# Bios ### The genre of the Gospels

## Biblical genres 

## Biblical genres - History (Judges) - Law (Leviticus) - Wisdom (Ecclesiastes) - Psalms (Song of Solomon) - Prophecy (Isaiah) - Apocalyptic (Daniel) - Epistle (Romans) - Bios (Matthew)

## Bios "Lives" was seen as very important literature during ancient times. Scholars today consider bios a genre encompassing New Testament and Greco-Roman literary criticism. Examples include: - Plutarch, *Lives of Famous Greeks and Romans* - Tacitus, *"Life of Julius"* - Lucian, *Life of Demonax"* - Philo, *Life of Moses* - Philostratus, *Life of Apollonius*

## Bios and Biography A modern biography can be presented hundreds or thousands of years after the fact: *Muhammed*, Karen Armstrong 

## Bios vs Biography A biography tries to "get at" the real individual. A bios was not written a means to an individual self but against the social backdrop of family and community. What is highlighted is their, "character, achievements and lasting significance" while at the same time deliberately setting them up as a public example.

## Bios Purpose Charles Talbert has proposed a typology based exclusively on five possible functions of biography: - (1) to provide a pattern to copy, - (2) to replace a false with a true image of the teacher worthy of emulation, - (3) to discredit a teacher, - (4) to indicate where authentic tradition is to be found, and - (5) to validate or provide an interpretive key to a teachers doctrine.

## Bios The bios or life examines a particular individual’s achievements, sayings, teachings, and lives worthy of emulation.

## Example 1: Lucian, Life of Demonax *IT was in the book of Fate that even this age of ours should not be destitute entirely of noteworthy and memorable men, but produce a body of extraordinary power, and a mind of surpassing wisdom. My allusions are to Sostratus the Boeotian, whom the Greeks called, and believed to be, Heracles; and more particularly to the philosopher Demonax. I saw and marvelled at both of them, and with the latter I long consorted.*

*I have written of Sostratus elsewhere 1, and described his stature and enormous strength, his open-air life on Parnassus, sleeping on the grass and eating what the mountain afforded, the exploits that bore out his surname--robbers exterminated, rough places made smooth, and deep waters bridged.*

## Example 2: Philo, Life of Moses I have conceived the idea of writing the life of Moses, who, according to the account of some persons, was the lawgiver of the Jews, but according to others only an interpreter of the sacred laws, the greatest and most perfect man that ever lived, having a desire to make his character fully known to those who ought not to remain in ignorance respecting him, (2) for the glory of the laws which he left behind him has reached over the whole world, and has penetrated to the very furthest limits of the universe; and those who do really and truly understand him are not many, perhaps partly out of envy...*

## Philo, Life of Moses *..or else from the disposition so common to many persons of resisting the commands which are delivered by lawgivers in different states, since the historians who have flourished among the Greeks have not chosen to think him worthy of mention...*

## Philo, Life of Moses *(3) the greater part of whom have both in their poems and also in their prose writings, disparaged or defaced the powers which they have received through education, composing comedies and works full of Sybaritish profligacy and licentiousness to their everlasting shame, while they ought rather to have employed their natural endowments and abilities in preserving a record of virtuous men and praiseworthy lives, so that honourable actions, whether ancient or modern, might not be buried in silence, and thus have all recollection of them lost, while they might shine gloriously if duly celebrated;* ## Philo, Life of Moses

*...and that they might not themselves have seemed to pass by more appropriate subjects, and to prefer such as were unworthy of being mentioned at all, while they were eager to give a specious appearance to infamous actions, so as to secure notoriety for disgraceful deeds.*

## Philo, Life of Moses *(4) But I disregard the envious disposition of these men, and shall proceed to narrate the events which befell him, having learnt them both from those sacred scriptures which he has left as marvellous memorials of his wisdom, and having also heard many things from the elders of my nation, for I have continually connected together what I have heard with what I have read, and in this way I look upon it that I am acquainted with the history of his life more accurately than other people.*

## What do you notice?

## Philostratus, Life of Apollonius *The votaries of Pythagoras of Samos have this story to tell of him, that he was not an Ionian at all, but that, once on a time in Troy, he had been Euphorbus, and that he had come to life after death, but had died as the songs of Homer relate. And they say that he declined to wear apparel made from dead animal products and, to guard his purity, abstained from all flesh diet, and from the offering of animals in sacrifice.*

*For that he would not stain the altars with blood; nay, rather the honey-cake and frankincense and the hymn of praise, these they say were the offerings made to the Gods by this man, who realized that they welcome such tribute more than they do the hecatombsnote and the knife laid upon the sacrificial basket.*

*For they say that he had of a certainty social intercourse with the gods, and learnt from them the conditions under which they take pleasure in men or are disgusted, and on this intercourse he based his account of nature.*

*For he said that, whereas other men only make conjectures about divinity and make guesses that contradict one another concerning it, - in his own case he said that Apollo had come to him acknowledging that he was the god in person; and that Athena and the Muses and other gods, whose forms and names men did not yet know, had also consorted with him though without making such acknowledgment.*

*And the followers of Pythagoras accepted as law any decisions communicated by him, and honored him as an emissary from Zeus, but imposed, out of respect for their divine character, a ritual silence on themselves. For many were the divine and ineffable secrets which they had heard, but which it was difficult for any to keep who had not previously learnt that silence also is a mode of speech.*

## What do you notice?

## Review - Bios is a literary genre - It is different from modern biography - It's purpose is to showcase a teacher or virtuous person worthy of emulation - It has social significance

## Gospel of Mark > A beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ, Son of God.

## Reflection How does Mark: - (1) to provide a pattern to copy, - (2) to replace a false with a true image of the teacher worthy of emulation, - (3) to discredit a teacher, - (4) to indicate where authentic tradition is to be found, and - (5) to validate or provide an interpretive key to a teachers doctrine.