Funny story : religious fiction as twenty-first century midrash

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Funny story : religious fiction as twenty-first century midrash Salomons, Michelle K. V.

Abstract

This thesis examines the role of fictional portrayals of Gospel material specifically the humorous novel Lamb: the Gospel According to Biff, Christ's Childhood Pal by Christoper Moore. This thesis place the novel within the body of Rewritten Bible midrash as studied by Philip S., Alexander. The second chapter identifies the criteria of Rewritten Bible midrash, positioned alongside traditional rabbinical Midrash. Later chapters of this thesis are comprised of an analysis of the novelist's Afterword and novel using Alexander's criteria feminist and literary criticism. The final chapter of this thesis addresses the convergence of humour and faith in Lamb. There is a dearth of scholarly material on humour in faith, especially in Christianity. The last section of this thesis explores of the work of M. Conrad Hyers and Robert Darden, providing a meta-analysis on the roots of religious humour, and concludes that a humorous approach to faith to faith is a theological imperative in the twenty-first century.

Item Metadata

Title	Funny story : religious fiction as twenty-first century midrash
Creator	Salomons, Michelle K. V.
Contributor	Vancouver School of Theology
Date Issued	2012-04
Description	This thesis examines the role of fictional portrayals of Gospel material specifically the humorous novel Lamb: the Gospel According to Biff, Christ's Childhood Pal by Christoper Moore. This thesis place the novel within the body of Rewritten Bible midrash as studied by Philip S., Alexander. The second chapter identifies the criteria of Rewritten Bible midrash, positioned alongside traditional rabbinical Midrash. Later chapters of this thesis are comprised of an analysis of the novelist's Afterword and novel using Alexander's criteria feminist and literary criticism. The final chapter of this thesis addresses the convergence of humour and faith in Lamb. There is a dearth of scholarly material on humour in faith, especially in Christianity. The last section of this thesis explores of the work of M. Conrad Hyers and Robert Darden, providing a meta-analysis on the roots of religious humour, and concludes that a humorous approach to faith to faith is a theological imperative in the twenty-first century.
Genre	Thesis/Dissertation
Type	Text
Language	eng
Date Available	2014-03-31
Provider	Vancouver : University of British Columbia Library
Rights	Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.5 Canada
DOI	10.14288/1.0103029
URI	http://hdl.handle.net/2429/46298
Affiliation	Non UBC
Peer Review Status	Unreviewed
Scholarly Level	Graduate
Rights URI	http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/2.5/ca/
Aggregated Source Repository	DSpace

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