4 - Narrative Criticism
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 June 2012
Edited by
Summary
We refer to the wider discipline of studying the nature, form, and functioning of narrative texts as narratology, but in biblical studies a constellation of interests and a variety of practices in the study of narrative have consolidated under the heading of narrative criticism. As a mode of study, narrative criticism would seem to require little by way of justification, because the first five books of the New Testament (NT), the Gospels and Acts, are each cast in narrative form, but lingering questions about the literary unity of these documents and the significant differences between ancient and contemporary narratives press for care in the construction of a narrative–critical method.
FROM THERE TO HERE: THE RISE OF NARRATIVE CRITICISM
With precedents far back in the history of interpretation, any time readers took seriously how the Bible tells stories and promoted the practice of close reading, narrative criticism in the modern era surfaced prominently in the 1980s. At the outset, narrative study was limited by its overly narrow focus on the texts themselves, as if texts could and ought to be regarded as self-sufficient, self-contained verbal artifacts. Accordingly, the text was presumed to be the unique and privileged source of meaning, with “meaning” available to the interpreter only by means of careful attention to its language and structure, without regard for concerns of a social–historical kind and with no sensible way to account for how or why different readers might understand the same narrative differently.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Methods for Luke , pp. 74 - 112Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2010
References
Moore's criticism of literary study of the Gospels in the 1970s and 1980s for its overdependence on New Criticism was well aimed even if his pessimistic conclusions regarding the future potential of narrative study were premature (Literary Criticism and the Gospels: The Theoretical Challenge [New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1989])Google Scholar
's work is significant for the way it accounts for readerly interests. Although his study What Is Narrative Criticism? (GBS; Minneapolis, Minn.: Fortress, 1990)Google Scholar
, Chasing the Eastern Star: Adventures in Biblical Reader-Response Criticism (Louisville, Ky.: Westminster John Knox, 1991)Google Scholar
, “Narrative Criticism: Practices and Prospects,” in Characterization in the Gospels: Reconceiving Narrative Criticism (ed. and ; JSNTSup 184; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1999), 264–85Google Scholar
and , Mark as Story: An Introduction to the Narrative of a Gospel (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1982), 1Google Scholar
, , and , Mark as Story: An Introduction to the Narrative of a Gospel (2nd ed.; Minneapolis, Minn.: Fortress, 1999)CrossRefGoogle Scholar
, “Narrative and New Testament Interpretation: Reflections on the State of the Art,” Lexington Theological Quarterly 39 (2004): 153–66Google Scholar
, “Mark, Gospel of,” in A Dictionary of Biblical Interpretation (ed. and ; London: SCM; Philadelphia: Trinity, 1990), 424–8Google Scholar
, Acts of Compassion: Caring for Others and Helping Ourselves (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1991)Google Scholar
, The Making of Luke-Acts (London: Macmillan, 1927; reprint ed., Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson, 1999)Google Scholar
, The Gospel According to Luke (2 vols.; AB 28–28A; Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1981/85)Google Scholar
and , “J. P. Gabler and the Distinction between Biblical and Dogmatic Theology: Translation, Commentary, and Discussion of His Originality,” SJT 33 (1980): 133–58 (138)CrossRefGoogle Scholar
“The Gospel According to Thomas Jefferson,” in , The Jefferson Bible: The Life and Morals of Jesus of Nazareth (Boston: Beacon, 2001), 1–32 (17)Google Scholar
, Postmodern Use of the Bible: The Emergence of Reader-Oriented Criticism (Nashville, Tenn.: Abingdon, 1988)Google Scholar
, The Eclipse of Biblical Narrative: A Study in Eighteenth and Nineteenth Century Hermeneutics (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1974)Google Scholar
, The Mirror and the Lamp: Romantic Theory and the Critical Tradition (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1953)Google Scholar
, ed., Critical Theory since Plato (rev. ed.; Fort Worth, Tex.: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1992)
, “The Question of Narrative in Contemporary Historical Theory,” in The Content of the Form: Narrative Discourse and Historical Representation (Baltimore, Md.: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1987), 26–57Google Scholar
, Narrative and Freedom: The Shadows of Time (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1994)Google Scholar
, “Generating Genres: The Idea of the Tragic,” in Matrices of Genre: Authors, Canons, and Society (ed. and .; Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2000), 15–35 (17–18)Google Scholar
, “Epigram and Reader: Generic Force as (Re-)Activation of Ritual,” in Matrices of Genre, 37–57 (38–9)
, Authority and Tradition in Ancient Historiography (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997), 19–33CrossRefGoogle Scholar
, The Nature of History in Ancient Greece and Rome (Eidos: Studies in Classical Kinds; Berkeley: University of California Press, 1983)Google Scholar
, History/Writing: The Theory and Practice of History in Antiquity and in Modern Times (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988), 55Google Scholar
, Christianity in the Making, vol. 1: Jesus Remembered (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 2003), 94Google Scholar
, The Fictive and the Imaginary: Charting Literary Anthropology (Baltimore, Md.: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1993), 281–303Google Scholar
, “Culture,” in Critical Terms for Literary Study (ed. and ; Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1990), 225–32Google Scholar
, Narrative as Rhetoric: Technique, Audiences, Ethics, Ideology (Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 1996), 8Google Scholar
, Luke-Acts and the Rhetoric of History: An Investigation of Early Christian Historiography (WUNT 2:175; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2004)Google Scholar
, The Role of the Reader: Explorations in the Semiotics of Texts (Advances in Semiotics; Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1979), 33–4, 144–72Google Scholar
's Role of the Reader, see his book, The Open Work (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1989)Google Scholar
, The Cambridge Introduction to Narrative (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002), 12–24Google Scholar
, “Artificial Intelligence Researcher Seeks Silicon Soul,” Research News and Opportunities in Science and Theology 3, no. 4 (2002): 7, 26 (7)Google Scholar
, Story and Discourse: Narrative Structure in Fiction and Film (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press)
, A Dictionary of Literary Devices (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1991)CrossRefGoogle Scholar
, Consumption and Wealth in Luke's Travel Narrative (BIS 88; Leiden: Brill, 2007), 132–57CrossRefGoogle Scholar
, “Characterization and Persuasion: The Rich Man and the Poor Man in Luke 16.19–31,” in Characterization in the Gospels, 73–105
, Conflict in Luke: Jesus, Authorities, Disciples (Minneapolis, Minn.: Fortress, 1991), 56, 124Google Scholar
, “‘At His Gate Lay a Poor Man’: A Dialogic Reading of Luke 16:19–31,” PRSt 32 (2005): 249–65 (252)Google Scholar
, “Lazarus and Micyllus: Greco-Roman Backgrounds to Luke 16:19–31,” JBL 106 (1987): 447–63Google Scholar
, “The Rich Man and Lazarus: The Parable and the Parallels,” NTS 37 (1991): 225–46CrossRefGoogle Scholar
, Parables as Subversive Speech: Jesus as Pedagogue of the Oppressed (Louisville, Ky.: Westminster John Knox, 1994), 114–30Google Scholar
, Host, Guest, Enemy and Friend: Portraits of the Pharisees in Luke and Acts (Eugene, Ore.: Wipf & Stock, 1991)Google Scholar
, On Character Building: The Reader and the Rhetoric of Characterization in Luke-Acts (LCBI; Louisville, Ky.: Westminster John Knox, 1992), 85–126Google Scholar
, The Theology of the Gospel of Luke (NTT; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995), 70–5CrossRefGoogle Scholar
, The Economy of the Kingdom: Social Conflict and Economic Relations in Luke's Gospel (OBT; Philadelphia: Fortress, 1988), 6–9Google Scholar
, The Gospel of Luke: A Commentary on the Greek Text (NIGTC; Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 1978), 624Google Scholar
in his analysis of the relation of 16:19–31 to the meal scenes prior to this account (The Meal Scenes in Luke-Acts: An Audience-Oriented Approach [SBLMS 52; Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 1999], 142–5)Google Scholar
, Power and Privilege: A Theory of Social Stratification (2nd ed.; Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1984), 281–4Google Scholar
, “Good News to Whom? Jesus and the ‘Poor’ in the Gospel of Luke,” in Jesus of Nazareth: Lord and Christ: Essays on the Historical Jesus and New Testament Christology (ed. and ; Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 1994), 59–74Google Scholar
, Identity and Experience in the New Testament (Minneapolis, Minn.: Fortress, 2003), 40–3Google Scholar
, Poverty and Charity in Roman Palestine, First Three Centuries c.e. (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1990), 57–93Google Scholar
, “Hades, Hell,” ABD 3:14–15
, The Afterlife Imagery in Luke's Story of the Rich Man and Lazarus (NovTSup 123; Leiden: Brill, 2007)Google Scholar
, “Testament of Abraham: A New Translation and Introduction,” in Old Testament Pseudepigrapha (2 vols.; ed. ; Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1983/85), 1:871–902 (895)Google Scholar
, “Jesus and a Daughter of Abraham (Luke 13:10–17): Test Case for a Lucan Perspective on Jesus' Miracles,” CBQ 51 (1989): 643–54 (651)Google Scholar
, “Reading Scripture in Light of the Resurrection,” in The Art of Reading Scripture (ed. and ; Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 2003), 216–38 (229–31)Google Scholar
- 2
- Cited by