Simulating Jesus Reality Effects in the Gospels

Can the different pictures of Jesus in the New Testament be reconciled? Or are they simply simulations, the products of a virtual Gospel? 'Simulating Jesus' argues that the gospels do not represent four versions of one Jesus story but rather four distinct narrative simulacra, each of which is named "Jesus". The book explores the theory and evidence justifying this claim and discusses its practical and theological consequences. The simulations of Jesus in each of the gospels are analysed and placed alongside Jesus simulacra elsewhere in the Bible and contemporary popular culture. 'Simulating Jesus' offers a radical understanding of Scripture that will be of interest to students and scholars of biblical studies.

Preface Part One: Virtual Bible, Virtual Gospel Chapter One: Virtuality and the Bible Chapter Two: The Simulation of Jesus, and the Virtual Gospel Part Two: Four Jesuses Chapter Three: Matthew's Gospel According to Pasolini Chapter Four: Child and Kingdom: On Some Unsettling Language in the Gospel of Mark Chapter Five: Dark Conception: The Two Fathers of Luke's Jesus Chapter Six: John Simulates the Anti-Simulacrum: Reading Jesus Writing Part Three: Canonical Reality Effects Chapter Seven: The Possibility of Error: Minority Report and the Synoptic Gospels Chapter Eight: Fantasy and the Synoptic Problem: The 'Minor Agreements' of Matthew and Luke against Mark Chapter Nine: Luke and John, and the Simulation of Christ Chapter Ten: The Virtual Gospel and the Canonical Control of Meaning

George Aichele is Professor in the Department of Religion and Philosophy at Adrian College, Michigan (retired).