Bibliography
| Title: "Historiography and Self-Definition: Josephus, Luke-Acts and Apologetic Historiography" Secondary Title: NT.S 64 Type: Generic Year: 1992 Abstract: "The lightly revised version of a doctoral dissertation directed by J. R. Donahue and accepted in 1989 by the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley, CA, this volume defines apologetic historiography as ""the story of a subgroup of people in an extended prose narrative written by a member of the group who follows the group's own traditions but Hellenizes them in an effort to establish the identity of the group within the setting of the larger world."" After observations on genre and historiography, it treats Greek ethnography (literary precursors, Hecataeus of Miletus, Herodotus), ethnography in transition (Hecataeus of Abdera, Megasthenes), the origins of apologetic historiography (Berossus, Manetho), the Hellenistic-Jewish historians (Eusebius, Alexander Polyhistor, Demetrius, Artapanus, ps.-Eupolemus, Eupolemus), Josephus' Antiquities and Lk-Acts. Sterling, assistant professor of NT at the University of Notre Dame, concludes that both Josephus' Antiquities and LK-Acts can be regarded as apologetic historiography. // This study identifies and traces the development of an ancient historiographical tradition through genre analysis. The basic criteria of the genre analysis used in this study are the contents, form, and function of individual works. In addition, the dissertation carefully weighs the possibility of an author's knowledge of previous works within this tradition through either explicit references or source critical analysis. The result of applying this methodolorgy to a wide range of Hellenistic historical texts was the identification of apologetic historiography. Apologetic historiography is the story of a subgroup of people in an extended prose narrative written by a member of the group who follows the group's own traditions but Hellenizes them in an effort to establish the identity of the group within the setting of the larger world. The work sets out this tradition through three major eras of history in the eastern half of the Mediterranean world: the Persian, Hellenistic, and Roman periods. The forerunner of apologetic historiography was Greek ethnography which served as both a model and as a point of attack for early apologetic historians. The tradition proper first appeared after the conquests of Alexander the Great in the works of two Hellenized Oriental priests, Berossos and Manethon. The tradition is most fully attested in Jewish sources beginning with the Hellenistic Jewish historians and culminating in the Antiquitates Judaicae of Josephos. It also found a home in Christina circles in Luke-Acts where it marks the beginning g of Christian historiography." Keywords: New Testament / Early Christianity |