From: David B. Gowler (DGOWLER@micah.chowan.edu)
Date: Mon Aug 28 1995 - 13:01:24 EDT
Carl W. Conrad wrote, in part:
> One other reflection that is purely speculative but perhaps worth
> mentioning. The incident of the mock coronation in the passion narrative
> has struck me as a dramatic & ritual motif more than any other; wasn't
> there some such humiliation of the king in the Babylonian New Year ritual?
> Also, it is a scene a little bit like the selection of Claudius by the
> Praetorian Guard to be emperor, perhaps originally just a playful jest that
> was soon ratified in fact. I should check into Suetonius' account of the
> death of Caligula or see what other sources for this there are, as my
> strongest memory of it is shaped by Robert Graves' marvelous historical
> novel, _I Claudius_.
I find the various comparative possibilities intriguing also.
Vernon Robbins, for example, mentions the Sacian (also "Sacaean")
Festival -- we know more about its Persian components, but it
did have Babylonian roots -- in his article, "The Reversed
Contextualization of Psalm 22 in the Markan Crucifixion," in _The
Four Gospels 1992_ (Festschrift for Neirynck). Raymond Brown
pulls together many possibilities for this imagery of mocking
in his _The Death of the Messiah_. He breaks them down into
"Historical Incidents," "Games of Mockery," "Theatrical Mimes,"
and "Carnival" (in its classical sense, e.g., the Saturnalia). I
don't think he mentions Claudius, however. Interesting idea, but
my memory is overshadowed by Graves' work as well, so I can't
comment on that.
Actually, all four components mentioned by Brown could be
categorized as having aspects of "carnivalistic" elements (in
the classical sense).
As a side note to the recent posting on the $$$ of Nota Bene
(which I will place here, instead of in a separate note). The
price is greatly reduced at the AAR/SBL Meeting -- if you can't
make it there, get someone you know to send you the reduced price
order form (it's good for about a month after the Meeting). That
makes it MUCH more affordable. And the various aspects biblical
scholars need are already there for you; you don't have to piece
them together yourself. A new program, in addition to all the
ones mentioned before, like Orbis, Ibid, Morphos, CCAT texts,
etc., allows access to on-line library catalogs (I don't have
that program yet, so I don't know how well it works). There are
also no copyright problems, and you will have plenty of room to
expand to what you might need later. One note: Nota Bene takes
a lot of memory to run all of its programs.
David
********************************
David B. Gowler
Associate Professor of Religion
Director, Writing Across the Curriculum
Chowan College
dgowler@micah.chowan.edu
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