Biblical Performance Criticism
A Series from Cascade Books, an imprint of Wipf and Stock Press
In 2008, Wipf and Stock Publishers supported the pioneering work of biblical scholars with the inauguration of a series of volumes on Biblical Performance Criticism. They have published 15 volumes in the last 10 years by outstanding scholars, with more scheduled to appear each year. David Rhoads has been the editor of the series, now joined by Holly Hearon and Kelly Iverson.
Click on an image of a book for the promotion of that volume on the publisher’s website, where you will be able to view the table of contents and a portion of the book as well as information about the author. You can order the book from that site.
Sound Matters: New Testament Studies in Sound Mapping (2018)
EDITED BY Margaret E. Lee
Sound matters. The New Testament’s first audiences were listeners, not readers. They heard its compositions read aloud and understood their messages as linear streams of sound. To understand the New Testament’s meaning in the way its earliest audiences did, we must hear its audible features and understand its words as spoken sounds. Sound Matters presents essays by ten scholars from five countries and three continents, who explore the New Testament through sound mapping, a technique invented by Margaret Lee and Bernard Scott for analyzing Greek texts as speech. Sound Matters demonstrates the value and uses of this technique as a prelude and aid to interpretation. The essays that make up this volume illustrate the wide range of interpretive possibilities that emerge when sound mapping restores the spoken sounds of the New Testament and revives its living voice.
Memory, Memorization, and Memorizers: The Galilean Oral-Style Tradition and Its Traditionists, by Marcel Jousse (2018)
EDITED BY Edgard Sienaert
FOREWORD BY Werner H. Kelber
This book is about the spoken word. It is about words spoken in the first century of our era and later put down in writing as confirmation of what had been said and done. Here, Marcel Jousse answers his own fundamental question: “How did the human being, placed at the heart of the countless actions of the universe, set about to conserve within him the memory of these actions and to transmit this memory faithfully to his descendants, from generation to generation?” To all oral societies, tradition is memory, and of all oral societies, ancient Galilee, perhaps more so than any other, developed ways and means of capacitating memory to levels we no longer fathom. This book is about how Ieshua’s deeds and sayings were first faithfully recorded in the memory as and when they happened, how they were then faithfully transmitted orally within and without Palestine, and how they were finally faithfully—literally—recorded anew, as oral tradition put in writing.
Performance Criticism of the Pauline Letters, by Bernhard Oestreich (2016)
FOREWORD BY Glenn S. Holland
TRANSLATED BY Lindsay Elias, Brent Blum
Receiving a letter from Paul was a major event in the early churches. Given the orally oriented culture of the time, a letter was designed to be read out loud in front of an audience. The document was an intermediate state for the local transport of the message, but the actual medium of communication was the performance event. This event was embedded in the written text in a manner comparable to a theater script. After careful preparation because of high expectations from ancient audiences, a presenter embodied the message with his voice, gazes, and gestures and made it not only understood but jointly experienced.
The Story of Naomi--The Book of Ruth: From Gender to Politics, byTerry Giles and William J. Doan (2016)
The book of Ruth is probably best known as a romantic love story that, through the expression of loving devotion, overcomes tragedy and ends with the founding of the most famous family in all of biblical Israel. But the book wasn't always this way. In fact, it wasn't a book at all but rather a story told with a very different purpose in mind. Before Ruth, there was the Story of Naomi, a subversive story designed to challenge a male-dominated status quo. Through comedy, sarcastic irony, and unparalleled rhetorical skill the Naomi storyteller holds up for inspection social gender roles and the power of sexuality in a manner that resonates yet today. The Story of Naomi--The Book of Ruth goes behind the literary rendition of the story and recaptures the original oral tale, with script and performance directions that brings to life the humor, tragedy, and transparent honesty shared between the Naomi storyteller and her audience.
The Interface of Orality and Writing: Speaking, Seeing, Writing in the Shaping of New Genres, edited by Annette Weissenrieder and Robert B. Coote (2015)
How did the visual, the oral, and the written interrelate in antiquity? The essays in this collection address the competing and complementary roles of visual media, forms of memory, oral performance, and literacy and popular culture in the ancient Mediterranean world. Incorporating both customary and innovative perspectives, the essays advance the frontiers of our understanding of the nature of ancient texts as regards audibility and performance, the vital importance of the visual in the comprehension of texts, and basic concepts of communication, particularly the need to account for disjunctive and non-reciprocal social relations in communication. Thus the contributions show how the investigation of the interface of the oral and written, across the spectrum of seeing, hearing, and writing, generates new concepts of media and mediation.
The Messiah of Peace: A Performance-Criticism Commentary on Mark's Passion-Resurrection Narrative, Thomas E. Boomershine, United Theological seminary (2015)
This highly innovative work offers a first-ever performance commentary on biblical narrative, correlated with video performances of the passion narrative of Mark in Greek and English.
From Text to Performance, edited by Kelly R. Iverson, Baylor University (2014)
This collection of essays by leading scholars demonstrate that an appreciation of performance yields fresh insights into the narrative readings of the Gospels.
The Oral Ethos of the Early Church: Speaking, Writing, and the Gospel of Mark, Joanna Dewey, Episcopal Divinity School (2013)
This is a highly readable collection from one of the leading voices in ancient media, with essays on Paul, the Gospel of John, the Gospel of Mark, and the role of women in storytelling.
Text and Tradition in Performance and Writing, Richard A. Horsley, University of Massachusetts (2013)
The author bring together a series of pioneering studies on Old Testament traditions, Ben Sira, the Dead Sea Scrolls, the Q document, and the Gospel of Mark.
Oral and Manuscript Culture in the Bible: Studies on the Media Texture of the New Testament—Explorative Hermeneutics, J. A. Loubser, South Africa (2013)
Ground-breaking studies on many aspects of the oral and written dynamics of the Bible, with illustrative essays on various writings of the New Testament.
Translating Scripture for Sound and Performance: New Directions in Biblical Studies, edited by James A. Maxey, The Nida Institute of the American Bible Society, and Ernst R. Wendland, Lusaka Lutheran Seminary in Zambia (2012)
This cutting-edge collection of studies challenges assumptions of traditional translation practices and offers innovative proposals for exegesis and translation in a variety of world contexts.
Pretoria (2012)Orality and Literacy in Early Christianity, Peter J. J. Botha, University of South Africa in
Botha’s clear and carefully crafted essays covering a wide range of subjects represent some of the best work in the field on the complex relationships between the orality and literacy.
Oral Tradition in Ancient Israel, Robert D. Miller II, O.F.S., Catholic University of America (2011)
This book provides a comprehensive study of “oral tradition” in ancient Israel and the traces of it in the narrative books of the Hebrew Bible.
The Case for Mark Composed in Performance, Antoinette Clark Wire, San Francisco Theological Seminary (2011)
This remarkable book lays out a scenario for the Gospel of Mark composed by a series of performers and generated by women in the early church.
From Orality to Orality: A New Paradigm for Contextual Translation of the Bible, James A. Maxey, The Nida Institute of the American Bible Society (2009)
Based on his own field research in Cameroon, Maxey proposes a highly original model for translation that takes account of orality both in the original and in the contemporary contexts.
The Bible in Ancient and Modern Media: Story and Performance, edited by Holly E. Hearon and Philip Ruge-Jones, Texas Lutheran University (2009)
This collection of essays by outstanding scholars provides an excellent introduction to biblical performance criticism for students and scholars alike.