Review of Chris Keith, The Gospel as Manuscript: An Early History of the Jesus Tradition as Material Artifact (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2020). (original) (raw)

2021, Journal of Theological Studies

This volume develops the argument that the manuscript-asartifact was of paramount importance for earliest Christians and for the development of their public identity. After a brief introduction that lays out the foundational assumptions of the argument, the book proceeds in three sections. The first is entitled 'The Gospel as Manuscript', and consists of two chapters. Chapter One begins by challenging the notion that ancient reading was exclusively aloud. Using the work of William Johnson as a launching point, Keith aims to demonstrate that 'Early Christianity … had an extreme text-centeredness of its own' (p. 26). Against this backdrop he introduces two of Jan Assmann's concepts that will reappear throughout the book: zerdehnte Situation ('extended situation') and entourage matériel ('accompanying material'). Applied to Keith's argument, the former concept raises the question, what does a manuscript contribute to the transmission process that orality does not? The latter concept recognizes that material objects-even those that might be considered mundane-are capable of reflecting group identity. Chapter Two, entitled 'Sociologies of the Book', is one of the longest and most substantive chapters in the book. Here Keith's argument begins to develop in earnest. Responding to the recent work of Eva Mroczek (2016) and Matthew Larsen (2017, 2018)-and particularly their shared emphasis on notions of Jewish and Christian literature 'before the book'-Keith stakes out his own ground, emphasizing both the role of bound book as material artifact and its influence in shaping identity. Having established his own understanding of the book-as-artifact, Keith proceeds to his second section, 'The Gospel as Gospels', which consists of three chapters. Chapter Three is devoted to examining the textualization of Mark's Gospel, with specific focus on the question of why Mark created a shift in the transmission of the gospel material from oral to written, especially since this shift does not appear to have been inevitable. Backing off from the assertion in a previous essay in which he claimed that Mark moved to textuality with the intent of creating a zerdehnte Situation, Keith is more circumspect here, acknowledging that we cannot know what Mark intended, even if his move toward textuality inevitably resulted in numerous zerdehnten Situationen. Chapters Four and Five deal