Critical and Edifying? a Historiography of Christian Biography
CRITICAL AND EDIFYING? A HISTORIOGRAPHY OF CHRISTIAN BIOGRAPHY by PATRICIA JANZEN LOEWEN B.A. The University of Manitoba, 1997 M.A. The University of Manitoba and the University of Winnipeg, 2000 A THESIS SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY in THE FACULTY OF GRADUATE STUDIES (Interdisciplinary Studies) THE UNIVERSITY OF BRITISH COLUMBIA (Vancouver) January 2009 © Patricia Janzen Loewen, 2008 ABSTRACT This dissertation argues that edifying dialogue is an appropriate and satisfying component of historically critical biography. It has been a part of biography. The edifying and critical intent is traced through pre-modern biography to demonstrate that this was the case in the Hebrew, Greek, Roman, Early Christian and Medieval eras. Key authors examined include the author(s) of the Pentateuch, the Gospel writers and the authors of the Biblical epistles, Herodotus, Polybius, Livy, Plutarch, Tacitus, Athanasius, Jerome, Sulpicius Severus, and John Capgrave. It can be a part of biography even given the challenges of contemporary theory posed by the extreme positions of positivism and postmodernism (or their chastened re-formulations). Important authors discussed in this section include Arthur Marwick, Keith Jenkins, David Harlan and Peter Novick. It is a part of some biographies meant for a particular audience (such as feminist works). And hopefully it will be increasingly looked upon as the preferred way of writing biography. My dissertation follows these stages. I begin with what biography has been and argue that the Greek and Roman historians believed that the intent of biography was critical and edifying. In fact, critical and edifying intent is notable also in Biblical and medieval biographies.
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