Matthew E. Gordley explore comment les textes et la musique anciens façonnent notre compréhension du monde. Son travail se penche sur les liens profonds entre la foi, la philosophie et l'expression artistique, découvrant des vérités intemporelles dans des chants oubliés. Les lecteurs peuvent s'attendre à des analyses captivantes qui éclairent des contextes historiques et culturels complexes.
We know that the earliest Christians sang hymns. But are some of these early Christian hymns preserved for us in the New Testament? Matthew Gordley takes a new look at didactic hymns in the Greco-Roman and Jewish world of the early church, considering how they might function in the New Testament and what they could tell us about early Christian worship.
The suggestion that the New Testament contains citations of early Christological hymns has long been a controversial issue in New Testament scholarship. As a way of advancing this facet of New Testament research, Matthew E. Gordley examines the Colossian hymn (Col 1:15-20) in light of its cultural and epistolary contexts. As a result of a broad comparative analysis, he claims that Col 1:15-20 is a citation of a prose-hymn which represents a fusion of Jewish and Greco-Roman conventions for praising an exalted figure. A review of hymns in the literature of Second Temple Judaism demonstrates that the Colossian hymn owes a number of features to Jewish modes of praise. Likewise, a review of hymns in the broader Greco-Roman world demonstrates that the Colossian hymn is equally indebted to conventions used for praising the divine in the Greco-Roman tradition. In light of these hymnic traditions of antiquity, the analysis of the form and content of the Colossian hymn shows how the passage fits well into a Greco-Roman context, and indicates that it is best understood as a quasi-philosophical prose-hymn cited in the context of a paraenetic letter. Finally, in view of ancient epistolary and rhetorical theory and practice, an analysis of the role of the hymn in Colossians suggests that the hymn serves a number of significant rhetorical functions throughout the remainder of the letter.
Didactic Hymnody among Greeks, Romans, Jews, and Christians
While scholars of antiquity have long spoken of didactic hymns, no single volume has defined or explored this phenomenon across cultural boundaries in antiquity. In this monograph Matthew E. Gordley provides a broad definition of didactic hymnody and examines how didactic hymns functioned at the intersection of historical circumstances and the needs of a given community to perceive itself and its place in the cosmos and to respond accordingly. Comparing the use of didactic hymnody in a variety of traditions, this study illuminates the multifaceted ways that ancient hymns and psalms contributed to processes of communal formation among the human audiences that participated in the praise either as hearers or active participants. The author finds that in Greek, Roman, Jewish, and Christian contexts, many hymns and prayers served a didactic role fostering the ongoing development of a sense of identity within particular communities.