George Aichele | Adrian College (original) (raw)

Papers by George Aichele

SBL Press eBooks, Sep 7, 2017

Neotestamentica, May 1, 1990

This essay presents analysis of selected parables and other short enigmatic sayings attributed to... more This essay presents analysis of selected parables and other short enigmatic sayings attributed to Jesus and recorded in the canonical Gospels and the Gospel of Thomas, in the light of contemporary theories of the literary fantastic developed by T. Todorov and E. Rabkin. These theories descriptionbe the fantastic as a narrative structure within which the implied reader hesitates between the genres of the marvelous and the uncanny. This fundamental indeterminacy of reference reverses or subverts the ground rules of narrative realism. The fantastic structure plays an important role both in the parabolic sayings and in the interpretations of those sayings by biblical scholars. This is most clear at he levels of the sayings tradition represented by the Gospels of Mark and Thomas. In contrast, the Q material displays very little of the fantastic. Matthew and Luke also tend to determine the reference of sayings material, either to the marvelous or the uncanny; this eliminates the element of the fantastic in favour of theological coherence. The larger narrative becomes increasingly certain of who Jesus is. John reverses this tendency and 're-fantasises' the sayings material, but John also moves the fantastic hesitation to a different stratum of the narrative, thereby disarming this aspect of the narrative. The paper concludes with a few general observations on the relation between the fantastic and the credibility of narrative, and the consequences of this relation for understanding these texts.

Choice Reviews Online, Sep 1, 2001

Copyright © 2001 by George Aichele All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, s... more Copyright © 2001 by George Aichele All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photo-copying, recording, or otherwise, without the written ...

The Bible and Critical Theory, Feb 1, 2008

I examine the effect that the 'synopsis' between the gospels of Luke and John have on the New Tes... more I examine the effect that the 'synopsis' between the gospels of Luke and John have on the New Testament's intertextual construction of 'Jesus Christ'. I draw particularly on the theories of Deleuze and of Barthes. I conclude that Luke and John, in combination with the letters of Paul, form a simulacrum of Christ that overwhelms and absorbs any divergences that may appear in the other gospels. This in turn plays a large part in defining the Christian 'Gospel' as a theological/ideological construct. Interpretation is our modern way of believing and of being pious (Deleuze and Guattari 1983, 171). [T]he similarities-and dissimilarities-between the theologies of the two evangelists [Luke and John] constitute... an exceedingly interesting subject, and one which it is the writer's hope that he can treat later in a companion piece to the present study (Bailey 1963, viii).

Journal of Biblical Literature, 1998

Theology Today, Apr 1, 1993

biblical scholars who make it their task to comment on books of the Bible that are already in the... more biblical scholars who make it their task to comment on books of the Bible that are already in their arena of expertise. So far as I know, it is, indeed, the “first comprehensive attempt to gather some of the fruits of feminist biblical scholarship on each book of the Bible.” The introduction admits that this is not intended as a general or complete commentary; it proceeds by providing an overview of each book of the Bible followed by commentary on passages selected because they either focus on women or are of special interest to women. General articles on feminist hermeneutics and on women in the biblical worlds are most helpful, especially the essay on extracanonical writings, until recently an overlooked source of information “ripe for harvest” by feminist scholars. As with any collection of essays, these are uneven. And within the community of women biblical scholars there will be healthy (and perhaps heated!) discussion of some of the readings. But no one will go away from the volume with her or his old assumptions about biblical texts intact. Who would have thought to bring the plight of abused women to bear on the reading of Hosea or to have faulted the logic of marriage in the household code in Ephesians? The challenge and pleasure of this work is its tendency to upset expectations about familiar books. Newsome and Ringe are to be commended for bringing together such a collection of scholarship and for groundbreaking work. It is greatly to be hoped that we shall see other commentaries of this sort in the near future to further the task of empowerment “that comes from reading the Bible as a woman in the company of women.”

The Bible and Critical Theory, Feb 24, 2012

College, USA (Retired) I read the gospel of Mark's kingdom language intertextually with Italo Cal... more College, USA (Retired) I read the gospel of Mark's kingdom language intertextually with Italo Calvino's strange novel, Invisible Cities, in which Marco Polo describes a collection of fantastic cities. This approach illuminates a different way to understand the Markan kingdom of God, for which that kingdom is neither realized nor imminent, indeed not eschatological at all. Nor is the kingdom a symbol. Instead the mysterious kingdom is comparable to (in Marco's words) "a crack [that] opens" and "all spaces change, all heights, distances; the city is transfigured, becomes crystalline, transparent as a dragonfly"-and yet even that, as Calvino's story implies, is but one of many possibilities. Time [aiōn] is a child playing draughts; the kingly power [basilēiē] is that of a child (Heraclitus, fragment 52 [Burnet 1920, modified]).

Preface Part One: Virtual Bible, Virtual Gospel Chapter One: Virtuality and the Bible Chapter Two... more Preface Part One: Virtual Bible, Virtual Gospel Chapter One: Virtuality and the Bible Chapter Two: The Simulation of Jesus, and the Virtual Gospel Part Two: Four Jesuses Chapter Three: Matthew's Gospel According to Pasolini Chapter Four: Child and Kingdom: On Some Unsettling Language in the Gospel of Mark Chapter Five: Dark Conception: The Two Fathers of Luke's Jesus Chapter Six: John Simulates the Anti-Simulacrum: Reading Jesus Writing Part Three: Canonical Reality Effects Chapter Seven: The Possibility of Error: Minority Report and the Synoptic Gospels Chapter Eight: Fantasy and the Synoptic Problem: The 'Minor Agreements' of Matthew and Luke against Mark Chapter Nine: Luke and John, and the Simulation of Christ Chapter Ten: The Virtual Gospel and the Canonical Control of Meaning

SBL Press eBooks, Nov 4, 2016

Journal of religion and popular culture, Sep 1, 2011

health sciences, history THE CANADIAN HISTORICAL REVIEW utpjournals.press/chr Offering a comprehe... more health sciences, history THE CANADIAN HISTORICAL REVIEW utpjournals.press/chr Offering a comprehensive analysis on the events that have shaped Canada, CHR publishes articles that examine Canadian history from both a multicultural and multidisciplinary perspective.

The burgeoning use of modern literary theory and cultural criticism in recent biblical studies ha... more The burgeoning use of modern literary theory and cultural criticism in recent biblical studies has led to stimulating-but often bewildering-new readings of the Bible. This book, argued from a perspective shaped by postmodernism, is at once an accessible guide to and an engagement with various methods, theories, and critical practices transforming biblical scholarship today. Written by a collective of cutting-edge scholars-with each page the work of multiple hands-The Postmodern Bible deliberately breaks with the individualist model of authorship that has traditionally dominated scholarship in the humanities and is itself an illustration of the postmodern transformation of biblical studies for which it argues. The book introduces, illustrates, and critiques seven prominent strategies of reading. Several of these interpretive strategies-rhetorical criticism, structuralism and narratology, reader-response criticism, and feminist criticism-have been instrumental in the transformation of...