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Narrative Criticism of the New Testament:  An Introduction,   James L. Resseguie,  Grand Rapids:   Baker Academic,  2005, 288 pp.

“Approaches to the study of the New Testament have greatly expanded over the past decade,  providing an exciting but also bewildering array of methods” (p. 17).    Narrative criticism is the most widely used of all the new techniques introduced with the literary criticism of the Bible.  It looks closely at the final text,  not so much in historical terms but in observing the way it is written.  Combined with the findings of exegesis it enhances the understanding of the narrative sections of the Bible. 

Resseguie’s book is an excellent introduction to the subject.  It describes the main ways of analyzing texts using rhetoric, setting, character, point-of-view and plot.  It provides worked examples from the gospels and Revelation,   as well as illustrations from non-Biblical literature and art.   The author avoids excessive theoretical detail and enables readers to understand and use Narrative Criticism.

Understandably his examples are mainly taken from the gospels and Revelation with their predominance of narrative and discourse.    For example the indices provide about 425 references to John´s gospel and 55 references to all of Paul´s letters.   

The chapter on rhetoric gives a good analysis of the main devices such as verbal repetition,  sequence,  inclusions,  tropes,  double entendres, irony and rather provocatively,  carnivalesque.  This latter term describes the carnival practices of viewing the world upside down where the innocent dies and the robber is freed,  and the king is crowned and then de-crowned.      The closing chapter provides summary questions and then a close reading of Nicodemus as he is portrayed in the Fourth Gospel.

The most disappointing section of the book is the chapter on Plot with its concentration on the book of Revelation.    Plot is so important to readers that it would have been useful to have taken extended the treatment.   For example,  what is the plot of Matthew’s gospel?    

As an introductory work,  some kind of guidance for further reading would have been helpful. The bibliography is simply a list of books corresponding to the chapters.

Having made these criticisms,   Ressigue´s work remains the most useful introduction to the subject yet published.    And narrative criticism is probably the most attractive of the new methodologies that scholars are now using, rather than say, discourse analysis or rhetorical criticism.   This makes Narrative Criticism of the New Testament  an important publication.

David E. C. Ford,  Profesor del Nuevo Testamento,  Fundación Universitaria Seminario Bíblico de Colombia,  Medellín,   Colombia.