Narrative Criticism and the New Testament

Frustrated by the lack of intersection between biblical interpretation--and least the modernistic methods I knew at the time--and theology, I began a hermeneutical sojourn that traversed myriad methodological approaches. One of initial methodologies that I encountered was narrative criticism, an interpretive lens that proved quite useful--and continues to prove itself--in uncovering new vistas in texts that had withered in the modernistic sun. And while I've moved on to other interpretive approaches such as reader-response criticism, intertextuality, ideological criticism, feminist criticism, among others, I still find narrative criticism to be a very fruitful tool.

Hence, I was quite excited when James L. Resseuguie's Narrative Criticism of the New Testament appeared. And while the book lays a solid methodological foundation and contains various examples sprinkled into the discussion, it falls flat and the gap for a cogent introduction to narrative criticism and the New Testament remains. For more on Narrative Criticism of the New Testament, see my RBL review.

There are several other books on narrative criticism and the New Testament that scholars, lay teachers, and interested lay readers may find useful, including How to Read Bible Stories by Daniel Marguerat, Yvan Bourquin, and John Bowden, and What Is Narrative Criticism? by Mark Allan Powell.