Jesus tradition in the Apostolic Fathers
Subtitle: their explicit appeals to the words of Jesus in light of orality studies
By: Stephen E. Young
Series: Wissenschaftliche Untersuchungen zum Neuen Testament. 2. Reihe -- 311; Wissenschaftliche Untersuchungen zum Neuen Testament -- 311.
Publisher: Mohr Siebeck
Published: 2011
Place of publication: Tübingen
Language: eng
Number of pages: 371
ISBN-13: 9783161510106
Subjects: Oral tradition; Apostolic Fathers; Words; Extra-canonical parallels; Fathers of the church
Description: This dissertation reevaluates the tradition of Jesus' sayings in the Apostolic Fathers in light of the growing recognition of the impact of orality upon early Christianity and its writings.  At the beginning of the last century it was common to hold that the Apostolic Fathers made wide use of the canonical Gospels.  While a number of studies have since called this view into question, many of them simply replace the theory of dependence upon canonical Gospels with one of dependence upon other written sources.  No full-scale study of Jesus tradition in the Apostolic Fathers has been published which takes into account the last four decades of new research into oral tradition in the wake of the pioneering work of Milman Parry and Albert Lord.  Based on this new research, the present dissertation advances the thesis that an oral-traditional source best explains the form and content of the explicit appeals to Jesus tradition in the Apostolic Fathers that predate 2 Clement.  In the course of the discussion, attention is drawn to the ways in which the Jesus tradition in the Apostolic Fathers informs our understanding of the use of oral tradition in Christian antiquity.
Notes: Revision of Thesis (Ph.D.)--Fuller Theological Seminary, School of Theology, 2010, titled "As the Lord said," explicit appeals to Jesus tradition in the Apostolic Fathers.

Includes bibliographical references and indexes.
Table of contents: title: Orality and the study of early Christianity; title: A brief history of scholarship on the sources of the Jesus tradition in the Apostolic Fathers; title: Method : orality and oral tradition; title: Identifying markers and ways of orality : the explicit appeal to Jesus tradition in 1 Clement 13.1c-2; title: The explicit appeal to Jesus tradition in Polycarp's Epistle to the Philippians, 2.3; title: Seeking consistency : looking for indicators of orality in 1 Clement 46.7b-8; title: Liturgical tradition in the Didache : the Lord's prayer in Did. 8.2; title: Three isolated sayings from the Jesus tradition; title: "Another scripture says ..." : Jesus tradition in 2 Clement; title: Conclusions.