The Birthing of the New Testament: The Intertextual Development of the New Testament Writings

by Thomas L. Brodie

Many are saying that the prevailing paradigm of New Testament origins is going nowhere. In its place, Brodie's stunning book invites us to suspend all 'knowledge' we already have about the history of the New Testament's development, and to be willing to entertain the following thesis. Everything hinges on Proto-Luke, a history of Jesus using the Elijah-Elisha narrative as its model, which survives in 10 chapters of Luke and 15 of Acts. Mark then uses Proto-Luke, transposing its Acts material back into the life of Jesus. Matthew deuteronomizes Mark, John improves on the discourses of Matthew. Luke-Acts spells out the story at length. Add the Pauline corpus, the descendant of Deuteronomy via the Matthean logia, and the New Testament is virtually complete. This is a totalizing theory, an explanation of everything, and its critics will be numerous. But even they will be hugely intrigued, and have to admit that Brodie's myriads of challenging observations about literary affinities demand an answer.

Genres: Religion

688 pages, Paperback

First published June 1, 2006

About the author

Thomas L. Brodie is Director, Dominican Biblical Centre, Limerick, Ireland. After studies in Dublin, Rome, and Jerusalem, he spent thirty years teaching and researching at diverse seminaries and universities in the West Indies, the United States, and South Africa. He is the author of The Quest for the Origin of John's Gospel: A Source-Oriented Approach (OUP, 1992), The Gospel according to John: A Literary and Theological Commentary (OUP, 1993), and, as a forerunner to the present work, The Crucial Bridge: The Elijah–Elisha Narrative as an Interpretive Synthesis of Genesis–Kings and a Literary Model for the Gospels (Liturgical Press, 2000).

Reviews

[Jeff Childers · Rating 5 out of 5]

The reader should distinguish between Brodie's thesis of an ur-Luke-Acts having priority and the mountain of evidence he presents. The thesis can be judged on its own merits; if one finds it uncompelling, like I do, that does nothing to diminish the value of Brodie's in-depth exploration of inter-textuality.

[Justin Powell · Rating 5 out of 5]

Thomas Brodie lays out one of the biggest attempts, that I've ever read, to show literary dependence within the New Testament to the Hebrew Bible. It is purely a literary thesis, and relies on nothing else. Historical implications that could be possibly drawn from the examples given is for a later date. One that I'd be interested in seeing someone attempt.

Beginning with the scriptural dependance from the largest vantage point, he shows details and examples of Deuteronomy being the foundation for Matthew's Logia. The Pauline epistles are then connected to this Logia. Followed by Proto-Luke, Mark, Matthew, John, and finally the version of Luke-Acts that we currently have. All of the connections certainly need more studying upon them, but he does get the ball rolling with a massive amount of examples and detailed comparisons in organized tables.

Why do I think this argument should be taken seriously? It removes the need for the Q document. A document that has largely been taken for granted in the scholarly community. No argument or thesis should be based on a hypothetical source. No doubt, though, the Q hypothesis answers a lot of questions, but I personally think Brodie gives better answers to those questions. To really take in all of the content in this massive tome, I really recommend spending enough time to go through the details and make the connections for yourself.