A Typology of the Gospel Genre(s)

A Typology of the Gospel Genre in the Light of Ancient Narrative Genres[1]

Introduction

This article attempts two tasks.  It seeks to provide a theoretical model or schema that situates the gospels in relation to other forms of ancient narrative, specifically historiography, biography and the novel, or romance. It attempts, also, to provide in the theoretical model proposed, a fluid and flexible approach to the place of the gospel narratives within the field of ancient narrative genres. These tasks, important in themselves, are pertinent to a set of issues to do with the referential status of the gospel genre vis-à-vis the stance taken to reality.   That is, on a spectrum of narrative possibilities ranging from ‘fiction’ to ‘history’ where do the gospels stand?  A fuller discussion of these issues must be reserved to another occasion.  Nonetheless, the considerations entertained here may be both preliminary to, and constitutive of a fuller discussion.

            These two tasks, stated so baldly, form the basis of a project, which in scope goes far beyond what is possible in an article such as this.  For each task raises philosophical and methodological issues that are both complex and large.  Furthermore, inasmuch as they call for an interdisciplinary approach that encompasses not only gospel studies and the study of ancient genres more properly the domain of the classicist, but also genre and literary theory[2], the tasks lie beyond the capabilities of one scholar.   In the light of this, two observations are appropriate.  First, what follows is at best a prolegomenon to further work.  Second, it is my hope that this initial work will not only add usefully to the store of scholarly deliberations on the question of the gospel genre, but also will also call forth further research and debate.

            The genesis of this study may be found in my book Narrative Art and Act in the Fourth Gospel[3].   The inspiration for a central idea in this paper, namely the ‘typological circle of narrative genres’ is to be found in F.K. Stanzel’s book, A Theory of Narrative.  I am indebted to this work not only for the model of a typological circle, but also for the important notion of ‘dynamization’.  This notion, that the narrative situation of a narrative may change over the course of narration, and that consequently a work may be situated in relation to more than one ideal type of narrative perspective, I have adapted to the question of genre classification.  A narrative may be situated within the ambit of more than one genre.

The problem of defining and determining genre.

In his book, What are the Gospels? Richard Burridge states that a satisfactory answer to the question of the gospels’ genre must be founded, amongst other considerations, upon an adequate theory of genre.[4]  This claim is, I believe, entirely correct: but attaining such a theory is not at all an easy task.  There are problems and questions at every turn.  What is a genre?  How is a genre formed?  How does a genre function both in the formation of a given writing, and in its reception?  Do generic influences act implicitly or explicitly?

How do generic considerations influence an author?  How do generic considerations influence a work’s reception?  What are the respective situations of author and readers in determining genre?[5]  What is the relationship of one genre to another?  What is the relationship of a given work to the range of possible genres with which it might be associated?  How are new genres created and how are they recognized and defined?[6]

            We cannot discuss here all the issues and problems raised by this set of questions (and, doubtless, others might be added).  Rather I posit a set of assumptions or propositions regarding the nature and function of genre which provide the rationale for the model of genre, and generic relationships to be proposed below.   The first proposition is that genre is a function of communication rather than a system for categorizing kinds of writing.  To be more precise, the habit of categorizing or typifying individual works or sets of works is an aspect of a wider generic function in communicating the meaning and purpose of that work or those works.[7]  In other words, the concept of genre arises out of a set of expectations or conventions that are shared by an author and readers.[8]  Another way of putting it is that genres form one of those sets of conventions, or “appropriateness conditions”, which authors and readers assume to be in force, or derive from the shared knowledge which they rely on to ensure that communication is effective and successful.[9]  Different genres will raise different sets of expectations and, as we shall see in a moment, allowance must be made for factors that require expectations to be moderated and permit them to be altered.

            A second proposition is that genres arise within contexts: and two contexts in particular.  These are a literary-historical context and a social-historical context.  That is to say, every work is situated both by explicit allusions and similarities to and implicit associations with, other works.  The connections between works may arise by way of the derivation of a given work’s character from the form, content or function of a prior work (or set of works). They may also arise from perceived similarities in form, content or function between a given work and other works, which are thereby taken to be generically related by virtue of these similarities.  The operations of these connections are a function of the literary-historical context of generic formulation.

            The literary-historical context of a genre encompasses the literary evolution of a genre in terms of both the genre’s antecedents and the transformations and developments that take place within the genre itself.[10]  Understanding the literary-historical context calls for a ‘long view’ of the genre, if not a ‘broad’ one as well.[11]  A difficult question here is to determine how long and how broad the survey should be.  On the one hand, which other generic types may be considered to be more or less direct generic antecedents?  On the other hand, how wide a variety of specific instances (and under what criteria) may be subsumed within the ‘boundaries’ of the genre?[12]

The social-historical context of genre formation includes such things as the world-view and cultural mores in force when the work is produced, and the extra-textual or minimally-textual conventions which may obtain when the work is promulgated, such things for example, as the conventional designation given to the work by a reader or publisher (‘a novel’, ‘non-fiction’, ‘popular literature’ and so forth). An example of a minimally textual convention which helped to fix the genre of the gospels was the addition, perhaps some time in the second century, of the word euangelion  (‘gospel’) to the previously appended titles kata Matthaion, kata Markon, kata Loukan, kata Iõannes  (‘according to Matthew’, etc).[13] 

            The social-historical context also includes the particular social and historical influences upon the author of a given work at the time that the work is produced.  The specific social-historical context of a given work’s production may result in modulations to and developments of generic models. However, social-historical factors affecting the generic character of ancient works are never fully present to later generations of readers, and inferences about these may not be as easily obtained from the text as literary-historical indicators are assumed to be.  Hence, for example, we can never be certain whether the kerygmatic formulation of the gospel, or the desire for promulgating the gospel message, had a greater or lesser influence on the writer of Mark’s Gospel than say, a real or unconscious awareness of ancient biographical writing.[14]

            When it comes to a discussion of genre, both the literary-historical and the social-historical contexts are addressed from the perspective of the literary and social context of the modern reader and critic.  In part, this anticipates a point made below, that genre is co-determined by author and reader (see pp. 10-11).  However, it also touches upon a problem that is pertinent to the methodology of this project, and to any discussion of literary genre.  It is that much of the theory of genre, if not the concept itself, is a modern preoccupation.  Consequently, discussion of generic issues must use terms and concepts that derive from contemporary formulations and conceptualizations.  Indeed, even where reference is made to ancient critical conceptions or debates, these are refracted through the critical language and conceptualizations of post-Enlightenment, and we must now say, post-modern readers.  It is arguably the case that ancient readers had, at best, a rudimentary conception of genre. In any case, interest in the literary features of works addressed issues to do with the rhetorical utility of different forms, aesthetic and formal considerations or, as regards narrative in particular, whether the propositions or assertions put forward were ‘true’ or ‘false’.  These bald statements require further elaboration, but space forbids it.  My point, for the moment, is that analysis of literary-historical and social-historical contexts, in both diachronic and synchronic mode, also contains a tension between the conceptions of ancient literary reception (so far as this can be determined, or reconstructed) and contemporary literary reception.

            Third, genres are composed of individual works that are related by shared traits or common features to larger groupings or classes of types (conventionally known as genres or sub-genres).  The traits or features which determine the nature of the relationship between individual works are of three general types: they may be traits of form or structure; traits of content; or traits of function.[15]  The determination of which traits or features will combine to constitute a larger grouping or class (a given genre or sub-genre) is arrived at by a kind of historical and cultural consensus.  As each individual work comprises its own unique set of traits which put it relationship with other works it is possible for a given work to exhibit features which place it in relationship with works which have been deemed to belong to different groupings.  The reverse of this is that the traits that are constitutive of one genre or sub-genre may also be found in other genres and sub-genres as well.  Genres and sub-genres are arrived at by a process which is historical and ‘contractual’ (we might also say ‘consensual’) and which entails the determination that for a given genre or sub-genre these traits or features will be constitutive and while those will not.  In my opinion, stability is given to the consensus by explicit and implicit agreements that certain features will be dominant or ‘central’ for a given genre and others will be subordinate or ‘peripheral’.[16]

            A final proposition that proceeds from the previous three is that the concept of genre is a fluid and flexible concept.[17]   This is a most important and foundational observation for several reasons.  First, the nature of genre as a ‘set of expectations’ or a conventional activity means that definitions of genre may change through time as expectations change.[18]  Moreover, a given work may flout the expectations that obtain for a given genre, thus producing a mutation of the genre that may then be seen as a new genre altogether.[19]   Third, as has been seen above, the fact that traits can be shared among different genres means that the boundaries between genres are open not closed.[20] Finally, the conventional nature of genre is determined from two directions, that of the author and that of the reader.  Several factors may contribute to the fact that the conventional expectations of author and reader may not meet.  There may be ignorance of generic conventions on the part of the author or the reader, or both. Historical distance between the time of the work’s production and the time of its reception may give rise to a disparity in conventional expectations.  It is generally held that when it comes to determining the genre of an ancient work, the conventional expectations that obtained at the time of writing ought to take precedence over later conventional expectations.  However, two things stand in the way of this.[21]  It may not be possible to be entirely sure what were the conventional expectations that obtained when the work was produced.  Nor is it possible entirely to disengage one’s own current conventional expectations from the interpretative act, and therefore an understanding of a work’s genre is bound to be affected by contemporary views of genre.  To these may be added a third which is simply that in any age the subjective nature of reading and interpretation means that there will never be complete unanimity on what conventional expectations should apply nor even what properly constitutes a conventional expectation.

            Another way of putting all this is to say that the determination of genre is a dynamic process, or a continuing dialogue between authors or their works and readers, within the contexts of literary-historical and social-historical situations.  What is required therefore, is a theory of genre that allows for the dynamic interrelationships that may exist between different genres.  It must recognize that individual works may exhibit traits or characteristics that place them in an ambiguous situation vis-à-vis a number of genres or may permit different readers to make different judgments about the genre to which these works should be assigned.  Descriptive rather than prescriptive approaches are to be preferred.  A general scholarly consensus will be more achievable than absolute certainty in the determination of the genre of some works.

The problem of the genre of the gospels.

The history of the scholarly debate over the genre of the gospels need not be rehearsed here.[22]  A couple of observations on that debate will suffice.  First, the debate in Germany earlier this century over the distinction between Hochliteratur and Kleinliteratur, and the consequent view of the gospels as belonging within the sphere of Kleinliteratur (lacking ‘conscious literary intention’ and having their origins among and affinities with oral folktales’) is now seen to be beside the point.[23]  Indeed, even less rigidly formulated distinctions between ‘popular’ and more literary writings are immaterial to the determination of genre.  A given genre may include both ‘highbrow’ and ‘popular’ instances. 

Second, a measure of consensus seems to be emerging currently that the gospels are best regarded as some form of ancient biography.  Even so, there is evidently room for wide debate amongst scholars as to the actual type of ancient biography that most closely approximates to the gospel form.  Furthermore, the rising interest in the ancient novel means that this genre is being considered as a source of possible parallels to, if not influences upon, the gospels.  There is a growing number of works, which draw comparisons between the gospels and ancient Greco-Roman romance literature.[24]  The consensus, then, is tenuous and always open to modifications or modulation.

It should be noted also, that this consensus (if such it be) is set against a discussion which has included many other suggestions for the genre of the gospels.  These have included the theses that they derive from liturgical settings, or are a written expansion of the oral kerygma,[25] or that they are to be associated with aretalogical interests[26] on the one side, or historiographical interests on the other.

There are three issues which have constituted the debate (or, at least, have been currents running under much of the discussion) which must be discussed here.  The first is the question whether the gospels are to be considered as generically sui generis.  The form critical view, especially promoted by Bultmann, was that as their origins lay in the oral traditions of the kerygma, and as they were a literary creation designed to serve the apologetic, evangelistic and liturgical needs of the church, the gospels were a unique literary type.  Bultmann reacted in particular against the position of Votaw, that the gospels were to be linked with ancient biography.[27]  However, as has been stated many times, no literary creation springs forth in a vacuum and without antecedents.  In fact, a work that displayed no characteristics that enabled it to be compared and contrasted with other related works would be incomprehensible and meaningless.  Situating a work in respect of its genre is a necessary component of understanding and interpretation.[28]   This granted, the issue really has to do with whether the gospels form a class, or sub-genre, of their own.  That is, while they bear affinities with other related generic types (say ancient biography) in a broad sense, do they retain a sufficient number of differentiated and individual features to warrant assigning them to a generic sub-type of their own, perhaps with its own name?  Put another way, are they sui generis, not in the sense of having sprung up in a kind of generic vacuum, but in the sense that they are ‘of their own kind’, sufficiently different to be classed in a category of their own?  I shall argue that the answer to that question is, in part, ‘yes’: but that this must be set in the context of a theory of genre which is flexible and open and which maintains a tension between relatedness and uniqueness.

A second issue is the question of whether the gospels can be treated en bloc when discussing their genre.  Might not there be sufficient variations in purpose, structure and, in the case of the Fourth Gospel in particular, content to warrant discussion of them as separate, and separable, instances that may align themselves, taken individually, with a number of different genres?   The case of Luke-Acts presents special difficulties.  Are the two parts of this work to be treated separately and assigned to different genres?[29]  Or, does the evident fact that the author intended them to form a unity of some sort, even if they were written and published at different times, require that they be treated as belonging to the same genre?  Whatever decision is made, the case for it must be argued.  Lack of a sustained argument on this point, it seems to me, is a weakness of Burridge’s treatment of the gospel genre. He makes a number of qualified observations, stating that Acts and the gospels may be related genres.[30]  He is reluctant to separate Luke from the other gospels, and his instincts are correct in this.  And as has been pointed out, the canonical placing of Luke and Acts arguably demonstrates that the early church recognized Luke’s affinities with the other gospels and did not hesitate to split Luke-Acts into two separate parts.[31]  The two works may even have been written and published separately.  Nonetheless, Burridge also notes affinities between Luke and Acts which make the generic specification of either problematic.  At a number of points in his book, Burridge’s analysis proceeds by an explicit designation of the work as  ‘Luke-Acts’.[32]  I do not fault Burridge for these necessary inconsistencies, but rather wish to suggest that he has not been able to fully bring together his theory of genres as having open, flexible boundaries with his analysis of Luke or Luke-Acts.  In particular, he needs to consider more carefully the implications of his theory for the generic mapping of Luke-Acts.[33]  At the very least, the relationship between the two parts requires a rather subtle approach to the determination of their genre.

A third issue is whether the determination of a given work’s genre should proceed from considerations of the work’s derivation or originating generic influences, or whether the genre is determined by considerations of analogy.  That is, has this work developed out of this genre, or these generic forebears?  Or should it be understood in relation to this genre, or these generic types?  This is, perhaps, to suggest a false dichotomy: the issue may not be resolved by an ‘either/or’ approach so much as by ‘both/and’ considerations. Nevertheless, I suggest that much of the disagreement which attends discussion of genre may be attributed to the fact that generic derivation or analogical analysis represent two different perspectives from which the discussion starts.  In a sense, this issue is related to, and may have points of contact with, the prescriptive versus the descriptive approach in the theory of genre.[34]  Derivation tends towards prescription; analogy tends towards nominalism.

A typological circle of narrative genres.[35] (See figures 1 and 2)

The typological circle of narrative genres presented below draws its inspiration from F.K. Stanzel’s ‘typological circle of narrative situations’.[36]  Briefly, the theory holds that every work’s ‘narrative situation’ is defined in relation to three ‘ideal types’ (authorial, figural and first person) or ‘ahistorical constants’.[37]  Each ideal type is determined by certain structural oppositions and defining characteristics.  The three types represent poles on a circular continuum towards which a given work may gravitate or away from which it may move.  Along with this is an important operation known as ‘dynamization’, which means that the mode of narration may move between the poles over the course of the narration.  Thus a work may display features which are constitutive of one of the poles at some points, while at other points it may take on features which are constitutive of another pole or ‘ideal type’.  Put another way, certain features that associate a work with one of the types may be dominant at some points, while other features which move the work towards or into the domain of another type, may be in the foreground at other points.  The great merit of Stanzel’s theory is his absolute insistence upon the open and flexible nature of the typological circle.  It is to be ‘an inclusive continuum’ and dialectic in its operations.[38]

The same considerations motivate the typological circle of narrative genres.  The aim is provide a system of genres which allows for the location of individual works at different point along a continuum of generic types.  It also allows for the possibility that works will reside on the boundary of generic types, and will even display features that are constitutive of a number of different generic types.  Thus as a descriptive schema the model attempts to be both inclusive and dialectic.  It is inclusive in the sense that works may be brought into contiguity with other works that display the same features.  It is dialectic in that it takes sufficient account of a work’s individual peculiarities, so that works may also find their place in terms of their differences.

It should be noted that this typological circle provides a model for mapping narrative types.  It is not my intention to provide a circle that will encompass all conceivable genres.[39]   Furthermore, the mode of narration that obtains in these narratives is prose (though, in principle, it would be possible to assimilate forms of poetic narration to the model as well).

            The typological circle of narrative genres draws upon the ancient rhetoricians’ system of classifying narrative ‘according to its truth-content’.[40]  Here we find three ‘ideal types’ (ahistorical constants) that provide a means whereby the referential status of a given narrative may be plotted. The three types are historia (narration of actual events), plasma (narration of events which are invented but which are like actual events and might be taken as ‘true’; in Latin, this category is called argumentum), and muthos (Latin: fabula; ‘a type of narrative which is neither true nor does it approximate actual events’[41]).

            The construction of this typological circle, then, is based upon a number of presuppositions, each of which may be open to modification, challenge and debate.

1.  That the ancient rhetorical division of narrative into three basic types: historia, plasma (argumentum), and muthos (fabula) is a legitimate heuristic device that may provide the three ‘ideal’ ahistorical constants by which the referential status of narratives may be plotted.

2.  When it comes to narrative, the question of a work’s relationship to the real world (its ‘truth’ content) is a fundamental question in terms of determining the genre to which the work should, or will be assigned.  That is, one of the basic questions that readers pose (consciously or unconsciously) when faced with a narrative is: ‘How does this narrative relate to the real world?’, or to put it more pointedly, ‘Is this narrative a work of history or of fiction?’.[42]  This question (not usually so baldly stated) lurks behind many biblical scholars’ discussions of the nature and genre of the gospels.  The question is more likely to be framed as: ‘Is this history or is it theology?’.  The ‘default’ position of much biblical scholarship since the Enlightenment has been ‘that which arises out of the faith of the early church is ipso facto relatively suspect as history’.  The history/theology dichotomy has been a convenient shorthand that, until recently at least, has not taken seriously enough the problems raised by the narrative form of historical discourse.[43]

3.  Each type or constant may be defined by a number of broad generic features relating to form, content and function.  While the three types may share a number of these features, certain dominating features (or indicators) characterize each type.  The defining characteristics provide each type with the structural constituents that set it apart from the other two types.  A given narrative’s position on the circle will be determined by the configuration of its generic features and the degree to which they approximate to the dominating features of an ideal type.

4.  The types represent ‘ideals’ to which no one narrative may conform in all its parts.  Furthermore, the boundaries between the types are open and a given narrative may straddle or reside near the boundary of two or more of the types.  Indeed, a narrative’s referential status may be such that it is deemed to cross boundaries, and modulate its position on the typological circle.[44]

Assuming that it is indeed possible to isolate a number of dominating features for each type (#3 above), the question is, what are these dominating features?  I propose the following, based upon a synthesis of scholarly debate about and descriptions of ancient genres.[45]

Historia

 Content: Histories deal with res gestae (‘deeds’ and ‘events’), generally wars, affairs of state and politics, and the great deeds of great men.  The focus is on past events, both distant and in the recent past, and on times contemporaneous with the author.[46]

Function (= motivation and purpose).  Histories aimed to tell the ‘truth’ about res gestae[47], to give a ‘complete’ account, that is, one that is broad in scope, detailed and explanatory[48]. The motivation for the writing of narrative under the rubric of historia was the provision of information, often with a strong didactic intent[49]; but such narrative could also have a polemic thrust[50] and an interest in entertainment.[51]

Form: In style, a history was a ‘report’ based on ‘inquiry’ dependent upon material collected by autopsy and interviewing other people, and often extensive travel by the author.[52]  The author generally used past historic and pluperfect tenses, and wrote in the third person, and only rarely the first person.  Hence a certain authorial distance was maintained.[53]  Prefaces and other rhetorical and structural devices (e.g. in the case of Herodotus, the habit of laying out alternative views or explanations side by side and hence inviting the reader to assess the evidence) underlined the ‘research’ aspect of the work.  The narrative voice was tuned to the requirement to assess the relationship of the narrative to ‘real-world historical facts’.  Thus sources are referred to and attempts are made to assess the historical reliability of these sources; and where sources conflict to adjudicate amongst the differing reports to reconstruct what happened.[54]   Narrative interspersed with created speeches characterizes the structure of many histories.[55] 

In terms of structure, smaller units within historical works could include ekbole, parekbasis (digressions).  Indeed, the style and rhetorical form of digressions in historical narratives may well have been different from that found in non-historical, ‘plasmatic’ narratives. If such was indeed the case, this would have provided readers with a clear formal signals as to the genre to which the narrative belonged.[56]  Whole works appeared under various forms, such as that of the ‘war monograph’, contemporary history, and universal history.[57]

            Plasma

            Content: the ‘ideal’ novels[58] generally deal with the love relationship of a young couple. Broadly speaking, the plot revolves around a handsome young man and a beautiful young woman (or a boy and a girl) who fall in love with each other.  They may or may not marry, but the substance of the plot is the vicissitudes that subsequently befall them to threaten the continuance and integrity of the relationship. Events are motivated by the schemes and actions of humans, though the operations of Eros (Love) and Tyche (Fate or Fortune) are also invoked as reasons why things occur. The staple diet of these novels is love, adventure and violence.

The focus is upon the individual: upon the individual’s moral character, and upon the individual’s emotional reactions to events.  Even where the story contains historical persons, the main characters are generally fictional.  The setting is realistic and, by and large, events are such as might happen in real life, though those of a more miraculous and fantastic nature also occur. The focus of interest is upon events and themes at the level of the personal and particular, though the novels might also recount wars and larger affairs.

Historical detail is generally subsidiary to the main plot and anachronisms are frequent.  The plot is filled out with many geographical or ‘scientific’ digressions (e.g. descriptions of exotic peoples or strange incidents, flora and fauna), ekphrases (digressions) on works of art, gnõmai (maxims) on life, and psychological observations on human behaviour.

            Function: Entertainment and escape are a prime motivation in the writing of the novels, though rhetorical display is also important.  Indeed, much of what happens or is described amounts to rhetorical elaboration of one sort or another. Didactic and moral purposes are also present (e.g. the promotion of the virtues of chastity and commitment, or of the ideal ruler).

            Form: Historiographical techniques are imitated in structural arrangements, such as division into ‘books’, diction and style.[59]  The characters are ‘ideal’ not real people.  Often a minor historical figure is made a main character, or a leading figure in history becomes a minor character.  In the process, facts and historical persons can be ‘transposed’ or anachronisms may appear.[60]  Authors show a preference for scenic presentation.[61]

            It is important to note here an article by Tomas Hägg in which he argues that Chariton’s Chaereas and Callirhoe and another novel, preserved only in a fragmentary condition, Metiochus and Parthenope, are best described as historical novels.[62]  In the course of this article he isolates a number of features which he takes as delimiting features of an historical novel (as over against the ‘novel in general’).  These are, that the novel is set ‘at least one or two generations back’ and that ‘the historical constituents of the novel are “researched rather than remembered”, i.e. that the author has not himself experienced them but has had to rely mostly on written or oral sources’.[63]  This places them in contrast to novels set in the recent past, or ‘contemporary novels’.  We might also note that these features also set the ancient ‘historical novel’ in contrast with some ancient historiography which treats of events of the recent past and with which the author has some personal acquaintance (cf. Polybius, Josephus).  We might debate how these features set the ‘ancient novel’ in comparison with the gospels, which arguably also treat of events in the recent past (though, ‘one or two generations back’?) and of which the writers may have had some personal experience (‘Mark’? ‘John’? ‘Luke’ in Acts – the ‘we’ passages?). 

            Other features of the historical novel are that fictitious characters appear within a historical setting, but historical figures need to appear as well, ‘ideally mixing with the fictitious ones so as to create a “mixture of the real and the imaginary on the same plane of representation”’.[64]  The plot must also include a number of ‘historical’ events and a sense of ‘historical verisimilitude’ must be maintained.[65]   Hägg quotes Avrom Fleishman as saying, “What makes a historical novel historical is the active presence of a concept of history as a shaping force”.[66]  However, Hägg himself points out that ‘[i]t would be absurd  to demand from an ancient novelist like Chariton a sense of “history as a shaping force”, which we do not find in the historians or biographers of his age-in fact, perhaps not until after the French Revolution…’.[67]  This is an important reminder that the canons of modern critical analysis cannot be uncritically applied to ancient works: and that the conceptions of history and fiction that obtain today cannot be directly aligned with those of ancient readers or critics.

            Nevertheless, it is significant that the earlier novels, which are likely to have been contemporaneous with the gospels, are to be understood as more like ‘historical’ novels than the later ones.  This means that they will find their place on the typological circle closer to the pole of historia than the later ancient novels.  Insofar as the gospels share generic features with the novels, they will gravitate towards the pole of plasma.  In as much as they treat of matters which are rooted in history, they will remain within the ambience of historia.

            A fuller analysis of ancient narratives, and further refinement or extension of the description of each ideal type’s dominating features is required.  For reasons of space and time a description of the dominating features for the ideal type muthos has been left aside.  While I would argue that the generic characteristics most to be found in the gospels situate them between the poles of historia and plasma, a full account would have to address the question of the degree to which certain features place the gospels under the ‘gravitational pull’ of muthos.  Such a question must await attention.  As regards the figures which give diagrammatic expression to this thesis, it is pertinent to observe here that a three dimensional presentation is really required to do justice to the generic situation of the gospels (not to speak of ancient narrative genres in general).  Readers might care to envisage a sphere divided into three sectors (historia, plasma, muthos).  Individual narratives reside at different points on the surface of the sphere (or even within it) depending upon their relation to the ahistorical constants.

The gospels on the typological circle of ancient narrative genres. (See figure 3)

One of the tasks of this project is to place the gospels upon the typological circle of ancient narrative genres.  The argument will be that the gospels form a distinct generic grouping which is to be placed on the typological circle on a continuum between the poles of historia and plasma.  There are three ancient genres with which the gospels have been compared and contrasted and these are history, biography (bioi), and the ancient novel or romance[68].   Narratives that may be described as ‘histories’ obviously sit closest to the pole of historia; while the ancient novels are closest to the pole of plasma.  The ancient bioi range along the spectrum between the poles of historia and plasma.  It should be noted that works which may be generally classed as belonging primarily to one of these three genres, taken as individual examples will find a place at different points along the continuum between the two poles.

As the gospels have very often been seen as associating in generic type most closely with different forms of the ancient bioi, I shall make a few observations about the generic features of the biographical types of narrative. This will help to indicate why they occupy positions that sit between the two poles of historia and plasma.[69]  C.H. Talbert lists a number of ways in which ancient biography was distinct from history.[70]  History treats of ‘grand events and seeks to discover the causes behind events. To this end, an individual’s character may be considered as one cause among others.  Biography, on the other hand, ‘deals with incidental matters as well as grand events’ and the focus is upon the character of the individual whose life is being told.  Events are recounted to reveal character.  The subject of history was political and military events, and the aim was to provide instruction for ‘political figures as political figures’.  The subject of biography was the character of an individual or of a people, and the aim was ‘to shape the life of the reader as a human being’.  S.M. Praeder notes a further distinction when she states that ‘[t]he events of ancient histories unfold in chronological order but usually not in biographical sequence’.[71]

Bioi are, for the most part then, concerned with the real lives of real people, hence like histories they are concerned with res gestae.  However, Press states that Nepos distinguished biography from history as being concerned with private rather than public deeds.[72]  Thus, bioi share with the ancient novels an interest in individuals. But, the individuals with whom ancient biographies are concerned were historical characters. Ancient novels, by contrast, while they do include both historical events and historical persons, tend towards fictional representation.  In particular, the main characters in novels are most often fictional, or historical figures who have been fictionalized.[73]  Also, characters drawn from all backgrounds and social classes and types populate the ancient novels.  Biographies and history tend to deal with leading political or military, religious or philosophical figures.  Often the narrative voice in a biography is concerned with vouching for, or assessing in some way, the historical reliability of the material presented and the sources from which it comes.  In this aspect, biographies move towards to pole of historia.[74]  In terms of motivation, biographies share both the didactic and moralistic interests of historia and the more aesthetic and pleasure giving interests of plasma.

The gospels may be placed in contiguity and in contrast to narratives that belong to these three broad genres.  They form a sub-genre in their own right, though they may share many of the features that are associated with bioi.  Taken as a group, like the bioi they find their place on the continuum between the poles of historia and plasma.  However, it must be stressed that each gospel must be considered in its own right and its place on the typological circle must be determined with reference to its own particular features.    

Luke-Acts

Susan Praeder notes that ‘[o]f the New Testament narratives it is Luke-Acts which most often invites comparisons to the principal three prose narrative genres of Greco-Roman antiquity, history, biography, and novel’.[75]   The reasons for this, perhaps, are that, on the one hand, it is difficult to assign Luke-Acts to any one genre.[76]  On the other hand, certain features such as the prefaces, the speeches (in Acts), and the provision of dramatic scenes and adventures appear to provide clear parallels with these three forms of ancient narrative.  Thus it will be convenient to begin with this two part narrative as a ‘test-case’ for our thesis.

            A survey of approaches to the genre of Luke-Acts reveals a wide range of suggestions as to the genre and sub-genre to which it belongs.[77]   Among the sub-genres of historiography, the following have been proposed: historical monograph, either as ‘apologetic history’ or ‘general history’ (Aune, Balch, Sterling[78]) with affinities to Jewish-Hellenistic types or Graeco-Roman types, ‘biblical’ history modeled upon deuteronomistic history (Schmidt[79]), on the margins of historiography with affinities to ‘scientific’ treatises (Alexander[80]).  Other scholars align it with ancient biography: popular ‘aretalogical’ biography (Koester), a biography of life and teaching of a movement founder, with a second part on lives and teaching of followers (Talbert[81]).  Still others with the ancient novel (Pervo, Praeder, Edwards[82]).

            Some general observations may be made about the varying approaches taken to determining the genre of Luke-Acts.  To some extent, the conclusions arrived at depend upon the particular features which are chosen as the primary determinants of genre.  For some scholars, this will include a range of features of content, form, and function.  Others will privilege one particular feature or range of features over others e.g. function over form or content[83].  For example, Schmidt isolates a number of motifs and themes, the ‘promise and fulfillment’ motif, parallels between Moses/David in deuteronomistic history and Jesus/Paul in Luke-Acts, which shows that Luke-Acts shares the same general historiographical perspective as the deuteronomist.  Sometimes broad similarities are noted, at other times more particular correspondences become important.  Another factor is the range of sample chosen, for example, Balch chooses to compare Luke-Acts with a particular model, that of Dionysius of Halicarnassus’ Roman Antiquities (written about 7 BCE and used as a model by Josephus when writing his Jewish Antiquities, at about the same time the writer of Luke-Acts produced those works).  The impression is that there is at best a very broad match between the two.  Sometimes, Balch can only arrive at the correspondence by treating the structure of Luke-Acts in a very general manner (in an attempt to correlate it with the structure of Dionysius’s work) and by sometimes drawing together texts from different parts of the work.  I have noted above (p.7) the fact that Burridge, in his treatment, only very lightly touches on the question of the relationship between Luke and Acts.  Another difficulty with his work is that he has not raised the question whether some of the features which he characterizes as constitutive of biographies, might not equally apply to works in other genres as well.  To give but one example, he determines that the relative proportion of verbs with Jesus as the subject correlates with patterns found in other Graeco-Roman biographies (a greater proportion have Jesus as the subject than other characters) and thus this is one feature which indicates that Luke is a biography.  But the same analysis applied to the ancient novels, might produce a similar pattern for their main characters.  Might the same apply to certain of the histories?  The range of works to which the Gospel has been compared has produced the result.[84] 

            Other criticisms might be raised and other examples of selecting the evidence might be given.  However, my purpose here is not to enter into a detailed critique of the methods of various scholars.  Rather I wish to suggest that a better approach might be to consider the features of Luke-Acts against a range of other ancient works, from a variety of genres.  One might then wish to consider which are primary constituent features for Luke-Acts, and which are secondary.  Or to put it another way, which features are ‘essential’ and which are ‘accidental’.[85]  One might then declare Luke-Acts most like a particular genre (or even a specific sub-genre) while not ruling out affinities (though secondary) with other genres.  One advantage of the typological circle is that one might place the two parts, Luke and Acts, at slightly different points.  Indeed, one might even argue that, taken as a whole (as, in the end, I think it must be) Luke-Acts finds itself in a situation of dynamic tension among a range of generic parallels.[86]

            What might be the primary constituent features, the leading characteristics by which the genre of Luke-Acts might be determined?  Here I give a somewhat random selection.[87]

1.      Prefaces (Luke 1.1-4; Acts 1.1): (a) formal and structural features (reference to sources, and investigation, autopsy, dedication, vocabulary etc).  These have been widely discussed, and a communis opinio has emerged that in form and function they are similar to those found in many historiographical works.  Alexander, Preface, has made a cogent case for aligning the prefaces of Luke-Acts with those found in scientific treatises.[88]  Whichever genre or sub-genre (historiography –and its types – or scientific treatise) Luke-Acts most resembles, this particular feature moves the work in the direction of the ‘ahistorical constant’, historia.  (b) The statement of author’s intention as implied or suggested by Luke 1.1-4, also places Luke-Acts within the range of works associated with historia.  The prefaces throw up a host of difficult and disputed exegetical and interpretative questions which cannot be entered into here.  But, at the least, Luke 1.1-4 takes the rhetorical stance that the account which follows aims at both a careful and orderly marshaling of evidential material and a degree of comprehensiveness.  It might be broadly described as deriving from the ‘Ionian historia-tradition’ while also including Jewish-Hellenistic features[89].  The contents are the ‘res gestae’ of a particular and circumscribed social phenomenon: the foundation and spread of the Christian sect.

2.      Appearance of speeches in Acts: as a formal feature this does not necessarily help determine genre as speeches may be found in novels and biographies, as in histories.  As a structural feature, namely the insertion of speeches into narrative, many see this as following an established historiographical pattern.  It might arguably be a structural pattern of the novels as well, but the early novels (and these would have helped establish the generic character of the genre anyway) were parasitic upon historiography anyway. The overall intention of the work, together with the formal and structural indications provided by the inclusion of speeches, probably suggests Luke-Acts should be placed within the ambit of historia.

3.      Voice, as Praeder uses it, is the manner in which a narrator attempts to assess the ‘relationship of their narrative world to real-world historical facts’.[90]  In histories and biographies, voice is strong in that the narrators continually ‘refer to sources, give their own opinions about historical reliability, and from conflicting source reports attempt to reconstruct “what really happened”.  The narrators in the ancient novels do not do this, nor, generally speaking, does the narrator of Luke-Acts. The prologue of Luke (pace Praeder) does, I think, represent an attempt to provide a form of assessment of the reliability of the material.  It certainly makes reference to sources: other narratives of the tradition are alluded to as well as ‘eyewitnesses and ministers of the word’ who have handed on the tradition.  Is it possible that the ‘we’ passages are intended to function implicitly as a claim to ‘autopsy’? If this were the case, then the implied author is making claims similar to those in works of history.  Concern with chronology (Luke 3.1-2; Acts 18.12) may also indicate attempts at verification: though these are precisely points at which modern historical scholarship has difficulties with the narrative.

4.      Content: events and existents, motifs and themes.  The principal characters, Jesus, Peter, Paul, are historical figures, as are many of the ‘minor figures’, attested to in other literature, Pilate, Gamaliel, Priscilla and Aquila, John the Baptist. Whether all the characters are historical figures may be debated.  A feature of some ancient novels, as we have seen, is the intermixture of historical (and ‘fictionalized’ historical figures) and fictional characters.  Some of the events and motifs in Luke-Acts are paralleled in the ancient novels, e.g. the journey and sea-voyages[91], including storm and shipwreck, the use of toponyms[92], crowd scenes[93], miraculous deeds, recognition scenes, and, indeed, such events as crucifixion, and ‘resurrection’.[94] 

The concentration on the life and teaching of Jesus in the Gospel of Luke obviously places it in some relationship with the genre, bioi.  Further analysis is needed to determine the specific types of bioi that it most resembles.  On the other hand, it might be argued that the range of characters in the gospels, drawn as they are from all backgrounds and social classes conforms to that found more in the ancient novels than bioi.

5.      Function (authorial intention and purpose): A variety of functions have been suggested for Luke-Acts.  Sterling sees it as an ‘apologetic history’ laying out the history of the a people (hoi christianoi)[95], with the intention of defining the apostolic tradition in the face of increasing diversity within the movement and to defend its position externally vis-à-vis it relationship to the Roman world.[96]  Pervo writes of Acts that it is written to entertain as well as present theology and history.[97] Talbert sees the function of Luke-Acts as presenting the life and teaching of a religious leader (in this is has affinities with biographies of the lives of philosophers) and in stating where the true tradition is now present.[98]  Other functions might be added: encomiastic (praise of a great man); didactic, informative, to preserve memory.[99]

Many of the functions suggested for the Gospel would situate it with other works in the historia sector.  Obviously, whether Luke-Acts is treated as one work, or two separate works will have a bearing on the determination of function.  One might identify primary and secondary functions: e.g. a primary function might be information and apologetic, while a secondary one might be entertainment.  The primary functions would move it in the direction of historia and secondary functions in the direction of plasma.[100]

Thus, when it comes to placing Luke-Acts (and the two parts must be considered together) a range of characteristics would be analyzed and determinations made as to whether these approximated to the defining characteristics of historia or of plasma (or indeed, in a fully rounded analysis, of muthos).  The present state of investigation indicates that certain features of form, structure and content suggest that the work inhabits the sector defined by the conventions of historia.  Other features, however, show affinities with conventions and characteristics which are associated with the sector designated plasma.  As a working hypothesis, we may state that Acts situates closest to the ahistorical constant, historia and Luke, while sharing characteristics with the other synoptic gospels, also moves in that direction.[101]

Conclusion

Further research is required before any firm conclusions can be drawn as to the genre to which the gospels most approximate.  However, a further ‘working hypothesis’may be offered.  Considered together, the canonical gospels form a sub-genre of their own, appropriately termed euangelia (gospels).[102] All the gospels share same general location on the typological circle as many types of bioi.  That is, they contain generic features which, like the bioi, place them in proximate relationship to certain types of ancient history, and so they inhabit the regions of historia.   At the same time, again like some of the bioi, some features place them in contiguity with ancient novels, hence they also inhabit the border regions of plasma.

In conclusion let me outline what I see to be the main contributions of the model proposed here to a discussion of the gospels’ genre.  The model provides a flexible and open approach to the determination of a given gospel’s genre.  The provision of a continuum along which works may be ranged frees research from the need to attempt to press a gospel into the confines of a particular genre, or into association with selected works within a particular genre.  The concept of the dynamization of narratives within generic boundaries and among generic types, recognizes that a narrative may display features which find parallels in other narratives that themselves belong individually to different genres.  It also provides for the fact that genres are themselves capacious.  Furthermore, it allows for the fact that different readers may make different judgments about the genre to which a narrative belongs.

            Nonetheless, the provision of ideal ahistorical constants (or ‘poles’ on the circular continuum) allows for a broadly conceived set of characteristics which indicate the essential features of different genres.  Individual narratives may be situated in relationship to these ahistorical constants and in relationship to each other in the light of these constants.  Generic subtypes are formed by the manner in which individual narratives ‘cluster’ on the typological circle and the ‘gravitational pull’ related narratives have on each other.  A group of narratives form a sub-genre as an analysis of their content, form and function shows that there is a ‘family resemblance’ among them. Hence, the four canonical gospel share a family resemblance with each other, yet each one will locate on the typological circle at a different point from the others.  Luke-Acts, I suggest, situates at a point closer to the historia  pole than the other gospels, and, of the two parts, Acts may show more features which tend towards that pole than Luke.   

            That the three ahistorical constants are founded upon the question of the referential status of narratives is important for two reasons.  First, it is argued here, the question of referential status is a fundamental category under which readers determine the genre of a given narrative.  Second, analysis of features of content, form and function is often not sufficient of itself to decide the issue of a narrative’s genre.  Many such features may appear in narratives that must be assigned to different genres. All ancient narratives contain generic elements which are indicative of  plasma (and even elements which tend to put them in the ambit of muthos). Of course, one might seek to determine whether the generic characteristics a narrative displays that tend towards historia, predominate over those that tend towards plasma.  But at some point the reader must move beyond analysis of content, form and function to the question of a narrative’s referential intention.  Application of speech act theory to literary works will be helpful here. While all narratives share the same types of illocutionary and perlocutionary force,[103] what sets ‘fictional’ narrative (plasma) off from real-world ‘historical’ narrative (historia) is the context within which the locutions are performed.  That is, ‘fictional’ narrative operates under the prior convention that the ‘world’ within which the locutions appear is a ‘pretended one’ and, hence, the speech acts are ‘pretended speech acts’.  The dominating features of each ahistorical constant provide the generic conventions by which readers decide the literary context in which the locutions are being performed. 

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 Addendum (2020)

The Story of a Paper.

The genesis of this paper is found in an appendix to my 1997 book, Narrative Art and Act in the Fourth Gospel (see p. 273). In 1998, I had the privilege of a sabbatical leave when I was based at the Center of Theological Inquiry, Princeton, New Jersey. I decided I would try to “flesh out” my idea of a typological circle of ancient narrative genres. The results of my efforts are found in the paper above.

            Unfortunately, at the end of my time there, I came to the realization that a truly proper examination and substantiation of my ideas, would require a survey and good knowledge of ancient genres. Not only is this a huge task, but well beyond my capabilities as a scholar. I am not a classicist for a start.

            I lost heart, somewhat, and felt that even working up what I had done for publication would really require much more work. Inevitably, other commitments and other projects took my time. This paper has been lying “dormant” for a long time (over 20 years!).[104] However, I still think that parts of it have merit: in particular the idea of a typological circle along the lines described in the paper.

            There has been much work done on the genre of the gospels in the interim period. A number of scholars have considered the gospels in the light of the ancient novel, for instance. This is not to mention further work, for instance, on Luke-Acts and ancient history, let alone considerations of ancient historiography in general. Even an extension of this paper, drawing upon secondary literature, would be a huge task. But, perhaps there will be some who will find the model proposed here useful for heuristic purposes; someone may even wish to develop the model?

            In more recent times, however, I have found myself questioning whether establishing the genre of a work is really as important as we sometimes think. Readers are probably able to make good sense of a work on the basis of a reading on its own terms. Provided they can reasonably follow the flow of the text, and make sense of the content, they will most probably be able to get the essence of the author’s intent. Of course, the more exegetical skills, or interpretive capacity, and general skills as a reader, the reader has, the better[105]. But, being absolutely certain of the genre is not perhaps as important as sometimes thought. Furthermore, as gospel studies show, a reader will often bring their own perceptions of a works genre to their reading, or their own knowledge of other generic types. So, for instance, where one sees affinities between a gospel and an ancient bioi, another will detect affinities with an ancient romance (novel).

            Where determining the genre becomes important is when one asks the question about the “truth” of what one is reading. In other words, a reader may become concerned, or interested to know whether he or she is reading “fiction” or “fact”. What is this work’s relationship to ostensive reality and to history? But, especially when it comes to the gospels, that is a large, and much-debated question. In the diagrams above, and in my discussion, I have placed the gospels within the field of Historia, but lying along the circumference in the direction of Plasma. Some may wish to move one or more (e.g. John’s Gospel?) across the border, as it were, more into the realm of Plasma. I have attempted to make a case for seeing the gospels (more particularly the Fourth Gospel) as essentially having the function of referring to historical, real world events (while possibly writing it up with what might be considered “fictional” elements e.g. the encounter with Nicodemus?), in my book Narrative Art and Act in the Fourth Gospel. And see now, also, Jesus, Story of God: John’s Story of Jesus (Hindmarsh: ATF, 2007), especially pp. 159–173.

            I am not sure whether I will get around to developing this model further. In the meantime, anyone who wishes to pick up on the current state of scholarship on ancient historiography, and on the study of Luke-Acts in regards to this, might begin with the recent article by John J. Peters, “Luke’s Source Claims in the Context of Ancient Historiography”, Journal for the Study of the Historical Jesus 18/1 (2020), 35–60.

This alternative diagram of Figure 3 (showing the place of the gospels on a typological circle of genres is an attempt to (very crudely) represent where they might place on a spherical type model. One might imagine these clusters of genres as constellations in a universe of galaxies e.g. Thucydides might sit near the epicentre of an "Historia" cluster, while Luke-Acts gravitates towards that cluster. These clusters might move somewhat between the sectors of Historia, Plasma, and Muthos (of Mythos), and individual works might be placed differently in regards to both generic "clusters" and to the sectors.

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[1] Research for this article was undertaken during a study leave undertaken at the Center of Theological Inquiry, Princeton, New Jersey.   I wish to acknowledge here, with gratitude, the facilities and funding made available to me by the Center’s Board of Trustees; and the support and assistance afforded by the Center’s Director, Senior Scholar for Research and the administrative staff.  The St. John’s College Trust Board (Auckland, New Zealand) also provided funding.  I am grateful to this Board, the Dean of the College of the Southern Cross and the Joint Faculty committee for making this research leave possible.  Fellow members at the Center provided congenial friendship, and perceptive comment upon a draft of this article. [As this research leave was as long ago as 1998, please see my explanation in the Addendum after the Bibliography in this paper. Note added 2020].

[2] When one turns to the question of the referential status of the gospel narratives, issues to do with the philosophy of history become pertinent as well.

[3] See D. Tovey, Narrative Art and Act in the Fourth Gospel, esp. pp. 220-23; and the appendix p. 273.

[4] R. A. Burridge, What are the Gospels? A Comparison with Graeco-Roman Biography (SNTSMS 70; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992), pp. 6, 12-13, 24-25.

[5] An author may choose to give his or her work a particular generic designation.  Amongst readers, critics often play a major part in determining a work’s genre.  Neither author nor critic, nor any other reader has the final word, for the determination of genre is a collective decision, often in process and always subject to reassessment.

[6] Problems and issues range from those which have to do with terminology and phenomenology to those that are philosophical and typological.  On such problems and issues, in addition to Burridge, What are the Gospels, pp. 26-54, see A. Fowler, Kinds of Literature: An Introduction to the Theory of Genres and Modes (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1982).

[7] Of course, generic considerations apply to works or creative acts other than written works, for example, those who mode is oral, aural, and kinetically visual (or a mixture and combination of all three), such as drama or film, opera and ballet.  However, in this paper we are concerned with a particular mode of written genre, namely, prose narrative.

[8] This appears to be a fairly widely accepted function of genre.  See Burridge, What are the Gospels, pp. 34-36, who cites N. Frye, Anatomy of Criticism: Four Essays (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1957) p. 96; E.D. Hirsch, Validity in Interpretation (New Haven/London: Yale University Press, 1967), pp. 73, 83, 92-93; A. Fowler, Kinds of Literature, p.22, cf. also pp. 37, 256.  See also D.E. Aune, The New Testament in Its Literary Environment (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1987), p. 13;  M.L. Pratt, Toward a Speech Act Theory of Literary Discourse (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1977) p. 86.

[9] Cf. M.L. Pratt, Toward, p. 81.  “Appropriateness conditions” are those conditions, or implicitly accepted common understandings, which participants in a communication situation (be it verbal or written) assume to be operating in order to make the act of communication a meaningful exchange.  The particular conditions that are in force will depend upon the nature of the speech act and the context within which it is being carried out.  In the context of telling a story, for instance, the appropriate conditions include the appropriateness conditions, or conventional expectations, that the teller is organizing the narrative in some pattern in which the parts are in some way chronologically and thematically related to culminate in some meaningful conclusion, or that, however random some of the parts may appear, the overall configuration of the parts will yield a meaningful exchange.  In a non-fictional account another appropriate condition requires that the information contained in the account bear a non-mimetic, ‘true’ relationship to reality.

[10] Two articles which address this issue with reference to the ancient novel are those by Holzberg and Ruiz-Montero in G. Schmeling, ed., The Novel in the Ancient World (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1996).

[11] The literary-historical context of a genre must be understood to comprise a diachronic ‘mode’ (or dimension) and a synchronic one.  Thus, for instance, discussion of a work’s literary antecedents might also be supplemented by consideration of its literary ‘relatives’.   These are works that belong chronologically to the same general period, which show affinities of form, content or structure with the work under consideration but for which evidence of influence from one to the other may be difficult to determine.  Such related works may, or may not, be assigned to the same genre.  The relationship of the Fourth Gospel to the synoptic gospels is a case in point.

[12] Properly understood and applied, the typological circle proposed here makes fluid the concept of generic ‘boundaries’. 

[13] Anchor Bible Dictionary, Vol. 2, p. 1077.  On titles, cf. D.E. Aune, NT Literary Environment, pp. 18-19; M. Hengel, ‘The Titles of the Gospels’, in Studies in the Gospel of Mark (London: SCM Press, 1985), pp. 64-84. I should note that Hengel maintains that the gospels appeared with the word, euangelion, in the title from the outset, see his comments on pp. 81–84.

[14] Or a familiarity with Old Testament themes and literary genres; though this may be more amenable to demonstration than either connections to kerygma or ancient bioi.

[15] The description and organization of the features, traits, which make up a given genre is a complex task, over which the possibilities for variation and disagreements amongst scholars is endless.  I have chosen a broad tripartite schema favoured by Aune, among others (see Aune, NT Literary Environment, pp. 32-36; Burridge, What are the Gospels?, pp. 110).  Aune writes with reference to Greco-Roman biographies.  Burridge favours analysing features ‘as a whole without any grouping’ (p. 111) but orders the analysis under ‘opening features’, ‘subject’, ‘external features’ (mode of representation, metre, size, structure, scale, use of literary units, sources and methods of characterization), and ‘internal features’ (setting, topics, style, tone, mood, attitude, values, quality of characterization, occasion and purpose).  Cf. with Burridge, A. Fowler, Kinds of Literature, pp. 60-74, writing in application to literary ‘kinds’.  Two points need to be made here: (1) the relative significance of the features will depend upon the particular genre under consideration.  Some features will be more significant for some genres than for others. (2) Burridge makes the point that a genre is defined by being an aggregate of generic features, of which a given instance of the genre may not display every feature, or different works may display the features in different proportions (see pp.126-127).  When it comes to prose narrative, size is, in my opinion, a relatively insignificant feature for determining genre.  Burridge, discussing this feature, notes that a ‘medium range size’ is typical for Greco-Roman bioi.  In effect, this means anything from a work of about 3,500 words, to one of 32,000 words and another of 82,000 (though this one, Philostratus’ Apollonius of Tyana, displays features that makes its classification as a bios somewhat problematic, as Burridge himself notes).  Roughly half of Burridge’s sample are at the shorter end of the range (7,000 or less) and three are shorter than, or roughly equivalent in length to three of Paul’s epistles (Romans, 1 & 2 Corinthians) and Hebrews.  Three of the gospels, Matthew, Luke and John, are longer than most of the sample, and even Mark is at the upper end of the spectrum.  Were Luke-Acts to be treated as belonging together for the purposes of generic classification, it would be a work of 37,810 words.  This would make it by far the longest bios of the sample (assuming we admit the gospels as part of the overall sample) excluding Apollonius of Tyana. Hence, size becomes a somewhat inexact measure for determining the gospel genre.

[16] It is my belief that the application of speech act theory to genre theory would provide fruitful insights.  This is because it may be that the particular genre or sub-genre to which a given work will be assigned will bear some relation to the nature of the illocutions and perlocutions contained therein.  That is to say that certain illocutions and perlocutions will tend to require certain generic forms.  For example, legal judgments will require a generic form appropriate to the act of determining the rights and wrongs of a case and delivering a decision.  The delivery of ‘factual’ historical information will produce certain traits that will put it within the bounds of some genres and not others.  As speech act theory posits that communication is a ‘rule-bound’, or better, a convention-directed activity, it allows for the fact that as conventions change so the generic options for given illocutions and perlocutions may change as well.  But, without further research and reflection, this must remain a hunch.

[17] See R. A. Burridge, pp. 47-49; 65; see also A. Fowler, Kinds of Literature, p. 37-44.  Fowler maintains strongly the opinion that genre is of severely limited value for classificatory or taxonomic purposes.  There are very few ‘necessary elements’ or defining characteristics sufficiently widely or strongly shared amongst literary works to allow firm or fixed generic boundaries to be established.  Nevertheless, it seems to me, Fowler may be in danger of downplaying the classificatory nature of genre too much: while classifications can never be too rigidly applied, even to speak of similarities or boundaries between works, to speak of ‘types’ and ‘family resemblances’, as Fowler does, requires some measure of definition.  Fowler, in rejecting the prescriptive power of genre theory, is in danger of losing sight of its descriptive power.

[18] On changing the place of changing expectations and the role of genre in interpretation, see A. Fowler, Kinds of Literature, pp. 256-278.

[19] On the mutation of genre see Burridge (fn. 12 above); M.L. Pratt, Toward, pp. 201-210; A. Fowler, Kinds of Literature, chapter 10 and p. 191.

[20] See R.A.Burridge, What are the Gospels?, pp.65-69, on the boundaries between bioi and related genres.

[21] On these, among other factors, see A. Fowler, Kinds of Literature, chapter 14.

[22] For this see D.E. Aune, NT Literary Environment, pp. 19-26; R.A. Burridge, What are the Gospels?, chapter 1; cf. also D.L. Barr and J.L. Wentling, ‘The Conventions of Classical Biography and the Genre of Luke-Acts: A Preliminary Survey’ in C.H. Talbert, ed., Luke-Acts: New Perspectives from the Society of Biblical Literature Seminar (New York: Crossroad, 1984), esp. pp. 63-67.

[23] On this see Burridge, What are the Gospels?, pp. 8-10.

[24] See e.g. M.A. Tolbert, Sowing the Gospel: Mark’s World in Literary Historical Perspective (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1989), pp.59-78; M.A. Beavis, Mark’s Audience: The Literary and Social Setting of Mark 4.11-12 (Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1989), pp. 35-37; L. Alexander, ‘Narrative Maps:Reflections on the Toponymy of Acts’, in M.D. Carroll R., D.J.A. Clines & P.R. Davies, The Bible in Human Society (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1995), pp. 17-57; R.S. Ascough, ‘Narrative Technique and Generic Designation: Crowds Scenes in Luke-Acts and in Chariton’, Catholic Biblical Quarterly 58/1 (1996) pp. 69-81; Derek Tovey, Art and Act, pp. 213-220; R.F. Hock, ‘The Greek Novel’ in D.E. Aune, ed., Greco-Roman Literature and the New Testament (Atlanta, GA: Scholars Press, 1988), pp. 127-146.  Also pertinent, though not dealing with the gospels, is R. I. Pervo, Profit with Delight: The Literary Genre of the Acts of the Apostles  (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1987).

[25] See Aune, NT Literary Environment, pp. 23-27.

[26] Some scholars have suggested the aretalogy as a generic designation.  An aretalogy is writing about a person that seeks to draw out the religious and moral significance of a person for didactic purposes.  It generally did so by giving attention to wondrous deeds and miraculous powers.  The problem with the use of the term aretalogy to denote a genre is that is a creation of scholarship to describe a literary phenomenon that belongs to no particular genre.  Rather it describes a tendency that is found in a number or genres, but is most associated with a type of ancient biographical writing.  Hence, it is better to use the word adjectivally.  Two scholars who worked with this as a generic designation are M. Hadas & M. Smith, Heroes and Gods: Spiritual Biographies in Antiquity (New York: Harper & Row, 1965); cf. Burridge, What are the Gospels, pp. 17-19.

[27] See here Burridge, What are the Gospels, pp. 9-11.

[28] See Burridge, What are the Gospels, pp. 12,53; Barr & Wentling, ‘Conventions’, pp. 64-65.

[29] See R.I. Pervo, ‘Must Luke and Acts Belong to the Same Genre?’ in D.J. Lull, ed., Society of Biblical Literature 1989 Seminar Papers (Altanta, GA: Scholars Press, 1989) pp. 309-316.  Pervo argues that they need not.

[30] Burridge, What are the Gospels?, pp. 245-46

[31] Cf. R.I Pervo, ‘Luke and Acts’, p.315 and passim on the attitude of the early church.  Burridge notes that the manuscript evidence shows separation (p. 245).

[32] See, for example, Burridge, What are the Gospels?, p. 213 with p.216 on purpose

[33] Burridge is to be commended for stressing several times the need for a flexible approach to the generic identification of works.  Not only does he stress that genres have open boundaries, but also the corollary that an individual work may display the features of several genres.  I have found his overall approach most fruitful and illuminating: my intention is that this article attempt a refinement and development of his approach.

[34] See here Burridge, What are the Gospels?, pp. 32-34.

[35] Alister Fowler, in Kinds of Literature (Chapter 13), raises fundamental objections against attempts to provide a ‘system of genres’, that is, taxonomies of genre or ‘generic maps’.  The use of ‘universals’, in his opinion tends to encourage a procrustean approach, and sets discussion of genre within narrow limits which select certain aspects over against other equally valid criteria.  Genres resist classification or subdivision in to any one set of ‘universals’.  Genres are always mixed.  As for providing an adequate and comprehensive map, this is a ‘chimera’ (p. 248).  We may grant the limitations and dangers of attempting a ‘map’ of genres and yet there is value in developing one for heuristic and descriptive purposes.  I intend that the typological circle which I present should be of value precisely as a model which insists upon flexibility as a fundamental to, if not the basic component of, its schematic organization.

[36] See F. K. Stanzel, A Theory of Narrative (ET C. Goedsche; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984), p. xvi and pp. 46-78.  Cf also my summary discussion in Art and Act, pp 52-57.

[37] Stanzel, Theory, p. 60.

[38] Ibid, and cf. pp. 236-37.

[39] Perhaps such a typological circle could be devised, though it would probably operate at a greater degree of abstraction and lack of specificity.  On the other hand, different typological circles could be provided for different genres.

[40] J.R. Morgan, ‘Make-Believe and Make Believe’ in C. Gill & T.P. Wiseman, eds., Lies and Fiction in the Ancient World (Exeter: University of Exeter Press, 1993) p. 189. On this tripartite categorization of narrative see, in addition to Morgan, pp. 189-190, G.L. Schmeling, Chariton (New York: Twayne Publishers, 1974), pp. 36-37; D.E. Aune, NT Literary Environment, p. 83; N. Holzberg in G. Schmeling, ed., The Novel in Ancient World, pp. 15-16; W. Nelson, Fact or Fiction: The Dilemma of the Renaissance Storyteller (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1973), p. 5; B.E. Perry, The Ancient Romances: A Literary-Historical Account of Their Origins (Berkeley & Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1967), p. 75; W.J. Slater, ‘Asklepiades and Historia’, Greek, Roman & Byzantine Studies 13/1 (1972), pp. 317-333.  E. Gabba, ‘True History and False History in Classical Antiquity’, Journal of Roman Studies 71 (1981), p. 54. restricts this categorization to types of historical literature.  Cf. also G. A. Press, The Development of the Idea of History in Antiquity (Kingston & Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 1982), p. 48, where he discusses Cicero’s definition of these as ‘subspecies of the genus “narrative”’ that deals with ‘an exposition of events’ (as against that which deals ‘mainly with persons’).

[41] Schmeling, Chariton, p. 37.  Ancient rhetoric gave a variety of designations to, and descriptions of, these three types (see the literature cited in fn. 34): Slater provides a nice English shorthand (‘true’, ‘as-true’ and ‘false’ cf. p. 320); Aune: ‘history’, ‘fiction’ and ‘myth or legend’ (p. 83).  On a typological circle using modern categories, I designate the three types as History, (realistic) Fiction, and Fantasy (cf. D. Tovey, Art and Act, pp. 222-23).

[42] This question, of course, has often already been decided for the reader by the generic signals given by the book’s title, or ‘blurb’ or the category to which it has been assigned by a librarian or some other ‘expert’.  The author will have worked with the same parameters of mind, though, sometimes authors make the referential status of their work ambiguous, or leave the question open.  And readers are always free to make a judgment that differs from that of the author.

[43] I intend to pursue this matter in more detail on another occasion.

[44] An historical novel is an example of a work that would reside on the boundary of ‘history’ and ‘fiction’; and within the novel some parts might be deemed to be ‘more historical’ and others ‘more fictional’.

[45] The dominating features identified here are those that are most commonly shared by works deemed to be within the sector governed by a given constant.  As the determination of genre is a process whereby a range of features is identified in order to ‘fix’ a narrative’s genre, the scope for disagreement and variations amongst scholars and critics is obviously great.  Ideally, the dominating features for each type should be decided by taking what is arguably a consensus position.  A proper identification of each type’s dominating features requires a reasonably full survey of ancient narratives.

[46]  M.J. Wheeldon, ‘ “True Stories”: the reception of historiography in antiquity’, in A. Cameron, ed., History as Text: The Writing of Ancient History (London: Duckworth, 1989), p. 44, states that ‘the single most common expectation of [‘historiae’] was that they should present a straightforward account of past events’.  Writing about past events, as the practice of Polybius and Josephus shows, could include events at which the author was present; cf. T.J. Luce, The Greek Historians, (London: Routledge, 1997), p. 131.  See also C.W. Fornara, The Nature of History in Ancient Greece and Rome (Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1983), pp. 3, 48.

[47] Cf. T.P. Wiseman, ‘Lying Historians: Seven Types of Mendacity’, in Gill & Wiseman, Lies and Fiction, p. 122 (on Lucian); T.J. Luce, Greek Historians, p. 129 (on Polybius); G. A. Press, Development, p. 59.

[48] T.J. Luce, Greek Historians, p. 133

[49] On didacticism in ancient history writing, see Press, Development, pp. 40-41; Luce, Greek Historians, pp. 79, 84ff (on Thucydides; p. 127 (on Polybius); S.W. Hirsch, ‘1001 Iranian Nights: History and Fiction in Xenophon’s Cyropaedia’ in The Greek Historians: Literature and History (Department of Classics, Stanford University: ANMA Libri, 1985), p. 75.

[50] Cf. J.L. Moles, ‘Truth and Untruth in Herodotus and Thucydides’ in Gill & Wiseman, Lies and Fiction, pp. 110-12; S.J.D. Cohen, ‘History and Historiography in the Against Apion of Josephus’, in A. Rapoport-Albert, ed., Essays in Jewish Historiography, (Atlanta, GA: Scholars Press, 2^nd printing, 1991), pp. 1-11.

[51] Moles, in Gill and Wiseman, p. 112; cf. also J.R. Morgan , op. cit., p. 184.

[52] Luce, Greek Historians, pp. 22-23, C.W. Fornara, Nature, p. 49.

[53] Wheeldon, in Cameron, History as Text, p. 48ff.               

[54] See here S.M. Praeder, ‘Luke-Acts and the Ancient Novel’, in K.H. Richards, ed., SBL 1981 Seminar Papers (Chico, CA: Scholars Press, 1981), p. 281.

[55] C.R. Beye, Ancient Greek Literature and Society (Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press, 2^nd edn, 1987), p. 219, sees this as an ‘inheritance from Homeric epic’; see also T.J. Luce, The Greek Historians, p 3.  On Thucydides’ speeches, see Moles, in Gill and Wiseman, pp. 104-106; T.J. Luce, Greek Historians, pp. 71-74.

[56] See here, Source?  Try Gabba.

[57] See here C.W. Fornara, Nature, pp. 29-46.

[58] The term ‘ideal’ is applied by classicists to the ancient (Greek) love romances in contrast to the comic romances (mostly found in Latin, though one is probably based on a Greek original), see B.E. Perry, The Ancient Romances (Berkeley & Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1967), pp. vi-vii;  and  T. Hägg, The Novel in Antiquity (Berkeley & Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1983), p. 4, and chapter 2.  These ‘ideal’ romances are used here as paradigmatic of the ‘plasmatic’ form. However, a complete analysis of works that are found within the sphere of plasma will need to include the comic romances and other narratives, such as those mentioned below, as well.  There are five complete novels of love and adventure extant: Chariton, Chaereas and Callirhoe;  Xenophon of Ephesus, An Ephesian Tale; Longus, Daphnis and Chloe; Achilles Tatius, Leucippe and Clitophon; Heliodorus, An Ethiopian Tale.  In addition, there are fragments of a number of others; and there are a number of other works which are sometimes classed as novels (though ‘romanticized biographies’ might be another designation) e.g. Pseudo-Callisthenes, Alexander Romance; Xenophon of Athens, Cyropaedia; Philostratus, Life of Apollonius of Tyana.  Of the five extant complete novels, only Chareas and Callirhoe, and possibly An Ephesian Tale are contemporaneous with the gospels.  A number of the fragments are also considered to date to the first century BCE, or the first century CE.  Philostratus’ Life of Apollonius of Tyana is often compared with the gospels on account of the subject matter, which might be described as an ‘aretalogical’ life of the neo-Pythagorean philosopher and holy man, Apollonius (but the date of this work is early 3^rd  century CE).  Translations of these novels may be found in B.P. Reardon, ed. Collected Ancient Greek Novels (Berkeley & Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1989); and the fragments in S. Stephens & J.J. Winkler, eds., Ancient Greek Novels: The Fragments (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1995).

[59] N. Holzberg, The Ancient Novel: An Introduction (London & New York: Routledge, 1995), p.36.

[60] For example, in Chaereas and Callirhoe, Hermocrates, the father of Callirhoe is a real historical figure and Artaxerxes may be identified with Artaxerxes II Mnemon, who ruled as the Persian king from 404-358 BCE; but the two were not historical contemporaries.  Hermocrates had a daughter who married Dionysius I of Syracruse, but the daughter’s name is not known.  Chariton gives her the name Callirhoe, marries her to Chaereas and her marriage to Dionysius, who in his story becomes governor of Miletus in Asia Minor, is a ruse to ensure that the child she is bearing is legitimate.  But this marriage is also an impediment to be overcome on the road to the eventual happy outcome of reunion with her first husband, Chaereas. On these historical features, see R. Hunter, ‘History and Historicity in the Romance of Chariton’, ANRW 34.2 (1994) pp. 1056-58; also G. Schmeling, Chariton (New York: Twayne Publishers, 1974), pp. 76-78.

[61] S.M. Praeder, ‘Luke-Acts’, p. 281.

[62] T. Hägg, ‘Callirhoe and Parthenope: The Beginnings of the Historical Novel’, Classical Antiquity 6/2 (1987), pp. 184-204.  Hägg’s article illustrates a methodological difficulty that underlies much of the literature and, indeed is a methodological difficulty in regards of the execution of this project.  It is that the discussion of ancient literature is carried out in terms of criteria and definitions developed by modern theorists and the critical analysis of modern historical novels (‘modern’ meaning here, since the rise of the novel in the C18th).  However, the degree to which this should be taken as a methodological difficulty is itself debatable, for, as Fowler points out in Kinds of Literature, in approaching works of antiquity we cannot disengage ourselves entirely from our own context and place in history (cf. p. 269).  And, indeed, the contractual or ‘consensual’ nature of generic determination inevitably leads to a tension between the appropriateness of the tools used to analyze ancient literature in terms of their necessity to the modern reader and the historical disjunction with the time of the work’s production.

[63] Hägg, ‘Beginnings’, p. 187.

[64] Hagg, ‘Beginnings’, p. 188.

[65] Hägg, ‘Beginnings’, pp. 189-90.  Anachronisms may be admitted, so long as the overall sense of historical verisimilitude is not compromised.

[66] Ibid.

[67] Hägg, ‘Beginnings’, p 204.

[68] Ancient critical discussion provided no technical terms for the genres of biography or the novel, and in the case of the novel, at least, the genre was not considered worthy of critical consideration.  Aune notes that ‘the actual term “biography” (Greek: biographia) first appears in the late fifth century A.D.  Earlier authors generally referred to such works as “lives” (Greek: bioi: Latin: vitae).’  See D.E. Aune, ed., Greco-Roman Literature and the New Testament, p. 107; cf. also C.H. Talbert, in The Anchor Bible Dictionary, Vol. 1, pp. 745-46.  A number of different terms were used of the novels: plasma, plasmatika (‘fictitious tales’); dramatika (‘dramatic tales’); diegema (narrative); historia (‘account of what one has discovered’). The terms used by the authors of their own works were equally varied: suntagma (‘narrative’, Heliodorus); antigrapsai (‘dialectical response’; Longus); pathos erotikon (‘love-story’; Chariton).  On this see T. Hägg, The Novel in Antiquity, p. 3; N. Holzberg, The Ancient Novel (London & New York: Routledge, 1986) pp. 8-9; B.P. Reardon, The Form of Greek Romance (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1991) p. 7; D. L. Selden, ‘Genre of Genre’, in J. Tatum, ed., The Search for the Ancient Novel (Baltimore & London: John Hopkins University Press, 1994), p. 43.

[69] Methodological issue to be resolved: extrapolating a set of characteristics for bioi depends somewhat on the sample chosen.  Or does one posit general characteristics, then determine the ‘fit’ of individual works and then classify them as bioi or not on the basis of the fit?  Cf. the question of Philostratus’ Life of Apollonius of Tyana (ref. Burridge, What are the Gospels?, p. 160).

[70] C.H. Talbert, ‘The Acts of the Apostles: monograph or “bios”?’, in B. Witherington, ed., History, Literature, and Society in the Book of Acts (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), pp. 60-61.

[71] See S.M. Praeder, ‘Luke-Acts’, p. 280.

[72] G.A. Press, Development, p. 46; cf. D.L. Barr and J. L. Wentling, ‘Conventions of Classical Biography’, p. 71.

[73] For example, Alexander the Great in the Alexander Romance, Aesop in The Life of Aesop, Thomas in The Acts of Thomas, Paul in The Pseudo-Clementine Recognitions, or Joseph in the Jewish novel, Joseph and Asenath.  On this, and on differences between novels and ancient biography and history generally, see S.M. Praeder, ‘Luke-Acts’, pp. 278-283.

[74] S.M. Praeder, ‘Luke-Acts’, p. 281.

[75] S.M. Praeder, ‘Luke-Acts’, p. 269.

[76] D. L. Balch, ‘Comments on the Genre and a Political Theme of Luke-Acts: a Preliminary Comparison of Two Hellenistic Historians, in D.J. Lull, ed., SBL 1989 Seminar Papers (Atlanta, GA: Scholars Press, 1989), p. 343.

[77] A preliminary question to do with whether Luke-Acts is to be treated as one work belonging to a single genre, or two works belonging to different genres is being set aside (or ignored!) for the moment.  It is a question which would need to be addressed, though, as I hope will be seen below, the model I propose provides for a way in which the tensions between the two works can be mediated.

[78] D.E. Aune, NT Literary Environment, p. 77; D.L. Balch, ‘The Genre of Luke-Acts: Individual Biography, Adventure Novel, or Political History?’, Southwestern Journal of Theology 33/1 (1990), pp. 5-19; G.E. Sterling, ‘Luke-Acts and Apologetic Historiography’, in D.J. Lull, SBL 1989 Seminar Papers, pp. 326-342.

[79] D. Schmidt, ‘The Historiography of Acts: Deuteronomistic or Hellenistic?’, in K.H. Richards, ed., SBL 1985 Seminar Papers, pp. 417-427.

[80] L.C. A. Alexander, The Preface to Luke’s Gospel: Literary convention and social context in Luke 1.1-4 and Acts 1.1 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993); cf. also ‘The preface to Acts and the historians’, in B. Witherington, ed., History, Literature and Society in the Book of Acts (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), pp. 73-103.  Alexander defines ‘scientific’ in this context as ‘technical prose’  (translating a German scholar’s “Fachprosa”), also ‘professional’, ‘specialist’, ‘specialized’ or ‘expert’.  She says, ‘[b]ut it is not possible to determine in advance whether these texts, in Greek society, belong to the area which we would call trade or professional manuals or to the academic sphere: each case must be decided individually’ (Preface, p. 21).

[81] C.H. Talbert, ‘The Acts of the Apostles: monograph or “bios”?’, in B. Witherington, ed., History, pp. 58-72; cf. also his article in ABD, Vol. 1, pp. 745-749.  R.A. Burridge, What are the Gospels?, identifies all four canonical gospels as types of Graeco-Roman bioi.

[82] R.I. Pervo, Profit with Delight: The Literary Genre of the Acts of the Apostles (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1987); S.M. Praeder, ‘Luke-Acts and the Ancient Novel’, in K.H. Richards, ed., SBL 1981 Seminar Papers, pp. 269-292; D.R. Edwards, ‘Acts of the Apostles and the Graeco-Roman World: Narrative Communication in Social Contexts’, in SBL 1989 Seminar Papers, pp. 362-376: Edwards does not associate Luke-Acts with any one genre; rather ‘the author of Acts adapted or at least reflects aspects of several genres’ (p. 364). In this article, however, he specifically compares Luke-Acts with Chariton’s Chaereas and Callirhoe.

[83] Of course, it is not always possible to distinguish, say, features of function from features of content.  Nor need it be absolutely necessary to do so: a reader’s sense of genre is always going to be a rather subjective and intuitive conflation of various features which interrelate and coexist with each other.

[84] It is a merit of Burridge’s thesis, however, that he selects a broad range of ancient bioi as his sample.  And it must be admitted that selections have to be made if comparative study is not to become unwieldy.  Nevertheless, the nature of the gospels calls for a sample which crosses generic boundaries. 

[85] See C.H. Talbert, ABD, pp. 746-747, for a discussion of essential and accidental features in ancient biography.

[86] If one wished to refine the typological circle, so that it became a model upon which individual works were placed rather than the broader question of generic types and sub-types, one could easily do that.  In this case, Luke-Acts would be discussed and situated with reference to a range of specific works with which it shared characteristic features.  In a sense, this in the long run, though time consuming and difficult is the best way to go.

[87] S.M. Praeder, ‘Luke-Acts’ gives a somewhat comprehensive list of features drawn from what she calls a ‘narrative paradigm’.  The trouble is, and this is the case with Burridge’s schema, some of the categories are too broad to enable precise determination of genre.  Or, to put it another way, as she acknowledges, certain features such as the selection of  ‘events and existents’ (plot action and characters) vary widely across a given genre, or find parallels in other genres.  Again, some of her conclusions are debatable, such as for instance, that ‘[i]n overall sequence the ancient novels are ordered biographically’ (p. 279).  This can only be maintained by understanding ‘biographical sequence’ to mean not ‘from birth to death’ but ‘any segment or slice of life the author chooses to select’.  In fact, it might be better to say that many of the ancient romances are organized around the developing relationship of the couple, or the adventures which befall them just prior to or just after marriage.

[88] E.g. statements of the kind found in Luke (1.1-4) stating a decision to write and reasons for it, are found in a number of ‘scientific treatises’ (cf. Preface, pp. 71-72, as are dedications (pp. 73-74) as well as the phraseology used (pp. 94-101).

[89] See here L. Alexander, Preface, pp. 121, 124: and on Luke’s preface and hellenistic Jewish literature, chapter 7.

[90] S.M. Praeder, ‘Luke-Acts’, p. 281.

[91] But see S.M. Praeder, ‘Acts 27:1-28.16: Sea Voyages in Ancient Literature and the Theology of Luke-Acts’, Catholic Biblical Quarterly 46/4 (1984), pp. 683-706, where the point is made that such features are not confined to one genre.

[92] L. Alexander, ‘Narrative Maps’.

[93] R. S. Ascough, ‘Narrative Technique’

[94] By and large, resurrection in the novels follows an apparent death (Scheintod).  In Chaeraes and Callirhoe, Theron, a pirate, undergoes crucifixion, while in The Ephesian Story, the hero is miraculously delivered from the cross when he is swept away by the Nile in flood, attributed in the story to divine intervention.  G.W. Bowersock, Fiction as History (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1994) puts forward the interesting thesis that Christian traditions, and the gospels, may have motivated some of these motifs (especially e.g. resurrection) in the Greek novels.  Thus, the flow of influence went from Christian to pagan writings, not necessarily in the other direction.

[95] Cf. Acts 9.2; 19.9.  On this point see D.L. Balch, ‘Luke-Acts’, p. 338.

[96] D.L. Balch, ‘Luke-Acts’, pp. 341-42.

[97] R.I. Pervo, Profit with Delight, p. 86.

[98] C.H. Talbert, in ABD, p. 749.  It is an A+B type biography: A (Luke) = life of founder; B(Acts) = brief list or narrative of successors and selected other disciples (p. 747).

[99] See here R.A. Burridge, What are the Gospels?, pp. 214-217.

[100] As an aside, the author of Luke-Acts though ostensibly addressing the work to an individual (Theophilus, Luke 1.3; Acts 1.1) will have been writing in a context where books would have been read aloud and the audience would have included more than a single individual.  Possibly the work would have been read in the context of worship.  Perhaps, and this is speculation, the author envisaged an ‘occasion’ where non-Christians might also be present: a kind of a literary soirée, or the literary version of a haflat samar (see K.E. Bailey, ‘Middle Eastern Oral Tradition and the Synoptic Gospels’, Expository Times 106/2, 1995, pp. 363-367).

[101] Similar exercise to be done for other gospels.  Need to consider the ‘aretalogical’ features of the gospels.

[102] Should the designation be in the singular (to euangelion)or the plural?  Usage in the early church suggests that singular and plural were used interchangeably; and an argument might be made for the use of the singular on the grounds that the Gospel was regarded as a unitary entity which appeared in different versions (‘the Gospel according to…’), or that the collection of the four canonical gospels could be regarded collectively as to euangelion.  On the other hand, generic terminology was not fixed anyway, and, as with the use of the term bios/bioi, it is a matter of appropriating ancient designations to a more or less modern debate.  A further issue, which cannot be pursued here, is the exclusion or inclusion of non-canonical gospels within the generic field.  According to W.S. Vorster (Anchor Bible Dictionary, Vol. 2, p. 1079) many non-canonical gospels would be excluded on the grounds of not being narratives.  The fact that they were called ‘gospels’ is a further instance of the fact that ancient readers’ classificatory interests were different from our modern ones.  Of those which do appear in narrative form, many are in too fragmentary form, or appear only in citations, and would therefore be difficult to place on a typological circle.  Those which survive more or less intact could theoretically be charted. 

[103] Illocutionary acts are the acts speaker (writer) performs in the utterance of the locution (the verbal formulation) e.g. making an assertion, commanding, promising, warning, blessing, threatening.  Perlocutionary acts are the intended effects that locutions are conventionally expected to have or to achieve.

[104] I see that I did offer it as a paper at the Aotearoa New Zealand Association for Biblical Studies in December, 2013. I may have worked on it then (I expect I added the first footnote at that time), but I do not now recall what I did or how I presented it. I have an outline of the argument as a handout in my files.

[105] And for reading ancient works, that will include knowledge of the background culture, and, no doubt, a plethora of other matters, including knowledge of other ancient literature.