Biographies of Jesus in Old Testament and Rabbinic Style

Biographies of Jesus in Old Testament and Rabbinic Style: The Genre of the New Testament Gospels, in: The Earliest Perceptions of Jesus in Context. Essays in Honour of John Nolland, Hg. C. A. Evans / D. Wenham / A. White, London: Bloomsbury, 2018, 33-58:

„The New Testament gospels exhibit an amalgam of biographical genre elements from Greco-Roman cultivated literature (Hochliteratur) and popular literature (Kleinliteratur), Old Testament historiography, and rabbinic literature. They display the least affinity with the erudite Bioi of Greco-Roman Hochliteratur (pace R. Burridge). Similarities with Greco-Roman popular lives are more evident. But M. Reiser’s thesis that the gospels were influenced to an even greater degree by the biographical sections of Old Testament history books can be further strengthened. In addition, it is possible to demonstrate close affinities between the gospels and the biographical components of rabbinic literature. Overall the four New Testament gospels can be characterized as biographies of Jesus in Old Testament and Rabbinic style with comparatively slight Greco-Roman influences“ (abstract).