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Israel's Scripture Traditions and the Synoptic Gospels: Story Shaping Story

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Swartley's text was certainly not without its own challenges and discoveries. This text is one of the few that I placed on the "read again" shelf in order to capture the full meaning and contribution to the ongoing discussion of how the Gospel authors influenced, shaped, structured and embodied the synoptic gospels in the shadow of remembered Jewish history found in the Hebrew canon. The mere challenge of this text was to understand and contemplate Swartley's findings in one sitting; the text is dense and rich in message. This book certainly invites the reader to the many layers of symbolism, remembered history and transformation encountered in the synoptics, while also possessing an intentional structure through a macro-narrative (gospel story itself) and micro-narrative (eg. Mark: sea, mountain and wilderness) method that yeilds meaning both contextually and internally. Swartley's hermeneutic asserts that the text of the synoptic gospels can be categorized by the themes of exodus-Sinai, way-conquest, temple and kingship. These categories reveal themselves in distinct and comparative ways, however, the fact that such themes are present and give shape to the literary structure of the synoptic texts gives convincing evidence that Jewish history did contribute in significant ways to the New Testament writings. For anyone interested in a challenging and enlightening text of the gospels, this is a must read!!