The Ancient Fable Tradition and Early Christian Literature

该项目将希腊和罗马时期的寓言文学与早期基督教著作联系起来。虽然寓言文学在Jülicher的工作中进行了讨论，但除了少数例外，寓言在二十世纪世纪开始以来的新约研究中一直被忽视。除其他原因外，这是由于对寓言类型的简化理解（作为不切实际的动物故事，这不适用于许多文本）。此外，由于历史上的耶稣往往被视为“发明者”的比喻体裁，神学的原因不愿意学者从相对化这一特殊地位。该项目通过几个子项目对早期基督教文本的文学历史和体裁历史语境化做出了创新性的贡献。该项目包括三个焦点：宏观层面：伊索的生活和早期基督教福音书（斯特朗）。尽管《伊索传》与《福音书》有着显著的相似之处，但人们对《伊索传》的关注却很少，《伊索传》也是一部边缘传记，其许多版本之间的文学-历史关系与不同的《福音书》相似。在叙述性传记和个人寓言集的多个版本之间，有一个与福音著作惊人的相似之处，这证明了相同的传记和收集形式。应用“开放文本”的范例，这个项目将有助于在天气问题，体裁（S）和福音的传播新兴的辩论。该子项目的目标是一本专著。中间一级：Babrius and the New Testament（TBD - doctoral-level researcher）Babrius这个寓言的作者基本上不为古代世界的学者所知，甚至包括古典学者，在过去的十年里只受到有限的关注。通常假定的日期和作者的位置，第一至第二世纪在叙利亚，连同内部数据表明一个闪族的环境和类似的Koine圣经希腊，要求深入调查。Babrius的寓言将与早期基督教文本对话，分析相似和不同的道德规范，以及与早期基督教相似的几个寓言，例如，Fishnet（Fab）4)参见太13：47-50和身体（Fab。134)参见林前12.该项目的目的是博士论文（TBD）和个人文章（Zimmermann）。微观层面：在整个项目范围内的个别主题的文章，例如，Ahiqar，奴隶制，非暴力，将发表在同行评议的期刊或编辑卷。我们应用既定的比较方法，包括传统和形式，体裁批评，互文性，以及新兴的方法，如动物研究，传播导向的体裁理论，叙事伦理。该项目包括关于性别、动物研究和伦理的专家研讨会。

The project relates the fable literature of the Greek and Roman periods with early Christian writings. Although fable literature was discussed in Jülicher’s work, with few exceptions, fables have been ignored in New Testament studies since the beginning of the twentieth century. This was due, among other reasons, to a reductionist understanding of the fable genre (as an unrealistic animal story, which does not apply to many texts). Furthermore, since the historical Jesus is often regarded as the “inventor” of the parable genre, theological reasons have disinclined scholars from relativizing this special position. The project makes an innovative contribution to the literary-historical and genre-historical contextualization of early Christian texts through several subprojects.The project encompasses three foci: Macro-level: The Life of Aesop and Early Christian Gospels (Strong).The little comparative work done with fable materials extends also to macro-texts. Despite significant parallels with the Gospels, little attention has been paid to The Life of Aesop, which is also a marginal bios and has a similar literary-historical relationship between its many versions as the different Gospels. Between the multiple versions of a narrative biography and collections of individual fables, there is a striking parallel to Gospel writings, which attest to the same bios and collection forms. Applying the “open text” paradigm, this project will contribute to emerging debates in the Synoptic Problem, the genre(s), and transmission of the Gospels. The goal of the subproject is a monograph. Meso-level: Babrius and the New Testament (TBD – doctoral-level researcher)Babrius the fable author is essentially unknown to scholars of the ancient world, including even classicists, receiving only limited attention in the last ten years. The commonly assumed dates and location of authorship—the 1st-2nd century in Syria—together with internal data suggesting a Semitic milieu and a similar Koine to biblical Greek, demand an in-depth investigation. Babrius’ fables will be set in dialogue with early Christian texts, analyzing similar and diverging ethical norms, and several individual fables with early Christian parallels, e.g., The Fishnet (Fab. 4) cf. Mt 13:47–50 and The Body (Fab. 134) cf. 1 Cor 12. The aim of the project is a doctoral thesis (TBD) and individual articles (Zimmermann).Micro-level: Articles on individual topics within the horizon of the overall project, e.g., Ahiqar, slavery, non-violence, will be published in peer-reviewed journals or edited volumes.We apply established comparative methods, including tradition- and formgeschichte, genre criticism, and intertextuality, together with emerging approaches such as animal studies, communication-oriented genre theory, and narrative ethics. The project includes specialist workshops on genre, animal studies, and ethics.