The Ancient Fable Tradition and Early Christian Literature

• Applicants: Justin Strong, Ph.D.; Professor Dr. Ruben Zimmermann
• Subject Area: Protestant Theology
• Term: since 2022
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 495720705

The project relates the fable literature of the Greek and Roman periods with early Christian writings. Although fable literature was discussed in Jülicher’s work, with few exceptions, fables have been ignored in New Testament studies since the beginning of the twentieth century. This was due, among other reasons, to a reductionist understanding of the fable genre (as an unrealistic animal story, which does not apply to many texts). Furthermore, since the historical Jesus is often regarded as the “inventor” of the parable genre, theological reasons have disinclined scholars from relativizing this special position. The project makes an innovative contribution to the literary-historical and genre-historical contextualization of early Christian texts through several subprojects.The project encompasses three foci: Macro-level: The Life of Aesop and Early Christian Gospels (Strong).The little comparative work done with fable materials extends also to macro-texts. Despite significant parallels with the Gospels, little attention has been paid to The Life of Aesop, which is also a marginal bios and has a similar literary-historical relationship between its many versions as the different Gospels. Between the multiple versions of a narrative biography and collections of individual fables, there is a striking parallel to Gospel writings, which attest to the same bios and collection forms. Applying the “open text” paradigm, this project will contribute to emerging debates in the Synoptic Problem, the genre(s), and transmission of the Gospels. The goal of the subproject is a monograph. Meso-level: Babrius and the New Testament (TBD – doctoral-level researcher)Babrius the fable author is essentially unknown to scholars of the ancient world, including even classicists, receiving only limited attention in the last ten years. The commonly assumed dates and location of authorship—the 1st-2nd century in Syria—together with internal data suggesting a Semitic milieu and a similar Koine to biblical Greek, demand an in-depth investigation. Babrius’ fables will be set in dialogue with early Christian texts, analyzing similar and diverging ethical norms, and several individual fables with early Christian parallels, e.g., The Fishnet (Fab. 4) cf. Mt 13:47–50 and The Body (Fab. 134) cf. 1 Cor 12. The aim of the project is a doctoral thesis (TBD) and individual articles (Zimmermann).Micro-level: Articles on individual topics within the horizon of the overall project, e.g., Ahiqar, slavery, non-violence, will be published in peer-reviewed journals or edited volumes.We apply established comparative methods, including tradition- and formgeschichte, genre criticism, and intertextuality, together with emerging approaches such as animal studies, communication-oriented genre theory, and narrative ethics. The project includes specialist workshops on genre, animal studies, and ethics.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants