Journal for the Study of the Historical Jesus

 

Advanced Search

Journal Navigation

Journal Home

Subscriptions

Archive

Contact Us

Table of Contents

Register here to gain access to SAGE's 500+ Journals Online

Click here to sign up for SAGE Journal Email Alerts today!

Sign In to gain access to subscriptions and/or personal tools.
This Article
Right arrow Full Text (PDF)
Right arrow Alert me when this article is cited
Right arrow Alert me if a correction is posted
Services
Right arrow Email this article to a friend
Right arrow Similar articles in this journal
Right arrow Alert me to new issues of the journal
Right arrow Add to Saved Citations
Right arrow Download to citation manager
Right arrowRequest Permissions
Right arrow Request Reprints
Right arrow Add to My Marked Citations
Citing Articles
Right arrow Citing Articles via Google Scholar
Google Scholar
Right arrow Articles by Crook, Z.
Right arrow Search for Related Content
Social Bookmarking
Add to CiteULike   Add to Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us   Add to Digg   Add to Reddit   Add to Technorati  
What's this?
Journal for the Study of the Historical Jesus, Vol. 5, No. 1, 33-55 (2007)
DOI: 10.1177/1476869006074935

Fictionalizing Jesus: Story and History in Two Recent Jesus Novels

Zeba Crook

Carleton University, Ottawa, ON, Canada, zeba_crook{at}carleton.ca

From canonical and extra-canonical gospels to the modern phenomenon of the ‘Jesus novel’, people have been fictionalizing Jesus by filling in gaps in the historical and narrative record. This essay inaugurates a field of inquiry by contrasting two recent novels, Norman Mailer’s The Gospel According to the Son (1997) and Nino Ricci’s Testament (2002). In particular it examines how each of the novels depicts the role and character of Judas Iscariot, the question of Jesus’ performance of miracles, as well as how each novel depicts Jesus. In all, the remarkable historical plausibility of these novels, or parts of them, raises the very interesting issue of the relationship between story and history, between fiction and history.

Key Words: fiction • historical fiction • historical Jesus • historiography • Judas Iscariot • miracles • non-canonical gospels


Add to CiteULike CiteULike   Add to Connotea Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us Del.icio.us   Add to Digg Digg   Add to Reddit Reddit   Add to Technorati Technorati    What's this?