus looks like oneself.

Albert Sweitzer said something similar: When people look down the well of history for the historical Jesus, they always find their own image reflected back.

Excellent point—I’d forgotten about Sweitzer’s quote.

I put it slightly differently: “The quest for the historical Jesus is in fact the quest for a useable Jesus.”

 

[Ani_Ibi]

Let’s define author. I remember doing this way back in university years. And I vaguely remember the reference to auctoritee in Canterbury Tales, though I know not in what context. I do remember one prof getting us to think about the connection between authorship and authority.

Let’s zoom in on author. What is the nature of the creative act? How much is author? How much is context? How much is the ‘voice’ of the material being written? What is ‘voice’?