The second raises all kinds of questions. Walsh only offers it as a possibility. She is not making a claim.
To be honest this is what turned me off to the book.
If you go back to the very first page of this thread we discussed this suggestion right off the bat. It’s on the book cover, it’s in the intro. And yet, there wasn’t much evidence there when we went looking for it. In fact, on scrutiny, it wasn’t clear whether she was claiming–as a casual reading of the book blurb would suggest–that the gospel authors weren’t Christians or whether she was making the far less radical suggestion that some of the intended audience wasn’t Christian.
It struck me as academic clickbait. Don’t make any specific claims you can’t defend–if for no other reason than the good reviewers selected by CUP aren’t going to let you go making wild unsubstantiated claims–but make grand gestures to radical possibilities (that you have no real evidence for).
Maybe you found more as you read that shed light on this, but like I say, it really turned me off at the time.
Maybe you found more as you read that shed light on this…
Well the possibility does arise logically if you consider her take on the composition of the gospels. I do think there are reasons to think the authors were invested in their material. A much more serious issue for me is the problem of Second Temple Jewish literary practices. What I mean is, although ST Judaism was thoroughly Hellenized, and the literate class would have had much the same environment and training as pagans, there were specifically Jewish literary practices. The problem is that we know a heckuva lot more about Greco-Roman practice than we do about Jewish practice. (Walsh mentions this.) We have Philo who is very useful although a bit of a special case. And Paul of course. But the gospels are suffused with Jewish influence. Mark, for example, thought by many to be a pagan convert, assumes a great deal of knowledge about the Hebrew Bible on the part of his readers. This is why I’m not inclined to follow Dennis MacDonald when he hypothesizes that Mark was using Homer as a direct literary model for his gospel. But that is a different claim than what Walsh is making, that the gospel writers were operating in a Greco-Roman literary environment and knew that literary culture.
Personally I’m tempted by the view that Mark was a diaspora Jew like Paul. I doubt Walsh would think that mattered to her overarching thesis.
You know, looking at the clips from those videos, I can’t help but wonder whether the recent fascination with RFW may not be due in part to her exceptional looks.
(I say this in jest; I do not actually wish to impugn the quality, value, or merits of her scholarship on account of her natural attributes.)
All beautiful spots.
Switzerland is really special. If the Swiss Alps aren’t divine, I don’t know what is. But then again, the Italian Alps have their own charm, and I do love Lugano.
I’m especially fond of Munich, where I was fortunate to study German for a short spell way back when, staying in a run-down building in Schwabing and eating at the student mensa at the University of Munich where I met a medical student who became a friend. I’d stay with him two years later when I took the train journey to Greece to begin teaching. The city is so easy to get around and has such fabulous restaurants and beer gardens.
Your place sounds perfect, and I’d love to take you up on it. The wife retires at the end of the year, and we hope to spend some of it traveling. My wife hasn’t been to the East Coast, and I haven’t been since passing through back in the early 80s on my way to Nova Scotia when I stayed with an acquaintance doing his PhD at Princeton – a classmate of Bart’s actually.
As I said in the other thread, there is nothing wrong with organic thread drift. If you started discussing metallurgy or putting in random quotes in Mandarin, well…
I am currently able to retire and there is not much advantage financially in waiting. Working five more years won’t substantially affect my retirement lifestyle. I love my peers and enjoy their company but it’s probably time to transition to the next phase in life. My problem is that I’ve always been a ‘roll with it’, ‘live for today’ kind of person and while I’ve taken advantage of the opportunities available to me, I’ve never really ever sat down and thought out the last act of the play.
Jane Fonda believes reviewing the first two stages of life is crucial before embarking on the “third act”. She emphasizes that understanding your past, especially the roles and identities imposed on you, is key to defining yourself authentically in later life. This review process, according to Fonda, allows for a more intentional and fulfilling third act.
Ha! It worked!!! The above is my first attempt to cut and paste here.
Judith, I was just winding up when Vietnam was winding down. My chief experience with Jane Fonda is that luscious opening sequence in Barbarella, a movie I understand she came to despise. (The serious actress must of necessity forswear her days as a sex kitten.) Alas, the rest of the movie doesn’t live up to the opening.
I’ve never understood why no one has had a go at a remake but I suspect the cheerful anarchistic hedonism of the original French comic, saucy and sophisticated, is simply beyond our puritanical age.
One memorable sequence in the strip depicts Barbarella’s robot butler crawling out of her bed, bowing, apologizing that his performance was ” a bit mechanical”.
As I’m coming up on my 2nd full year of retirement, I can only second Robert’s recommendation. I haven’t regretted the decision once. Sure, I miss my students and colleagues, but that is only to be expected. For the first time in my life, I am able to do what I really want rather than what I have to do.
Robert my main location is in the Wash Dc area where I have lived for the past 25 years. However for the last year or so I have been on an assignment in Georgia where I was raised and where what’s left of my family remains. Financially it would make sense to retire here in a small town just south of Atlanta. I inherited my Dad’s house and would have no mortgage. The cost of living is much less here than in Maryland of course but I suppose I’m not sure I can withstand the culture shock. But these days anywhere in these United States seems pretty weird to me so that probably won’t make a difference. It’s really tempting to seek solace elsewhere. I’ve always wanted to experience living abroad and now might be the time. South America?
Stunning to think about but I could be out as early as June! If not then it’ll be the end of the year.
BDEhrman
FreedomBen
evgendob
Robert
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