-
Views
-
Cite
Cite
Jed Wyrick, Recueils normatifs et canons dans l'Antiquité: Perspectives nouvelles sur la formation des canons juif et chrétien dans leur contexte culturel. Edited by Enrico Norelli. Pp. 195. (Publications de l'Institut Romand des Sciences Bibliques, 3.) Lausanne: Éditions du Zèbre, 2004. isbn 2 940351 02 3. Paper n.p, The Journal of Theological Studies, Volume 56, Issue 2, October 2005, Pages 586–590, https://doi.org/10.1093/jts/fli145
Close - Share Icon Share
Extract
This volume originated in a colloquium (La Bible à la croisée des savoirs) held at the University of Geneva in April 2002. It consists of a broad-ranging discussion of collections of texts in hellenistic, Roman, Jewish, and Christian cultures. One strength of the volume lies in its de-familiarization of the concept of canon. Many of the recent explorations of canon and canonization have debated how one ought to define these terms, or have expressed doubt that participants in the conversation about canons are speaking about the same thing. But the choice of subject in the present work, ‘normative collections’ (recueils normatifs), better allows the essayists to approach the notion of ‘canon’, for the very reason that it touches a more basic and prior cultural phenomenon—the existence of assemblages of texts (or, indeed, of any kind of information) that have a certain exemplary status. Granted, one might argue that the notion of ‘normativity’ isn't any less problematic than ‘canon’ or even ‘authoritativeness’. Fortunately, none of the essays really makes an effort to specify what is normative about the collections they examine, even if the title of the volume makes this claim on their behalf.
