In recent decades, emphasising the 'orality/aurality' of the Roman world, some scholars have asserted that in early Christian circles texts were 'performed', not 'read' (and could not have been read), likening this action to descriptions of oratorical delivery of speeches (from memory) or theatrical performance. It has even been suggested that some texts, particularly the Gospel of Mark, were composed in 'performance', and not through an author working up a text in written form. These claims seem to be based on numerous oversimplifications (and so distortions) of relevant historical matters, however, and also involve a failure to take account of the full range of relevant data about the use of texts in early Christianity and the wider Roman-era setting. So, at least some of the crucial claims and inferences made are highly dubious. In this essay, I offer corrections to some crucial oversimplifications, and I point to the sorts of data that must be taken into account in drawing a more reliable picture of the place of texts and how they functioned in early Christianity.Over the last few decades a small but increasing number of scholars have postulated that in early Christian circles texts such as those that make up the New Testament were originally 'performed', by which they appear to mean something more than skilful reading, something more akin to ancient oratorical delivery and/or theatrical performances, involving (it is proposed) recitation of the texts from memory (not reading from a manuscript), animated or theatrical use of voice and bodily gestures/actions, and even various lively responses from the * I thank Scott Charlesworth, Dan Nässelqvist and Chris Keith for comments and suggestions on an earlier draft of this essay. New Test. Stud. , pp. -.
Jews, and Jesus (Doubleday, 1979). Lapide's work, which looks at Israeli works in Hebrew about Jesus, and the reaction to them in Israel, is especially interesting (cf. the present volume, pp. 73-75). Typographical errors: "conversation [conversion] of Israel" (24); "ale [able] to continue" (40); "religions [religious] symbolism" (54); "univiersalism" (61); "Gladding [Gladden]" (65); "a matter of fat [fact]" (117); "cruse [curse] fell upon the Jews" (130); "Ernest Reman [Renan]" (152).
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