Browsing by Author "Borglin, Fredrik"

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Förhärdad eller Förmänskligad? Hur evangelisten Matteus bearbetat evangelisten Markus bild av Judas Iskariot
(2017-03-22) Borglin, Fredrik; University of Gothenburg/Department of Literature, History of Ideas, and Religion; Göteborgs universitet/Institutionen för litteratur, idéhistoria och religion
Judas Iscariot is an intriguing figure: Both one of Jesus’ twelve closest disciples and the one who turned him over to the Roman and Jewish authorities, at the same time a figure who seems to have played a crucial role in the passion narrative and consequently in the founding of Christianity, and one of the most despised characters in human history. Judas Iscariot is an intriguing figure, and so is today the research concerning him, his deed, and the development of the characterization of him. With the help of a variety of exegetical tools, the aim of this thesis is to establish a systematical clarification of the similarities and differences between the pictures of Judas drawn in the Gospels of Mark and Matthew, respectively. With the supposition that Matthew used Mark’s Gospel as one of his sources, as is suggested by the Two-Source and the Farrer hypotheses, this study starts with a close examination of how Judas Iscariot is depicted in the Gospel of Mark. Thereafter this picture is compared with the picture of Judas drawn in the Gospel of Matthew. This study shows that the picture of Judas in Matthew reveals six tendencies in comparison with the picture of Judas in Mark: First and foremost a tendency to preserve is easily discernable, and along with this five creative tendencies: (1) To separate Judas from the other disciples and to disparage Jesus’ election of the apostles, (2) to darken the picture of Judas, (3) to clarify difficulties, (4) to develope the Judas character and (5) to connect Judas and descriptions of him to the Old Testament. In comparison with Mark's depiction of Judas, Matthew can therefore in no way be said to simply darken the picture of Judas, as some have stated, but rather to develop the characterization of him in a multitude of ways.
Den Jordiske Fadern. Bilden av Josef i barndomsberättelserna i Matteus och Lukas
(2015-01-27) Borglin, Fredrik; Göteborgs universitet/Institutionen för litteratur, idéhistoria och religion; University of Gothenburg/Department of Literature, History of Ideas, and Religion
The purpose of this study is to investigate how the authors of Matthew and Luke describe Joseph; The main aim is to see how the picture of him is drawn in the infancy narratives of their respective Gospels; what unites, and what distinguishes the pictures of the two evangelists' account of Joseph, as a character and as a father. With the help of both textual and grammatical criticism, this study investigates - pericope by pericope - different aspects of Joseph's participation in the infancy narratives of Matthew and Luke; his relationship to the child and the mother, the terms used to describe him, and his overall modus operandi. This essay builds its structure upon the individual study of each pericope, with the aim of painting a general and summarized picture. From the outset of already formulated uniting characteristics of the two gospels, as stated in Raymond E Brown's The Birth of the Messiah this study proposes that more can be said about the common features of Matthew and Luke, especially concerning Joseph's both character and relation to the child. First, this study suggests that both Matthew and Luke describe Joseph as the legal father of Jesus; second, both evangelists seems to describe Joseph as observant of Jewish law and custom. The main impression of the two evangelists' birth narratives is however the differences concerning the description of Joseph. This study shows that there is one major common feature: the ambivalence evident in the evangelists' way of describing Joseph. On the one hand, both Matthew and Luke prescribe Joseph some importance; Matthew by describing Joseph and letting him act, Luke by calling him father and parent. On the other hand, both Matthew and Luke wishes to limit the importance of Joseph; Matthew by never calling Joseph father or parent, and by using ways of expression and word order that indicates the opposite of a close relationship; Luke by letting Joseph become an overall absent figure – especially when compared to other charachters in the narrative. All this combined indicates the already mentioned ambivalence, which in turn points towards a knowledge of Jesus' later speeches of his heavenly father already in the infancy narratives.
“Vi är sådana som vi är”. Hur kvinnor i fyra euripideiska dramer beskriver sig själva och sin tillvaro.
(2017-01-18) Borglin, Fredrik; University of Gothenburg/Department of Languages and Literatures; Göteborgs universitet/Institutionen för språk och litteraturer
This study took its starting-point in a remark made by the scholar Donald J Mastronarde, who points out how Euripides differ from other dramatists of his age by letting female characters analyze, criticize and generalize. Based on this remark, the assumption was made that female characters in Euripides plays would be able to perform universal statements about women and women's living-conditions. To investigate if this assumption is true, and if so, what women it is that perform these statements, and the content of them, this study was carried out. With the help of two methods from the branch of exegetics, this study closely investigates all lines spoken by women in the four oldest surviving plays of Euripides: Alcestis, Medea, Heraclidae and Hippolytos. With the help of commentaries and other studies all lines where women are expressing universal statements concerning women and womenʼs livingconditions were closely analyzed. The result of this study shows that the assumption concerning womenʼs ability to perform universal statements about themselves and their lives are correct. Moreover, this study shows that all four plays here studied contain female characters performing this sort of statements, that these characters represent different “types” of women (such as nurses, choirs and named women) but that named women are the type most often occurring, and that in sum 80% of the female characters utter universal statements concerning women and their living-conditions. This study also shows how these statements can be divided into four subgroups, based on if they describe womenʼs character, how womenʼs behaviour is, how womenʼs behaviour should be, and womens living-conditions. This study also shows that almost all statements describe women and their living-conditions negatively, and that all statements either describe women connected to their home and role as wife and mother, or describe them in a way that displays them as unfit for (full) participation in and the governing of society. This study also shows, last but not least, that Euripides enables women in his plays to perform universal utterances concerning women and the conditions under which they live. This, combined with what we already know through earlier research, seems to indicate that in the plays of Euripides there is a will to display how society looks upon and treats women and, a wish to challenge those things that limit the life of women.