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From Text to Performance: Narrative and Performance Criticisms in Dialogue and Debate
For the last two centuries biblical interpretation has been guided by perspectives that have largely ignored the oral context in which the gospels took shape. Only recently have scholars begun to explore how ancient media inform the interpretive process and an understanding of the Bible. This collection of essays, by authors who recognize that the Jesus tradition was a story heard and performed, seeks to reevaluate the constituent elements of narrative, including characters, structure, narrator, time, and intertextuality. In dialogue with traditional literary approaches, these essays demonstrate that an appreciation of performance yields fresh insights distinguishable in many respects from results of literary or narrative readings of the gospels. "From Text to Performance presents a set of suggestive new essays on various key issues in performance of texts, including how a text-in-performance can have a powerfully moving impact on a community of listeners. The essays offer several sensitive insights into the significant differences between literary criticism deeply rooted in print culture and the emerging performance criticism that considers the effects of performed texts on the audience." --Richard Horsley, University of Massachusetts Boston, Boston, MA Kelly R. Iverson is Associate Professor of New Testament at Baylor University. He is the author of Gentiles in the Gospel of Mark (2007), and coeditor of Mark as Story (2011) and Unity and Diversity in the Gospels and Paul (2012).
242 pages, Kindle Edition
Published November 14, 2014
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February 20, 2025
A helpful collection of essays on the various contributions that performance criticism can make to biblical studies. Each essay focuses on a different aspect of performance criticism and applies this to a specific passage in the New Testament to demonstrate how this can contribute to our understanding. I appreciated this practical approach as it allowed readers to immediately see the significance of performance criticism. Since there is quite a bit of overlap with narrative criticism, most authors also helpfully showed the different approach and conclusions that narrative criticism might reach so as to highlight the similarities and differences between the two methodologies.
The book included the following essays:
Chapter 1 - "Performance Criticism: A Paradigm Shift in New Testament Studies" by David Rhoads and Joanna Dewey - Rhoads and Dewey give a helpful introduction to performance criticism and its paradigm shift that shifts focus to how orality, memory, and writing come together to affect performance events.
Chapter 2 - "Those Sitting Around Jesus: Situating the Storyteller Within Mark's Gospel" by Philip Ruge-Jones - Ruge-Jones focuses on the performance of a text and how its embodied approach brings out dynamics that are missed in the silent reading of narrative criticism.
Chapter 3 - "Characters in Text and Performance: The Gospel of John" by Holly E. Hearon - Hearon compares narrative and performance criticism, highlighting their different approaches to characterization and the different resulting conclusions.
Chapter 4: “Audience Asides and the Audience of Mark: The Difference Performance Makes” by Thomas E. Boomershine - Boomershine looks at the asides in the Gospel of Mark from a performance perspective and shows the implications for the identity of Mark’s audience and for seeing Mark as a composer.
Chapter 5: “Sound and Structure in Matthew's Gospel” by Margaret E. Lee - Lee looks at the auditory patterns in Matthew, an aspect of the text often missed in biblical studies but which would have been important in an oral culture. She shows how sound mapping illuminates the structure of Matthew and how patterns in sound would have guided a listening audience in construing meaning.
Chapter 6: “The Present Tense of Performance Immediacy and Transformative Power in Luke's Passion” by Kelly R. Iverson - Iverson discusses how time is viewed and understood in a performance and how this affects how an audience would experience the story and connect with the characters.
Chapter 7: “From Performance to Text to Performance: The New Testament's Use of the Hebrew Bible in a Rhetorical Culture” by Kathy Maxwell - Maxwell argues that an understanding of the rhetorical culture of the ancient world should lead us to adjust our understanding of ancient hermeneutics, especially citations of previous texts.
Chapter 8: ""This is My...." Toward a Thick Performance of the Gospel of Mark" by Richard W. Swanson - Swanson shows the complexity of performance criticism in navigating the way a text has been read, spoken, and theologically reflected on, which creates a “thick reading” of the text.
The book included the following essays:
Chapter 1 - "Performance Criticism: A Paradigm Shift in New Testament Studies" by David Rhoads and Joanna Dewey - Rhoads and Dewey give a helpful introduction to performance criticism and its paradigm shift that shifts focus to how orality, memory, and writing come together to affect performance events.
Chapter 2 - "Those Sitting Around Jesus: Situating the Storyteller Within Mark's Gospel" by Philip Ruge-Jones - Ruge-Jones focuses on the performance of a text and how its embodied approach brings out dynamics that are missed in the silent reading of narrative criticism.
Chapter 3 - "Characters in Text and Performance: The Gospel of John" by Holly E. Hearon - Hearon compares narrative and performance criticism, highlighting their different approaches to characterization and the different resulting conclusions.
Chapter 4: “Audience Asides and the Audience of Mark: The Difference Performance Makes” by Thomas E. Boomershine - Boomershine looks at the asides in the Gospel of Mark from a performance perspective and shows the implications for the identity of Mark’s audience and for seeing Mark as a composer.
Chapter 5: “Sound and Structure in Matthew's Gospel” by Margaret E. Lee - Lee looks at the auditory patterns in Matthew, an aspect of the text often missed in biblical studies but which would have been important in an oral culture. She shows how sound mapping illuminates the structure of Matthew and how patterns in sound would have guided a listening audience in construing meaning.
Chapter 6: “The Present Tense of Performance Immediacy and Transformative Power in Luke's Passion” by Kelly R. Iverson - Iverson discusses how time is viewed and understood in a performance and how this affects how an audience would experience the story and connect with the characters.
Chapter 7: “From Performance to Text to Performance: The New Testament's Use of the Hebrew Bible in a Rhetorical Culture” by Kathy Maxwell - Maxwell argues that an understanding of the rhetorical culture of the ancient world should lead us to adjust our understanding of ancient hermeneutics, especially citations of previous texts.
Chapter 8: ""This is My...." Toward a Thick Performance of the Gospel of Mark" by Richard W. Swanson - Swanson shows the complexity of performance criticism in navigating the way a text has been read, spoken, and theologically reflected on, which creates a “thick reading” of the text.
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