Narrative criticism
Narrative exegesis is a newer method of biblical exegesis, which is particularly widespread in the English-speaking world and is also included in the German biblical scholarship increasingly since about twenty years. The narrative exegesis is based on the observation that many sections of the Bible narrative texts: for example, the four Gospels, the Acts, or the tales of the ancestral couple, Moses, Samuel, or the kings of Israel. The Bible exegesis therefore apply models and methods from the literature scientific narrative theory to the Bible. It is based in particular on the theory of New Criticism and the close reading, but also emphasizes that the reader is involved in the development of the text meaning ( cf. reception aesthetics ).
Method
The narrative exegesis is different from the historical-critical method not interested in the history of the biblical narrative texts, but on the analysis of their present shape. These are mainly the following issues that are essential to the understanding of their structure, JL and S. Bar - Efrat Resseguie:
The narrator
Rhetoric
Setting
Characterization of the characters
Point of View
Plot
The reader