Thursday, August 26, 2010

watching the Bible as the TV show: towards an understanding of biblical narrative

In my estimation, many churchgoers (or any reader for that matter) read biblical narrative incorrectly. There may be any number of reasons for an incorrect approach, however I would suggest that the major approach that people take towards the biblical narrative can be likened to the way those people watch TV or movies. If you will listen to the way most people talk about biblical narrative they will say things like, “what stood out the most,” or perhaps “what struck me.” The problem with these statements is that people are merely describing their experience with the text and not the text itself.

If you will notice, these phrases seem to implicitly describe the experience of a viewer in relation to some type of visual experience. This means that most people are approaching the text of Scripture as if it were an object to be interpreted visually. Practically speaking, most people are coming to narrative texts with the question: how does this narrative look visually. This line of interpretation assumes that the medium of communication is conveyed through images. However, I would suggest that the most important medium of communication for biblical narrative is not image-based but language based. More specifically, the most important interpretive key for biblical narrative tends to be found in the mouth of a speaker and not in any sequence of images.

So (the practical question is) how can one possibly begin to read biblical narrative correctly? I would suggest several things? First, one needs to understand the type of genre that the given text falls under. The reader must understand the distinction between form and genre. You see, narrative is simply a form of way to communicate a biblical truth; however the genre is how that particular narrative functions in relation to the community. For instance, the books of Exodus, Kings, and Ruth are all written in the form of narratives, however they are all placed within different genre categories. Exodus falls under the larger category of law or teaching. Kings is prophetic history or history that is being explained or interpreted from the prophetic framework. Kings aims at answering the question: why did the kingdom divided and why is we in exile? The book of Ruth however is practical or instructional in some sense. It is telling the story of the person of Ruth in such a way that is withholding of Ruth as a virtuous character. An example of interpretation found in the mouth of a character in the book of Ruth is found in the mouth Boaz who says, “The LORD repay you for what you have done,” (Rut 2:12 ESV). There are many available resources, which can enable the reader to get hold of the specific genre of any given book.

Second, readers need to stop thinking in terms of verse division. Verse division is helpful for referencing different parts of the Bible; however it does not adequately divide the text into individual interpretive units. Instead of focusing on verse division, readers should begin to look for individual lines of text. In most cases, (especially if the reader is unable to read Greek or Hebrew) is probably most helpful to focus on individual sentences. The reader should then ask: how is this individual sentence or line functioning within the given story? Is this line relaying a sequence of events or is it perhaps giving a piece of background information? Asking these kind of questions is helpful because as a rule stories tend to begin and end with background information or narrative comment. Determining individual lines can help determine the beginning and end of stories as well as the more significant lines which help interpret the story for the reader.

Third, readers need to start asking the question: what is the form or structure of the story? Very often, stories can contain a great deal of content but the content of the story is not necessarily the main point of the story. The main point of the story is usually found in the form or structure of narrative. For instance, Genesis 1 is one of several versions of a creation account found in Scripture; however the form of the story draws attention to a very specific point. Genesis 1 primarily teaches that God is both creator and king of the universe, who sits enthroned in heavenly rest whereas Psalm 24, although it contains the same theological ideas of God as creator and king it is doing so in relation to the one who seeks to worship him as such. The structure of a narrative can be discerned once a reader has determined the function of individual line.

Finally, in most cases, pay careful attention to how the story is interpreted by characters of the story itself. Christians have been saying for ages that Scripture interpret Scripture. This is true because this is how Scripture itself is designed. I can't emphasize this point enough. If the reader is careful to listen to what the characters say about the meaning of the story itself, then generally speaking (even readers who are not competent in the original languages) are able to arrive at a fairly accurate interpretation of the narrative.

In conclusion, many contemporary readers tend to incorrectly read biblical narrative because they have failed to understand the nature of the media of Scripture, which does not convey its primary meeting through a sequence of images or actions rather through the words of the speakers themselves. If it is true of modern media that a picture is worth a thousand words, then for Scripture a word is worth a million words!

P.S--For an interesting analysis on how this reading deficiency affects the quality of the average preacher see: T. David Gordon, Why Johnny Can’t Preach: the Media Have Shaped the Messengers, New Jersey: R & R Publishing, 2009.

P.P.S--Duane Garrett and Jason DeRouchie state that of the most important was thematically prominent information in a text is often not the mainline clause (any clause within the text that moves the story forward in terms of progression of the event). Off-line clauses (not exclusively but usually clauses found in amounts of speakers or narrators of the story) can be thought of as the Cline, or continuum, with some having high prominence and others low prominence, A Modern Grammar for Biblical Hebrew, Nashville: B & H publishers, 2009, 291.

1 comment:

  1. Phil! Thank you for posting your thoughts and research on this. Despite the fact that we had many conversations on this topic, you presented this in a very accessible and understandable medium. I still learned more - we never talked about the reading it by a line. Excellent post and it has made me even more excited about reading the Bible...again.

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