Throughout much of Christian history, the church had predominant control over religious ritual and belief. As early as the 1st Century, institutions representing "orthodoxy" were banning, forbidding or destroying the "heretical", separating it from what eventually would become canon and religious practice. The 21st Century provides new ways for spiritual knowledge to spread, bypassing traditional methods. Modern Martin Luthers can nail a manifesto to an internet door while the media's obsession with non-canonical texts provides no shortage of material for movies and television. A multi-media barrage challenges orthodox concepts and scriptural definition, often blurring the line between religion and entertainment. The initial clash between the churches and media has evolved over the last century to a point where the media may now produce beneficial results, educating many who may have either left the church or never joined it.

Made available in DSpace on 2016-08-03T12:19:31Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Ricardo Boone.pdf: 426194 bytes, checksum: 51d13b2c05c4e6c0c726a1a68fdf640c (MD5) Previous issue date: 2013-09-19 / Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior / A literatura é um tipo de conhecimento que faz uso da palavra com a finalidade de projetar realidades possíveis. Para tanto, a mimese literária tem na experiência vivencial a verossimilhança que torna possível a apreensão da obra literária como fenômeno interpretativo. Nesse processo de composição, o gênero literário converte-se no conjunto de convenções que o autor se vale para fazer-se inteligível a seu público. As narrativas bíblicas e, em especial, o Evangelho Segundo São Mateus, possuem elementos que permitem sua leitura como obras literárias próprias da Antiguidade, cujas estratégias narrativas se mostram construtoras de representação verossímil da realidade. Para tanto, o narrador do Evangelho Segundo São Mateus utilizou-se daquelas convenções que se conformavam ao horizonte de expectativas de seu público e que articulam experiências advindas da literatura greco-romana e da literatura judaica. No caso da Paixão de Cristo Segundo São Mateus, o narrador empreende um conjunto de estratégias narrativas que favorecem sua condução da leitura da narrativa de acordo com sua perspectiva. Nesse processo, vale-se de uma estrutura que combina a biografia greco-romana àquela já consagrada na literatura bíblica. Dessa forma, a Paixão de Cristo nos é apresentada como parte final da história, numa perspectiva paradigmática e, ao mesmo tempo, como realização das Escrituras, que figuram e profetizam a respeito de Jesus e a natureza redimensionadora e universalizadora da salvação.

Made available in DSpace on 2016-08-03T12:19:32Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Ricardo Boone.pdf: 426194 bytes, checksum: 51d13b2c05c4e6c0c726a1a68fdf640c (MD5) Previous issue date: 2013-09-19 / Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior / Literature is a kind of knowledge that makes use of the word in order to project possible realities. Therefore, mimesis has in literary life experience verisimilitude that makes it possible to grasp the literary phenomenon as interpretive. In the process of composition, the literary genre becomes the set of conventions that the author uses to make himself intelligible to his audience. Biblical narratives and in particular, the Gospel According to St. Matthew, have elements that allow their own reading as literary works of antiquity, whose narrative strategies are shown construction of believable representation of reality. To this end, the narrator of the Gospel According to St. Matthew used those conventions that conformed to the horizon of expectations of your audience and articulate experiences arising from the Greco-Roman literature and Jewish literature. In the case of Christs Passion According to St. Matthew, the narrator undertakes a set of narrative strategies that favor its conduct of reading the narrative according to your perspective. In this process, it is a structure that combines the Greco-Roman biography to that already established in biblical literature. Thus, the Passion of Christ is presented as the final part of the story, a paradigmatic perspective and at the same time as carrying out the Scriptures, that appear and prophesy about Jesus and resizeing and universalizing nature of salvation. / A literatura é um tipo de conhecimento que faz uso da palavra com a finalidade de projetar realidades possíveis. Para tanto, a mimese literária tem na experiência vivencial a verossimilhança que torna possível a apreensão da obra literária como fenômeno interpretativo. Nesse processo de composição, o gênero literário converte-se no conjunto de convenções que o autor se vale para fazer-se inteligível a seu público. As narrativas bíblicas e, em especial, o Evangelho Segundo São Mateus, possuem elementos que permitem sua leitura como obras literárias próprias da Antiguidade, cujas estratégias narrativas se mostram construtoras de representação verossímil da realidade. Para tanto, o narrador do Evangelho Segundo São Mateus utilizou-se daquelas convenções que se conformavam ao horizonte de expectativas de seu público e que articulam experiências advindas da literatura greco-romana e da literatura judaica. No caso da Paixão de Cristo Segundo São Mateus, o narrador empreende um conjunto de estratégias narrativas que favorecem sua condução da leitura da narrativa de acordo com sua perspectiva. Nesse processo, vale-se de uma estrutura que combina a biografia greco-romana àquela já consagrada na literatura bíblica. Dessa forma, a Paixão de Cristo nos é apresentada como parte final da história, numa perspectiva paradigmática e, ao mesmo tempo, como realização das Escrituras, que figuram e profetizam a respeito de Jesus e a natureza redimensionadora e universalizadora da salvação.

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This dissertation explores the use of romance across religious poetry in late medieval England. Medieval devotional poems frequently borrow motifs and devices from romance; they might, for example, figure Jesus as a knight jousting with the devil or adopt the romance technique of interlace to narrate the Passion. Critics most frequently read these borrowings as a popularizing method, arguing that the poets of these religious texts turn to romance in order to appeal to their secular audience. I argue instead that late 14th century Middle English poets use romance to explore difficult theological paradoxes and Christian practices. In Pearl, the romance descriptio personae helps articulate the paradoxes of divine reward, at once hierarchical and egalitarian. In Piers Plowman, the romance incognito demonstrates the shifting and multivalent nature of the Trinity. In St. Erkenwald, the slow indulgence of romance wonder stands in contrast to God’s time, which is simultaneously immediate and drawn-out. In the Canterbury Tales, the romance parody of Thopas primes the reader for the prudential lessons of Melibee. This dissertation adds to a growing body of scholarship that reads medieval romance, and in particular Middle English romance, as a genre that does not simply entertain audiences but also interrogates, challenges, or reiterates medieval values and ideas. However, this project adds to current scholarship by examining romance out of its native context and inside or beside religious genres instead. In the first three chapters, I argue that by triggering a romantic reading, the Middle English poems Pearl, Piers Plowman, and St. Erkenwald enact and demonstrate the conceptual difficulties of certain theological paradoxes. In these poems, romance serves as a contemplative tool by demonstrating the reader’s comprehensive limits in the face of the divine. My fourth chapter, which explores Chaucer’s romance parody Sir Thopas alongside his pedagogical treatise Melibee, instead considers the Christian virtue of prudence; here, the exaggerated romance tropes of Sir Thopas prepare the pilgrims to pay penance prudentially by feeling and contemplating time in daily Christian life. While romance does not articulate a paradox about God in Thopas-Melibee, it still prompts contemplation about a difficult Christian virtue, prudence. In all four chapters, I find that romance serves as a vehicle for spiritual contemplation because of its own modes of thinking, whether that be social, economic, or temporal. Whether romance is set within or beside devotional texts, the secular genre allows the reader to contemplate difficult Christian theology and practices and to experience them as difficult in contemplation. Romance, I argue, is a critical tool in the vernacular theologian’s toolkit.

本論文企圖透過有史以來最受爭議的電影《受難記：最後的激情》（2004），探究「耶穌電影」與「反猶主義」之間的複雜關係。《受難記：最後的激情》是一部由著名演員梅爾吉伯遜所自行出資、製作與編導的典型「耶穌電影」，本片憑藉著鮮明寫實的銀幕形象與極度暴力的詮釋風格，在美國社會掀起前所未有的文化論戰與「反猶主義」爭議熱潮；儘管「耶穌類型」電影經常流露「反猶主義」傾向，唯本片卻是其中一個非常顯著而特殊的例子。 從一個基督論的分析觀點，本文企圖從本片呈現出來的銀幕形象背後，揭示本片如何大量取材具有反猶爭議的經典與非經典元素，並運用魔鬼化的敘述手法加以詮釋。此外，本文也將論析圍繞在本片製作、發行與映演過程中，所產生的宗教社群、基督教派與商業行銷延伸爭議，說明現今美國電影工業生態與保守社會氣氛如何渲染本片當中的反猶爭議。 透過《受難記：最後的激情》例證的考察，我們將會發現，由於「耶穌電影」通常不僅具有濃厚的基督宗教色彩，觸及基督宗教與猶太教的互動關係，也傳達刻板的「基督論」教義和神學，使得「耶穌電影」幾乎很難迴避「反猶主義」的指控，特別是在現今市場導向和宗教社群日益對立的情況之下。 / This dissertation proposes a discussion about the relationship between the Jesus film genre and anti-Semitism by exploring Mel Gibson’s film The Passion of the Christ (2004), which has been ranked as “the most controversial movie of all time”. The release of The Passion of the Christ has triggered an unprecedented controversy over anti-Semitism in the America. Individual and critical responses to the film have ranged from those who charge the director with pornographic violence or reviving anti-Semitism to others who found Gibson’s portrayal of Jesus to be profoundly moving and spiritually uplifting. Although Gibson claimed that The Passion of the Christ was faithful to the gospels and the gospels were faithful to history, there were still plenty of historical problems and non-biblical material, such as the stations of the cross, passion play and mysticism of the Middle Ages, seamlessly woven into the film narrative. After addressing problems inherent in The Passion of the Christ, this dissertation lies with an inquiry into the demonized narrative and anti-Semitic material behind the silver screen, viewed from a Christological perspective, and with the surrounding communal, denominational and commercial disputes which occur in the course of film production, distribution and exhibition.