A few hours ago my oldest daughter and I returned home from Disneys Phineas and Ferb: The Best

Live Tour Ever! At one point toward the end of the show, as Perry the Platypus and the evil Dr. Doofenshmirtz were engaged in their standard climactic battle, something interesting happened. Perry and Dr. Doofenshmirtz were doing their choreographed, pseudo-karate moves as the lights flashed around them. Suddenly, somehow, both of them had lighted swords that, in another context, would have looked like lightsabers, and the combatants switched from staged punches and kicks to staged thrusts and parries. At the same time, the typical Phineas-and-Ferb style alternative rock music faded just a bit, and over top of the heavily distorted guitars came the sounds of John Williamss Star Wars music. In the end, of course, Perry was victorious and Dr. Doofenshmirtz was vanquished. The sights and sounds of the show caught my interest for a couple of reasons that are relevant for this book. First, the multisensory allusion to the Star Wars epic gave added depth to what everyone in the audience already knew: the battle between Perry and Doofenshmirtz was a battle between good and evil. Second, for the parents in the audience who grew up in the shadow of the war between the Rebel Alliance and the Galactic Empire, the allusion enabled us to join our children and experience (at least part of) the show from the vantage of our childhood. Third, the duel between Perry and

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Doofenshmirtz did not call to my mind a particular scene from any of the six Star Wars movies; it summoned the entire Star Wars epic all at once (and, I should add, in just a couple of seconds). Fourth, judging from the reaction of the kids in the audience, anyone who did not pick up the allusion (my daughter didnt) nevertheless continued to enjoy the show despite not having access to this added depth. And finally, fifth, watching Perry and Doofenshmirtz parry and thrust their lightsabers raised some fairly odd questions, especially: Is Dr. Doofenshmirtz Perry the Platypuss father? All of this from two lighted swords and a couple of measures of familiar music! The writers and choreographers of Phineas and Ferb: The Best Live Tour Ever! managed to creatively interweave their narrative of a crime-fighting platypus into the larger cultural tradition of good and evil embodied in the Star Wars space epic. No one needed them to explain why they included the allusion, nor did anyone need them to explain what it meant. It just worked, because the writers creatively included traditional material into their musical score and their choreography and because the audience was prepared to interpret their intention. This book argues that something similar happened for the earliest Christians when they gathered to tell stories from and about Jesus, to hear the old sacred traditions about Moses, David, and the prophets recounted, or to witness a public performance of a letter from Paul or James or Peter. When Mark tells us that the Spirit of God cast out (ekball) Jesus into the wilderness to be tested by the satan, that unusual wordekball opened a window onto a much larger traditional world. Like a lightsaber in the hands of a giant green platypus, the connection with a larger, encompassing tradition added a layer of meaning to the narrative.1 The allusion is subtle, and certainly some of Marks readers

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would have missed it. But that hardly matters. The allusion is there, for those with ears to hear. The twentieth century saw a massive rise of interest in oral tradition and the New Testament. Early in the century, the form criticsespecially Martin Dibelius and Rudolf Bultmannwere largely responsible for raising the issue, but by the end of the century most students of the NT were dissatisfied with how they handled the dynamics and consequences of oral tradition. In the second half of the century, interdisciplinary research from Homeric studies, cultural anthropology, and other fields offered alternative ways to address questions of oral tradition. In the 1980s and 90s,
NT

scholars began to take in-

creasingly sophisticated account of these alternative ways, especially in the wake of Werner Kelbers seminal book, The Oral and the Written Gospel (1983). The explosion of media-critical work has not only continued but accelerated in the first decade-plus of the twenty-first century. This book sets out to introduce the basic elements of
NT

media criticism, which I

define as the analysis of the function and dynamics of various media of communication (speech, writing, ritual, etc.), and especially of the significance of shifts from one medium to another (e.g., from oral to written expression). I have tried to provide broad discussions of the field. Even so, at every step I provide analytical and evaluative discussions rather than providing disinterested, objective summaries of the current state of
NT

media criticism. In other words, this book is more than an introduction to NT media criticism. It is also my proposal for the future agenda of NT media criticism. A number of people have been helpful at various stages of the production of this book. Dominic Mattos was receptive to the idea of a volume on oral tradition in the

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Guides for the Perplexed series when I pitched it to him in Atlanta at an SBL Annual Meeting. Timothy Gombis and James Crossley, both of whom contributed their own Guides for the Perplexed (Gombis 2010; Crossley 2010), helped me think about what an introduction to oral tradition and the NT should look like. The editorial staff at T&T Clark International, especially Caitlin Flynn, has been remarkably flexible when I had to push back a deadline once or twice (or thrice!). I would like to thank Chris Davis and the administration of Johnson University for my Sabbatical during the Fall 2012 term; the majority of this volume was written during that time. The library staff at Johnson University, especially Jon Hale and Heidi Berryhill, have answered my every request for any article or book, and they have always done so cheerily. Lydia Wade worked through nearly the entire manuscript and provided invaluable assistance preparing the manuscript. I should also mention that, late in the production of this volume, I learned of Eric Eves forthcoming volume, Behind the Gospels: Understanding the Oral Tradition (SPCK). Unfortunately, I was not able to take account of Erics work, but he graciously supplied me with a pre-publication copy of his manuscript. Of course, the lions share of my appreciation goes to my wife, Andrea, and our daughters, Janelle and Josephina. They have often permitted me to linger at my computer when there were chores to be done, games to be played, homework to be completed, stories to be read, and so on. More importantly (and more often), they have not let me linger at my computer when the chores, games, homework, and stories beckoned. Their persistence makes me the husband and father I am, and if the quality of this book suffers just a little bit (and hopefully no more than just a little bit), I am fine with that.

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On Saturday, 22 September 2012, my sister Rikki Erin Bera (ne Sommervold) finished her fight with cancer. She was twenty-nine years old, which is much too young. I dedicate this book to her memory. Rafael Rodrguez Johnson University 15 February 2013
1

See the discussion of Mark 1.12 in Chapter 5, below.