Aesop and Aesop's Fables

This book describes the Aesopian fable as a hitherto underestimated function in renaissance culture and subsequently. Partly thanks to their traditions of origin--how fables came to be written, by whom, and why--traditions which (whether or not they believed them) were deeply interesting to sixteenth- and seventeenth- century readers, the stories of beasts, the birds, the trees, and the insects quickly acquired or recovered their function as a medium of political analysis and communication.

This collection of essays examines the respective religious and social functions of kings and prophets as they are presented in the biblical narratives. Biblical kingship is easily shown to be a specific instance of an ancient and widespread institution--sacred monarchy--that was the pivot of most state organizations throughout antiquity; prophetic authority is described as a typical institution of ancient Hebrew society. The difference between monarchy and prophecy is radical, because the former implies a hereditary power and is upheld by its subjects who feed their kings with taxes, while the latter derives its authority from allegedly direct divine inspiration, and though it is also economically dependent it is not explicitly presented as being based upon systematic exploitation. Cristiano Grottanelli interprets the rise of prophecy as a consequence of a crisis of monarchical structures at the beginning of the Iron Age, and connects it to similar phenomena attested in ancient Greek texts derived from a similar crisis. Though monarchy finally won the day in the Ancient Mediterranean in a new imperial form, the new literatures in Greek and Hebrew consonantic and alphabetic scripts shaped nonmonarchic figures to which they attributed some of the functions previously pertaining to monarchy. These new literatures, produced by two cultures that were both highly literate and organized according to nonmonarchical principles, diverged radically in their development and final outcomes. In the Hebrew tradition, monolatry and an official canon of sacred writings were the final result; the prophetic principle was thus overcome by a new ideological construction, centered upon inspired scriptures rather than upon the impromptu performances of inspired persons. In using the prophetic principle against the monarchic, the canonical texts paradoxically shaped their own authority above that of living prophets.

The Quest of the Historical Gospel explores the nature and origin of the gospel genre. After a review of the promises and difficulties of the designation of the gospels as biography, Wills compares popular, novelistic biographies, such as the Life of Aesop , with the gospels of Mark and John. He posits that they all belong to the same genre and comprise similar literary motifs; the cult biography of the dead, revered figure; the notion of the scapegoat and the character of the hero. Professor Wills also examines the relationships between the gospels of Mark and John arguing that they exist independently of each other and are derived from earlier, oral accounts. The Quest of the Historical Gospel offers a provocative and timely analysis of the figure of Jesus and the gospels depicting his life. It provides fresh perspectives on the origins of gospel genre and the analogies between Jewish and Greco-Roman literature and gospel narrative, and challenges the preoccupation of prior criticism with the placing of Jesus in a definitive historical context.This erudite and critically up-to-date book will be of interest to those concerned with the early traditions of Jesus and the origins of the narratives about his life.