Searching for the Self: Classic Stories, Christian Scripture, and the Quest for Personal Identity

by Adrian T. Smith

I owe him a considerable personal debt. In the fall of 1992, as part of my seminary coursework, he kindly facilitated an elective study for me, entitled, “Literary Approaches to Biblical Interpretation.” As I worked my way through the assigned reading, I had a light bulb moment. “What if,” I mused, “Christian ministry tried to unleash the liberating power of the Exodus narrative, by fusing that story with the lives of parishioners?” Back then, I was an Old Testament major. When I later switched to New Testament studies, I had another light bulb moment: The New Testament unleashes the liberating power of the Exodus narrative by using the plotline and imagery of Exodus as the “grammar” of the story of Jesus and by fusing Jesus’ Exodus-narrative with the lives of the first-century disciples. From such seeds, this book grew. I view my book as a contribution to “biblical theology 4.0”—namely, the sustained investigation of how to fuse our personal narratives with the meta-narrative of scripture.