Farrell, Thomas2019-12-262019-12-262019-12This version was not previously published.https://hdl.handle.net/11299/209988See the abstract above and the subject key words above.In my 10,775-word review essay "M. David Litwa's 2019 Book About the Gospels and Walter J. Ong's Thought," I provide a detailed overview of the contents of Litwa's book How the Gospels Became History: Jesus and Mediterranean Myths (Yale University Press, 2019). I also discuss Pope Francis' claim that the gospel message is trans-cultural (in his 2013 apostolic exhortation, paragraph 117). However, because Litwa claims to be examining discursive practices in the ancient Mediterranean world, I also discuss certain other relevant scholarly studies of discursive practices in the ancient world that Litwa does not happen to advert to explicitly -- by Walter J. Ong, Albert B. Lord, Eric A. Havelock, Marcel Jousse, Werner H. Kelber, and others.enMediterranean world, the gospels, discursive practices, commonplaces, the art of memory, orality, literacy, agonistic structures, the Fourth Gospel, the Nicene Creed, the Roman Catholic Church, Pope Francis, M. David Litwa, Walter J. Ong, Albert B. Lord, Eric A. Havelock, Marcel Jousse, Werner H. Kelber, Dennis R. MacDonaldScholarly Text or Essay