Margaret Ramey PhD Thesis

266 Pages·2011·1.98 MB·English

by  Margaret Ramey

THE QUEST FOR THE FICTIONAL JESUS : GOSPEL REWRITES,
GOSPEL (RE)INTERPRETATION, AND CHRISTOLOGICAL
PORTRAITS WITHIN JESUS NOVELS
Margaret E. Ramey
A Thesis Submitted for the Degree of PhD
at the
University of St. Andrews
2011
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UNIVERSITY OF ST. ANDREWS

ST. MARY'S COLLEGE
Institute for Theology, Imagination, and the Arts

The Quest for the Fictional Jesus

Gospel Rewrites, Gospel (Re)Interpretation, and
Christological Portraits within Jesus Novels

A THESIS SUBMITTED BY

Margaret E. Ramey

TO THE FACULTY OF DIVINITY
IN CANDIDACY FOR THE DEGREE OF

DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY

ST. ANDREWS, SCOTLAND

2011
1
DECLARATIONS

I, Margaret E. Ramey, hereby certify that this thesis, which is approximately 80,000 words in
length, has been written by me, that it is the record of work carried out by me and that it has not
been submitted in any previous application for a higher degree.

I was admitted as a research student in March, 2006 and as a candidate for the degree of Doctor of
Philosophy in August, 2006; the higher study for which this is a record was carried out in the
University of St Andrews between 2006 and 2010.

Date Signature of Candidate

I hereby certify that the candidate has fulfilled the conditions of the Resolution and Regulations
appropriate for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the University of St Andrews and that the
candidate is qualified to submit this thesis in application for that degree.

Date Signature of Supervisor
2
COPYRIGHT

In submitting this thesis to the University of St Andrews I understand that I am giving
permission for it to be made available for use in accordance with the regulations of the
University Library for the time being in force, subject to any copyright vested in the work not
being affected thereby. I also understand that the title and the abstract will be published, and
that a copy of the work may be made and supplied to any bona fide library or research worker,
that my thesis will be electronically accessible for personal or research use unless exempt by
award of an embargo as requested below, and that the library has the right to migrate my thesis
into new electronic forms as required to ensure continued access to the thesis. I have obtained
any third-party copyright permissions that may be required in order to allow such access and
migration, or have requested the appropriate embargo below.

The following is an agreed request by candidate and supervisor regarding the electronic
publication of this thesis:

Access to printed copy and electronic publication of thesis through the University of St
Andrews.

Date Signature of Candidate

Date Signature of Supervisor

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ABSTRACT

Jesus' story has been retold in various forms and fashions for centuries. Jesus novels, a
subset of the historical fiction genre, are one of the latest means of not only re-imagining the
man from Galilee but also of rewriting the canonical Gospels. This thesis explores the
Christological portraits constructed in four of those novels while also using the novels to
examine the intertextual play of these Gospel rewrites with their Gospel progenitors.
Chapter 1 offers a prolegomenon to the act of fictionalizing Jesus that discusses the
relationship between the person and his portraits and the hermeneutical circle created by these
texts as they both rewrite the Gospels and stimulate a rereading of them. It also establishes the
"preposterous" methodology that will be used when reexamining the Gospels "post" reading
the novels. Chapters 2 to 5 offer four case studies of "complementing" and "competing" novels
and the techniques they use to achieve these aims: Anne Rice's Christ the Lord: Out of Egypt;
Neil Boyd's The Hidden Years; Nino Ricci's Testament; and José Saramago's The Gospel
according to Jesus Christ. Chapter 6 begins an examination of a specific interpretive circle
based upon Jesus' temptation in the wilderness. Beginning with the synoptic accounts of that
event, the chapter then turns to how Jesus' testing has been reinterpreted and presented in two
of the novels. Returning to the Gospel of Matthew's version of the Temptation, chapter 7
offers a "preposterous" examination of that pericope, which asks novel questions of the text
and its role with Matthew's narrative context based on issues raised by the Gospel rewrites.
The thesis concludes by suggesting that Jesus novels, already important examples of the
reception history of the Gospels, can also play a helpful role in re-interpreting the Gospels
themselves.
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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

This thesis is the result of the efforts and encouragement of many. I wish first to thank
Bruce Longenecker, who served as the primary supervisor for this project from its conception
to its conclusion. He offered swift and insightful responses to my work and gave guidance and
support through some of the more trying times. Even after being appointed to the W. W.
Melton Chair at Baylor University, he faithfully continued on in an unofficial, but certainly not
unappreciated, supervisorial capacity. Whatever is good and successful about this thesis can be
contributed largely to him and to Dr. Gavin Hopps, who took over as my supervisor upon Prof.
Longenecker's departure from St. Andrews. I will always be grateful for Dr. Hopps'
willingness to take me on and for his repeated challenges to produce the best thesis possible.
His insights have greatly improved what follows, and any flaws that remain are mine alone.
I wish to thank the University of St. Andrews for providing fine work accommodations at
the Roundel, where my experience was greatly enhanced by my Black Room colleagues: Aaron
Kuecker, Justin Smith, Kelly Liebengood, Kathleen Burt, and Matt Farlow.
The congregation of St. Andrews Episcopal Church holds a special place in my heart. I
found a home among them and am most grateful for the opportunity to serve as their youth
director. Charlotte, Naomi, Rory, Samuel, Peter, David, Andy, Penny, and John kept me
grounded and reminded me of the vital importance of practical application of biblical studies.
I also must thank my extended "urban" family, some of whom were gracious enough to live
with me: Mariam Kamell, Dimali Amarasinghe, Annick Vidonne, Jen Kilps, Alissa Jones
Nelson, Jo Ann Sharkey, and Melanie, Drew, and Elaine Lewis. Others, such as John Boothby,
Kathleen Burt, Whitney Drury, Matt Nelson, Amber and Paul Warhurst, Paul and Eileen
Scaringi, and the Chandler family, who never shared a flat with me nevertheless shared their
lives and many adventures with me. Many of you have reminded me of what it means to take
literally Paul's words of being brothers and sisters in Christ.
Thank you to the University of St. Andrews for awarding me the Overseas Research
Students award, which provided partial funding for my second and third years of study. Thank
you to Rotary International, whose Ambassadorial Scholars program funded my first year of
study. The Florence Rotary Club and District 7770 sponsored me for this program, and in
particular I would like to thank Joe Stukes and David Michaux. Through Rotary, I met my
surrogate parents, Alan and Irene Constable, and also Jerry, Linda-anne, and Claire Beaulier.
They have housed me, fed me, driven me around, introduced me to Scottish culture, and
offered their untiring support. My experience in Scotland was richer because of them.
My final year of writing was done while teaching at Messiah College. I am privileged to be
a part of such a fine institution whose vision for educating and mentoring students coincides so
well with my own. My colleagues and the administration have been unfailingly affirmative as
I have tried to balance my first year of teaching with the final stages of thesis writing.
I am also grateful for the continued support that I have received from those at Truett
Seminary. Thank you especially to Todd Still for his encouragement to begin postgraduate
work and for his continued mentorship throughout this process. Thank you also to Scott Baker
for helping me access resources at Baylor's library whenever they were not available here.
Most importantly, I wish to thank my entire family but in particular my parents. I credit my
parents with instilling in me a love for learning and the discipline to study and persevere. I
cannot thank them enough for all they have given me: countless hours of their time
proofreading this thesis, the management of my affairs while I lived overseas, financial aid,
phone calls, and their love and belief in me. I would not be where I am nor the person who I
am today without them. This thesis is dedicated to them with much love and gratitude.
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CONTENTS

Declarations 1
Copyright 2
Abstract 3
Acknowledgments 4
Table of Contents 5

Introduction: Jesus and Jesus stories 6

PART I: FROM JESUS TO JESUS TEXTS

Chapter 1: Prolegomenon to fictionalizing Jesus 8

PART II: FROM THE NEW TESTAMENT TO NEW TEXTS

Chapter 2: Anne Rice's Out of Egypt as a complementing rewrite 34

Chapter 3: Neil Boyd's The Hidden Years as a complementing rewrite 58

Chapter 4: Nino Ricci's Testament as a competing rewrite 70

Chapter 5: José Saramago's The Gospel according to Jesus Christ as a 104
competing rewrite

PART III: FROM NEW TEXTS BACK TO THE NEW TESTAMENT

Chapter 6: The Temptation: from Gospel sources to Gospel rewrites 128

Chapter 7: A preposterous reading of the Temptation and its narrative role in 166
Matthew's Gospel

Conclusion 214

WORKS CONSULTED 223
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Introduction: Jesus and Jesus stories

And there are also many other things which Jesus did,
which if they were written in detail,
I suppose that even the world itself
would not contain the books that would be written.
John 21:25

When the evangelist of the Gospel of John penned the last words of what would become
the last canonical gospel, he most likely did not realize how truly prophetic his words were. At
that point, the landslide of writings detailing and often inventing those "other things which
Jesus did" was just beginning.1 Starting as a trickle with the non-canonical gospels, they
developed over time to include the present deluge of Jesus novels.
In the last century alone, more than four hundred novels and novellas have been written
about the life and deeds of Jesus.2 The list of authors who have tried their hands at creating a
literary Lord include such notable names as D.H. Lawrence, Norman Mailer, José Saramago,
Gore Vidal, Jeffrey Archer, Anne Rice, and most recently Philip Pullman. Although their
writing styles and philosophical agendas vary drastically, they all share a fascination with the
man from Galilee and are not unique in this interest either. The modern world cannot seem to
get enough of stories about Jesus, and if the current publishing trajectory remains steady, then
soon it may not be able to contain all of the books being written.
In this thesis, we will examine the Jesus novel phenomenon and encounter some of the
fictional Jesuses that inhabit their narrative worlds. While we will discuss some of the
motivations propelling authors to compose Jesus novels, central to our discussion will be the
interpretative relationship between the first biographies of Jesus' life—the canonical Gospels—

1 In Bruce Metzger's work on canonization, he suggests that the encouragement to write subsequent gospels may
have come from John's ending statement (The Canon of the New Testament: Its Origin, Development, and
Significance [Oxford: Clarendon, 1987], 166). Marjorie Holmes in the forward to her novel Three From Galilee
also includes this verse as legitimation for her fictionalization of Jesus' life.
2 This number comes from the combined efforts of Zeba Crook and myself. Crook maintains a list of the novels on
his website: http://http-server.carleton.ca/~zcrook/JesusNovels.htm.
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and these modern rewritten tales. In essence, this thesis will be an examination of the
hermeneutical circle created by those intertextual relationships. Our interest in the novels,
however, pertains not only to how modern authors have taken the canonical Gospel material
and supplemented and transformed it within these new tales of Jesus' life but also to how
interaction with those stories has the potential to alter readers' perspectives of the canonical
Gospels once they return to them. This duality of purpose is reflected in the structure of the
thesis that after the initial prolegomenon divides into two distinctive halves.
The first half will explore the practice of rewriting as seen in four representative Jesus
novels.3 These texts serve as case studies for two major categories of Jesus novels—those that
offer rewrites intent on competing with the Gospels in some manner and those that hope to
complement the canonized versions of Jesus' life. By examining individual novels, we will be
able to see some standard techniques as well as some unique techniques used by authors to
either "complement" or "compete" with the canonical Gospels, and through analyzing the
novels' overall Christological portraits, we will be better equipped to judge whether the novels
themselves are successful in producing complementing or competing portraits through, or
sometimes in spite of, the techniques they have employed.
Reading these novels in light of their relationships with the canonical Gospels is only half
of the hermeneutical circle though. Part of the intention of rewrites is to reconfigure the way in
which readers view the original sources. When the reading pact, which will be explored below,
of these textual relations is fully actualized, readers are propelled to return to the Gospels
themselves, usually with an altered perspective and often with new insights or questions.
In order to illustrate how Jesus novels can send readers back to the Gospel sources and
stimulate "novel" rereadings of them, the second half of the thesis will offer a different type of

3 In fact, one of the novels—Saramago's Gospel—has even been dubbed "an example of prototypical rewriting"
(Ziva Ben-Porat, “Introduction,” JRS 3 [2003]: 5).
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case study from the first in which we will focus on one particular event in Jesus' life—the
Temptation. After analyzing the portrayals of the Temptation in both a complementing rewrite
and a competing one, we will return to the Matthean source to see how the ideas and issues
raised in the novels inform an exegesis of Matthew 4:1-11.
One purpose of this thesis is to serve as an introduction to the important contributions that
the study of Jesus novels can make to scholarship. The novels in their own right deserve a
place in any discussion of reception history of the Gospels. The first half of this thesis focuses
more on this contribution and explores not only the manner in which the canonical Gospels are
received and rewritten but also the new Christological portraits that the novels offer to our
culture. Yet critical engagement with the novels can also serve even the more traditional field
of biblical studies. By using Mieke Bal's theory of "preposterous" interpretation, which will be
explained in the following chapter, we will discover how the novels themselves can have a
voice in exegesis of the biblical text and can alert us to "novel" questions to ask and new
insights to explore.
Before embarking on our quest, however, we first must begin by addressing some basic
questions related to this endeavour, such as what a Jesus novel is and how it interacts with
other texts and portraits of Jesus, particularly those found in the canonical Gospels. Therefore,
we will begin by offering a prolegomenon to the fictionalization of Jesus before turning to our
case studies.
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