1.

Record Nr.

UNINA9910809894103321

Autore

Weaver John B

Titolo

Plots of epiphany : prison-escape in Acts of the Apostles / / John B. Weaver

Pubbl/distr/stampa

Berlin ; ; New York : , : W. de Gruyter, , [2004]

©2004

ISBN

3-11-091561-8

Edizione

[Reprint 2012]

Descrizione fisica

1 online resource (347 pages)

Collana

Beihefte zur Zeitschrift für die neutestamentliche Wissenschaft und die Kunde der älteren Kirche ; ; Band 131

Classificazione

BC 7260

Disciplina

226.6/06

Soggetti

Miracles

Escapes - Mythology

Myth in the Bible

Lingua di pubblicazione

Inglese

Formato

Materiale a stampa

Livello bibliografico

Monografia

Note generali

Slight revision of the author's thesis (doctoral)--Emory University, 2004.

Nota di bibliografia

Includes bibliographical references (pages [289]-314) and indexes.

Nota di contenuto

Prison-escape and myth-criticism -- Epiphanic rescue from prison in ancient myth and history -- "Beginning from Jerusalem" : prison-escape and the mythopoesis of Christian origins in Acts 1-7 -- Rescue and regicide : the poetics and politics of group validation in Acts 12 -- "A door of faith opened to the Gentiles" : prison epiphany and cult foundation in Acts 16.

Sommario/riassunto

Der Autor vergleicht die drei Erzählungen der Apostelgeschichte über Gefängnisausbrüche mit anderen Befreiungswundern in griechisch-römischen und jüdischen Mythen. Eine Analyse dieser Geschichten und ihrer konventionellen Darstellung göttlicher Epiphanie und Kultbegründung ermöglicht neue Einblicke in den kulturellen Kontext und die narrative Darstellung frühchristlicher Geschichte in der Apostelgeschichte.

Past scholarship on the prison-escapes in the Acts of the Apostles has tended to focus on lexical similarities to Euripides' Bacchae, going so far as to argue for direct literary dependence. Moving beyond such explanations, the present study argues that miraculous prison-escape was a central event in a traditional and culturally significant story about the introduction and foundation of cults - a story discernable in the



Bacchae and other ancient texts. When the mythic quality and cultural diffusion of the prison-escape narratives are taken into account, the resemblance of Lukan and Dionysian narrative episodes is seen to depend less on specific literary borrowing, and more on shared familiarity with cultural discourses involving the legitimating portrayal of new cults in the ancient world.