Performing the Gospel: Orality, Memory, and Mark Author:  Editors: Richard Horley, Jonathan Draper, John Foley

 

Can a Christian be confident that the Bible he or she carries is the Word of God? Performing the Gospel states that one cannot be confident that the Bible in its present form is God’s Word. Rather, it is a collection of tales and tampered texts designed to meet the needs of the early church and the scribes who wished to oppress women. This book is divided into three main sections: Orality and Literacy, Orality Literacy, and Memory, and Orality, Literacy, Memory, and Mark. It is a collection of essays based on the work of Werner Kelber. 

One positive aspect of this book is its emphasis on oral tradition. Many stories about Jesus certainly would be passed from one generation to the next, but the authors take this conclusion too far to suggest that the Bible is not the infallible, inerrant Word of God. Another positive aspect is the logical flow from one essay to the next. The essays are not loosely aligned, but read in unity as if one author wrote all of the essays. 

Several weaknesses exist in Performing the Gospel, such as the presuppositions held by the authors. The authors believe that the Bible is not the inspired Word of God. None of the authors mention the fact that the Bible was orchestrated by God, but try to suggest the Bible as a loose collection of unrelated stories that agreed with the theology of the early church. Another weakness is the suggestion that scribes altered the Bible to oppress women in the early church. Ellen Aitken suggests that Jesus is a cultic hero and compares him to other Greek heroes in ancient literature. Jesus is not God or the Messiah to her, but just some performer in the early church tradition. One author even doubts the authenticity of Jesus’ quotes in the New Testament. 

In conclusion, this book was written for a liberal Christian who wishes to understand a way that he or she can comprehend the Bible using modern criticism, which denies that the Bible is the inspired Word of God and Jesus as the Son of God. This book however will be a difficult read for a conservative Christian who believes the Bible is God’s Holy Word and that Jesus is God. A conservative believer will have difficulty understanding the leaps in logic by the authors to justify their arguments. A liberal Christian will love the content of this book while the conservative should read it so he or she can understand the dialogue in the liberal camp.