Abstract
Just as literary authors have long taken liberties with the biblical accounts of Jesus Christ and shaped Him to fit their own agendas, they have also appropriated considerable artistic licence in enhancing the meagre information about Peter in the New Testament when constructing fictional narratives about him. A comparison of The Big Fisherman by the theologically liberal American Congregationalist Lloyd C Douglas and Simon Peter the Fisherman by the Austrian Catholic Kurt Frieberger illustrates how two accomplished novelists, drawing in part on similar sources, created markedly different and to some extent predictable images of this apostle. Neither novel is fully faithful to the New Testament evidence; both evince the influence of extrabiblical sources.
Highlights
The immense international success of the film The Passion of the Christ (2004) is a vivid reminder that for many decades cinematography and modern literature have been the media through which large numbers of people in one culture after another have been informed about the origins of Christianity
ISSN 1609-9982 = VERBUM ET ECCLESIA JRG 30(1)2009 erstwhile fisherman became the first pope, literary artists in one country after another representing a broad spectrum of denominational traditions have found in him a fascinating subject to be explored
Rich the tradition surrounding Peter has become in the history of Christianity, the information about him in the four canonical gospels, the Acts of the Apostles, and a few of the New Testament epistles is relatively scant
Summary
Douglas (1877-1951) was nearing the end of his relatively long career as a littérateur when he penned The Big Fisherman[1]. The theological modernism which was proliferating in American Protestantism at that time left its mark on Douglas, who in 1911 abruptly resigned his pastorate and demitted the Lutheran ministry As his daughters recalled in their biography of him, “He didn’t believe what he was saying, and he didn’t know what he believed” (Dawson and Wilson 1953:59). He found a theologically amenable home in the more latitudinarian Congregational church and as a minister in that denomination served congregations in Ann Arbor, Akron, Los Angeles, and Montreal before leaving the pastoral ministry entirely in 1933 to devote his time almost exclusively to writing. The treatment of miraculous phenomena in the plot suggests that during the Second World War Douglas had moved theologically far from his earlier rationalistic dismissal of miracles and concomitant confidence in human rationality (Bode 1950:340-352; Hale 2007:310-329)
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a callDisclaimer: All third-party content on this website/platform is and will remain the property of their respective owners and is provided on "as is" basis without any warranties, express or implied. Use of third-party content does not indicate any affiliation, sponsorship with or endorsement by them. Any references to third-party content is to identify the corresponding services and shall be considered fair use under The CopyrightLaw.
