Teachings of Jesus and Popular Hellenistic Stories
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.12775/BPTh.2014.003Keywords
historical Jesus, background of the Bible, Sermon on the Mount, parables, Hellenistic influence on the Bible, HellenismAbstract
A very rich material concerning the Hellenistic background of the Gospels has already been collected. However, standard works present most often parallels taken from either Hellenistic Jewish texts or sources later then the Gospels. Studying the remaining texts we find that many parallels happen to be purely verbal, to concern general banal truths, or notions present already in the Old Testament. The remainder, the sifted Greek texts, which could hypothetically influence Jesus, and which are useful for understanding his sayings and parables, consists nearly exclusively of popular stories: anecdotes about the philosophers, proverbial sayings, current ideas, fables and so on. For comparison, books of Qohelet, Ben Sira and Wisdom contain parallels to the Greek literature and philosophy of higher level. It suggests that Jesus, having no formal Greek education, knew quite well the oral and popular Greek traditions and used them to illustrate his teachings. He probably met the Greek stories both directly, speaking Greek, and through the culture of the hellenized Galilee.
References
Aune D.E., “The Spirit is Willing, but the Flesh is Weak” (Mark 14:38b and Matt. 26:41b), in: D.E. Aune, R.D. Young, Reading Religions in the Ancient World, Fs. R. McQueen Grant, Leiden – Boston 2007, 125-140.
Barrett C.K. (ed.), The New Testament Background. Writings from Ancient Greece and the Roman Empire That Illuminate Christian Origins, London 1987.
Betz H.-D., The Sermon on the Mount, Hermeneia, Minneapolis 1995, 437-453.
Boring M.E., Berger K., Colpe C., Hellenistic Commentary to the New Testament, Nashville 1995.
Braun R., Kohelet und die frühhellenistische Popularphilosophie, BZAW 130, Berlin 1973.
Clemen C., Religionsgeschichtliche Erklärung des Neuen Testaments, Berlin 1924.
Corley J., Ben Sira’s Teaching on Friendship, Brown Judaic Studies 316, Providence 2002
D. Konstan, Friendship in the Classical Word, Cambridge 1997.
Danaher J.P., Love in Plato and the New Testament, European Journal of Theology 7(1998)2, 119-126.
Dihle A., Die goldene Regel, Göttingen 1962
du Roy O., La Règle d'or — Histoire d'une maxime morale universelle. « Traite les autres comme tu voudrais être traité », t. 1: De Confucius à la fin du XIXe siècle, Paris 2012.
Engberg-Pedersen T., The Stoic Theory of Oikeiosis, Studies in the Hellenistic Civilization 2, Aarhus 1990.
Freyne S., Galilee from Alexander the Great to Hadrian. 323 B.C.E. to 135 C.E. A Study of Second Temple Judaism, Wilmington – Notre Dame 1980.
Guttenberger Ortwein G., Status und Statusverzicht im Neuen Testament und seiner Umwelt, NTOA 39, Göttingen 1999.
Hengel M., Judentum und Hellenismus, wyd. 2, Tübingen 1973.
Hock R.F., The Parable of the Foolish Rich Man (Luke 12:16-20) and Graeco-Roman Conventions of Thought and Behavior, in: J.T. Fitzgerald, T.H. Olbricht, L.M. White (red.), Early Christianity and Classical Culture, Fs. A.J. Malherbe, Supplements to NT 110, Leiden – Boston 2003, 181-196.
Johnson L.T., The New Testament’s Anti-Jewish Slander and Conventions of Ancient Polemic, JBL 108(1989), 419-441.
Kaiser O., Die Rezeption der stoischen Providenz bei Ben Sira, w: Zwischen Athen und Jerusalem, BZAW 320, Berlin de Gruyter 2003, 293-304.
Keener C.S., Human Stones in a Greek Setting: Luke 3.8; Matthew 3.9; Luke 19.40, JGRChJ 6(2009), 28-36.
Kosmala H., Nachfolge und Nachahmung Gottes. I. Im griechischen Denken, Annual of Swedish Theological Institute [Jerusalem] 2(1963), 38-85.
Lehtipuu O., The Imagery of the Lukan Afterworld in the Light of Some Roman and Greek Parallels, in: Zwischen den Reichen - Neues Testament und Römische Herrschaft, M. Labahn – J. Zangenberg (ed.), TANZ 36, Tübingen 2002, 133-146.
Louden B., Homer’s Odyssey and the Near East, Cambridge 2011.
Malherbe A.J., Hellenistic Moralists and the New Testament, ANRW II/26.1 (1992), 267-333.
Middendorp Th., Die Stellung Jesu Ben Siras zwischen Judentum und Hellenismus, Leiden 1973.
Neuer Wettstein. Texte zum neuen Testament aus Griechentum und Hellenismus, 3 vols, Berlin 2001-.
Nygren A., Agape and Eros, London 1932.
Poniży B., Księga Mądrości, Nowy Komentarz Biblijny. Stary Testament 20, Częstochowa 2012.
Reese J.M., Hellenistic Influence on the Book of Wisdom and Its Consequences, Analecta Biblica 41, Rome 1970.
Reiser M., Love of Enemies in the Context of Antiquity, NTS 47(2001), 411-427.
Rodríguez-Noriega G.L., Epicarmo de Siracusa. Testimonios y Fragmentos. Edición crítica bilingüe, Oviedo 1996.
Rudman D., Determinism in the Book of Ecclesiastes, JSOT Supplement Series 216, Sheffield 2001.
Russell D.C., Virtue as ‘Likeness to God’ in Plato and Seneca, Journal of the History of Philosophy 42(2004)3, 241-260.
Smith J.Z., Drudgery Divine: On the Comparison of Early Christianities and the Religions of Late Antiquity, Chicago 1990.
Vorster W.S., Stoics and Early Christians on Blessedness, w: D.L. Balch i in. (red.), Greeks, Romans and Christians, Fs. A.J. Malherbe, Minneapolis 1990, 38-51.
Wicke-Reuter U., Göttliche Providenz und menschliche Verantwortung bei Ben-Sira und in der frühen Stoa, BZAW 298, Berlin 2000.
Winston D., The Wisdom of Solomon, AB 43, New York 1979.
Winston D., Theodicy in Ben Sira and Stoic Philosophy, w: Of Scholars, Savants, and Their Texts, Fs. A. Hyman, red. R. Link-Salinger, New York 1989, 239-249.
Wojciechowski M., Aesopic Tradition in the New Testament, Journal of Greco-Roman Christianity and Judaism 5(2008), 99-109.
Wojciechowski M., Views of God in the “Olympic oration” of Dio Chrysostomus and in the New Testament, Folia Orientalia 48(2011), 185-196.
Wojciechowski M., Wpływy greckie w Biblii, Kraków 2012.
Chancey M., Greco-Roman Culture and the Galilee of Jesus, SNTS Monograph Series 134, Cambridge – New York 2006.
Chancey M., The Cultural Milieu of Ancient Sepphoris, NTS 47(2001), 127-145.
Downloads
Published
How to Cite
Issue
Section
License
CC BY ND 4.0. The Creator/Contributor is the Licensor, who grants the Licensee a non-exclusive license to use the Work on the fields indicated in the License Agreement.
- The Licensor grants the Licensee a non-exclusive license to use the Work/related rights item specified in § 1 within the following fields: a) recording of Work/related rights item; b) reproduction (multiplication) of Work/related rights item in print and digital technology (e-book, audiobook); c) placing the copies of the multiplied Work/related rights item on the market; d) entering the Work/related rights item to computer memory; e) distribution of the work in electronic version in the open access form on the basis of Creative Commons license (CC BY-ND 3.0) via the digital platform of the Nicolaus Copernicus University Press and file repository of the Nicolaus Copernicus University.
- Usage of the recorded Work by the Licensee within the above fields is not restricted by time, numbers or territory.
- The Licensor grants the license for the Work/related rights item to the Licensee free of charge and for an unspecified period of time.
FULL TEXT License Agreement
Stats
Number of views and downloads: 397
Number of citations: 0