What the heck is this?

What the heck is this?  Well, I've grown up in the christian tradition.  It's my culture and my heritage.  I wanted to take a fresh look at that heritage and figure out how it related to my place in the world.  What is so special about these stories that they are the foundations of my culture and what can I find in it that I can relate to today. Hence this study of the gospels.  I called it a literary look because I'm more interested in what the authors were trying to say than what is literal or what the "facts" of the stories are.  What I would like to do is try to focus on what the authors wanted to convey.  Who were they writing to?  What was the context?  Why did they tell their stories in the way that they did.  Of course, I know so very little of the authors and the people they were writing for.  I come with my own cultural background, preconceptions and bias.  However hopefully by trying the identify my bias and ignorance, I can minimize it.  As well, I am hoping that by doing this as a blog, that others more knowledgeable about first century history may be willing to enlighten me, answer some of my questions, or point out some of my biases.

Talking of biases, let me say a little bit about myself.  I am not a New Testament scholar or student of religion.  I did do a Bachelors of Arts.  I majored in History, but that was mainly an excuse to dabble across the humanities taking a number of Literature courses, Psychology and Sociology.  My literature studies have encouraged a habit of looking for themes, metaphor, allusions and the other tricks of writing.  My studies in history have impressed upon me the importance of understanding the perspective of the author.  We put a lot of emphasis on understanding the background and culture of the historians we read in order to appreciate their prejudices and the slant they took on the events they discusses compared with other historians from different periods and different schools of thought.

I must also confess that I have been impressed by Marcus Borg's non-literal and literary focus on the books of the Bible in a number of his books.  I would like to use a similar lens with my own examination.