Biblical Performance Cricism and John 8:31-36: Idenfying Oral Features and their Translaon into a Contemporary Context 1 Jonathan van den Broek and Lynell Zogbo Introducon In the early part of the 20 th century biblical scholars began to examine texts, especially from the Old Testament, from a new perspecve and suggested that many of our sacred texts also had oral tradions. A considerable amount of research has been carried out in this domain, heavily influencing exegesis and leading to various types of ‘performances’ of biblical texts 2 . Studies on orality and oral performance in the early church have led to the emergence of a new domain of study called Biblical Performance Cricism (BPC, see Rhoads, 2006; Maxey, 2007; Wendland, 2008; Maxey and Wendland, 2012). This newly recognized sub-field of biblical cricism is wide in scope and, for many, offers great appeal. It acknowledges the oral/scribal culture of Judaism and early Chrisanity and interprets the text in the context of the culture in which it was wrien. Thus it respects the alterity of the source cultures and may result in a more ethical treatment of the text “…by allowing their narraves to be read in the light of their original cultural contexts and according to their own logic” (Zimmermann, 2013:35) At the very least, biblical performance cricism suggests intriguing hypotheses concerning the impact of source texts on source cultures. In so doing, it allows modern day exegetes and translators to beer interpret, translate and perform these texts today. By “re-imagining” ancient Israel and the early church as predominantly oral cultures and construcng scenarios of supposed performances (Maxey, 2012: 2, 16), BPC can widen and re-orient our understanding of a text, for example, providing new exegecal ‘takes’ 3 and giving insight into the possible emoonal impact of a text. It can also help translators produce livelier, and arguably, more ‘faithful’ renderings of a given source text. Thus BPC “… is especially helpful in promong contemporary performances that remain linked (in some way) to these ancient performances” (Maxey, ibid:8) Given the ancient world’s high regard for the art of rhetoric (Liau, 2011:1), it can be assumed that author-composers made stylisc and other choices based, not only on meaning and content, but also on the impact that sound, form and structures would have on the audience. Thus Biblical Performance Cricism provides an interesng framework for analysing biblical texts, idenfying features related to oral performance and possibly leading to more pernent translaons (whether wrien or oral). However, research and claims of Biblical Performance Cricism have not gone uncontested. Much debate has arisen as to the reality of ‘performance’ as the primary means of communicaon of Scripture in ancient cultures (as purported by Rhoads, ibid 2006: 126). Many other underpinnings of the movement have also been quesoned (Hurtado, 2014). For example, not everyone believes with Rhoads (2006:118) that 95% of first century Chrisans received the message of the New Testament orally. 1 We wish to thank Cynthia and Jacobus Naudé for encouraging us to pursue the topic of Biblical Performance Cricism and Ernst Wendland for comments on this paper. Of course any shortcomings remain our responsibility. 2 These include oral performances of biblical texts by people such as David Rhoads (in a film by Botha, hps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ulIfpF-YcoM or hps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=48YWFNWvzK0 ) and Tom Boomershine (as experienced firsthand by UBS parcipants in at workshop at Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe in 1992). 3 Maxey (2012: 2, 16) goes so far as to consider “performance itself as one methodology of exegesis”. 1