Wednesday, February 08, 2006

Hearing Mark's Endings

by at 4
Hearing Mark's Endings: Listening to Ancient Popular Texts through Speech Act Theory

by Bridget Gilfillan Upton

2006
ISBN 90 04 14791 8
Hardback (xviii, 246 pp.)
EUR 95.- / US$ 128.-
Biblical Interpretation Series, 79

Hearing Mark’s Endings has two foci: it represents an attempt to show that ancient popular texts are written to be read aloud, and further, develops an aurally attuned hermeneutic to interpret them by. The contents of the book include rhetorical readings of the ancient popular texts, by Xenophon of Ephesus: An Ephesian Tale, and the ending of Mark’s Gospel. These readings, which highlight the aural nature of the texts, are followed by a methodological justification for using Speech Act Theory as a hermeneutical tool, and further readings, of Xenophon’s romance, and three endings of the Gospel of Mark. The book concludes that Speech Act Theory has, indeed, much to offer to the interpretation of these texts. The particular usefulness of this work lies in the contribution it makes to New Testament hermeneutics, in the testing of a particular, underused methodology to illuminate ancient popular literature. It will prove to be useful to all those interested in interdisciplinary methodological studies of biblical and other ancient popular literature.

Source: http://www.brill.nl/

4 comments

  1. Peter M. Head2/08/2006 5:13 pm

    So Pete, what is the blogolicy on advertising books?

    a) It is written by one of us not one of them.
    b) It is relevant to the subject of the blog.
    c) As long as we get our percentage we don't care.
    d) All of the above.
    e) None of the above.

    ReplyDelete
  2. P.J. Williams2/08/2006 10:26 pm

    We try to do a service to those poor benighted people who frequent our blog by informing them of publications relevant to the subject.

    Providing such information about publications of course implies nothing about the quality or worth of the publication or about the truth of the information provided by publishers.

    'Blogolicy'—not to be confused with 'blogoligy', which is when there are few postings to the blog.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Peter M. Head2/08/2006 11:32 pm

    Ah yes, but one of the surprising things about this book blurb (considering the subject) is that it does not claim to be of interest to New Testament textual critics (or should that be 'text critics'?).

    ReplyDelete
  4. P.J. Williams2/09/2006 9:25 am

    It suggests that it is of tangential interest.

    ReplyDelete

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