Dennis Ronald MacDonald | |
|---|---|
| Born | 1946 (age 78–79) |
| Known for | Idea that theNew Testament were responses to the Homeric Epics |
| Title | John Wesley Professor of New Testament and Christian Origins |
| Academic background | |
| Education | Bob Jones University, McCormick Theological Seminary |
| Alma mater | Harvard University |
| Thesis | (1978) |
| Academic work | |
| Discipline | Biblical studies |
| Sub-discipline | New Testament studies |
| Institutions | Claremont School of Theology |
Dennis Ronald MacDonald (born 1946) is the John Wesley Professor of New Testament and Christian Origins at theClaremont School of Theology inCalifornia. MacDonald proposes a theory wherein the earliest books of theNew Testament, including theGospel of Mark and theActs of the Apostles, were responses to theHomeric epics. The methodology he pioneered is calledMimesis Criticism. If his theories are correct then "nearly everything written on [the] early Christian narrative is flawed."[1] According to him, modern biblical scholarship has failed to recognize the impact of Homeric Poetry.[1]
The other major branch of MacDonald's scholarly activity is his contribution to theSynoptic Problem. He calls his solution theQ+/Papias Hypothesis.
MacDonald earned his undergraduate degree fromBob Jones University, aMaster of Divinity fromMcCormick Theological Seminary, and a Ph.D. fromHarvard University. He taught Theology and Biblical Studies at theIliff School of Theology inDenver,Colorado from 1980 to 1998. Since 1998 to present he has been the John Wesley Professor of New Testament at the Claremont School of Theology and Professor of Religion at theClaremont Graduate University. He also is the director of the Institute for Antiquity and Christianity at Claremont.
In one of MacDonald's first books,Christianizing Homer: The Odyssey, Plato, and the Acts of Andrew, he posited the theory that the apocryphalActs of Andrew was a Christian retelling of Homer'sIliad.[2] In it he argued that one could detect trends that showed parallels between the Homeric epic and theActs of Andrew. He argued that theActs of Andrew is better understood in light of theOdyssey. That the order of events in the Acts follows those found in the Acts of Andrew, that certain events in the Acts are better understood when understood in context of the Homeric epics, and that the Homeric texts commonly were available during the first century AD. In subsequent works, MacDonald expanded his hypothesis to include theActs of the Apostles and theGospel of Mark as being Christian variations of the Homeric epics.
InChristianizing Homer, MacDonald lays down his principles of literarymimesis, his methodology for comparing ancient texts. There are six aspects he examines 1) accessibility, 2) analogy, 3) density, 4) order, 5) distinctive traits, and 6) interpretability.[1] According to his hypothesis, not only was Homer readily available to the authors of the New Testament, but the Homeric epics would have been the basic texts upon which the New Testament authors learned to write Greek. MacDonald also argues that the number of common traits, the order in which they occur, and the distinctiveness thereof between the Homeric Texts and early Christian documents help to show that the New Testament writers were using Homeric models when writing various books.
In his earliest reviews, MacDonald only applied his hypothesis to works such asTobit and theActs of Peter. In later works, he posits the Acts of the Apostles, the Gospel of Mark, and Gospel of Luke merged two cultural classics of his time period in order to "depict Jesus as more compassionate, powerful, noble, and inured to suffering than Odysseus."[3]
MacDonald's most famous work, however, isThe Homeric Epics and the Gospel of Mark. According to MacDonald, the Gospel of Mark is "a deliberate and conscious anti-epic, an inversion of the Greek 'Bible' of Homer'sIliad andOdyssey, which in a sense updates and Judaizes the outdated heroic values presented by Homer, in the figure of a new hero."[4]
The book begins by examining the role that the Homeric epics played in antiquity—namely that anybody who was considered educated at the time learned to read and write, and they did so by studying theOdyssey andIliad. Students were expected, not only to understand the epics, but be able to rewrite the stories in their own words. Rewriting the Homeric epics was commonplace and accepted in biblical times.[4]
In using the Homeric epics, the ancient writers were not trying to deceive their readers; in fact MacDonald believes the ancient readers understood the juxtapositions of Jesus with Odysseus. "Mark's purpose", he argues, "in creating so many stories about Jesus was to demonstrate how superior [Jesus] was to Greek heroes. Few readers of Mark fail to see how he portrays Jesus as superior to Jewish worthies... He does the same for Greek heroes."[1]
MacDonald's thesis has not found acceptance and has received strong criticism by other scholars.[5][6][7][8][9] Karl Olav Sandnes notes the vague nature of alleged parallels as the "Achilles' heel" of the "slippery" project. He has also questioned the nature of the alleged paralleled motifs, seeing MacDonald's interpretations of common motives. He states, "His [MacDonald's] reading is fascinating and contributes to a reader-orientated exegesis. But he fails to demonstrate authorial intention while he, in fact, neglects the OT intertextuality that is broadcast in this literature."
Daniel Gullotta from Stanford similarly writes "MacDonald's list of unconvincing comparisons goes on and has been noted by numerous critics. Despite MacDonald's worthy call for scholars to reexamine the educational practices of the ancient world, all of the evidence renders his position of Homeric influential dominance untenable."[10]
Adam Winn, though adopting MacDonald's methods of mimetic criticism, concluded after a detailed analysis of MacDonald's theses and comparisons between Homer and Mark that "MacDonald is unable to provide a single example of clear and obvious Markan interpretation of Homer... because MacDonald's evidence is at best suggestive, it will ultimately convince few."[8]
Kristian Larsson discusses the concept of intertextual density and its application in what MacDonald views as one of the most convincing cases of Markan imitation, namely the Cyclops – Circe complex inOdyssey 9-10 and the Gerasene demoniac story in Mark 5.[11]
David Litwa argues that problematic parts of MacDonald's thesis include that he construes both large ranges of similarity in addition to large range of difference as evidence for parallel, that he alters his parallels in order to make them more convincing like suggesting that Jesus walking on water is comparable to Athena and Hermes flying above water, that he has an inconsistent application of his own six criteria (where he often uses only one or two to establish parallel and thus relies largely on loose structural standards of similarity), and that he often has completely unconvincing parallels such as his comparison of Odysseus on a floating island to Jesus sitting in a boat that floats on water.[12]
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