What is Narrative Criticism? A New Approach to the Bible

Written by Mark Allen Powell Reviewed By Stanley E. Porter

Literary criticism of the NT and the OT is the rage these days, but it is only recently that NT scholars have attempted to map out their theoretical territory rather than simply ‘do’ literary readings. This book is an attempt to define what many of the literary readers of the NT have been doing. Unfortunately, this book is as disappointing as many of those readings.

Powell first attempts to define literary criticism as opposed to historical criticism. He falls victim to the usual stereotypes concerning the difference, such as literary criticism focusing on the finished form of the text, emphasizing textual unity, and viewing the text as an end in itself. These generalizations may have been sufficient when literary critics were first trying to carve out their critical niche, but they are misleading now, especially when there are a number of literary models that explicitly disavow such ends. Powell also defines literary criticism as being based on communication models of speech-act theory. This will come as a surprise to many literary critics who want nothing to do with either speech-act theory or communication models. At the end of tire book, Powell does a similar job of defining the benefits of his narrative criticism. He claims that it ‘focuses on tire text of Scripture itself’ (p. 85), may (although it has not yet) solve some historical background issues, such as the Synoptic Problem, provides checks and balances on historical criticism, brings professional and lay readers together, stands closer to believing communities and could help to unite them, and offers new interpretations that unleash the power of biblical stories. Although he attempts to give examples of these, they are often unconvincing, especially his gestures regarding the Synoptic Problem.

In the second chapter, Powell defines four major ways of reading: structuralism, rhetorical criticism, reader-response criticism and narrative criticism. Powell is reductionistic, with several major criticisms left out. What he does admit, however, is that his category of narrative criticism is not found in secular literary criticism, being a form of criticism unique to biblical studies. It is the form of criticism practised by such scholars as Kingsbury, Culpepper and Tannehill, he claims, and it relies upon such concepts as implied authors and readers, narrators and narratees. Powell does not probe the theoretical difficulties and complexities of these concepts, which are recognizable in their own right from secular literary criticism. Despite his attempt to carve out a unique niche for this form of criticism, what I think he is trying to do is to rejuvenate a watered-down and theoretically weak form of what used to be called formalism.

In the next several chapters, Powell attempts to define the major features of this literary criticism, illustrating its application to Gospel texts. These applications are very useful, because they help to illustrate how uncontrolled Powell’s method is. He defines events, characters, and settings as three primary textual features. As an example of the lack of rigour, Powell talks about the issue of causality between episodes in the Gospels as ‘a feature of narrative criticism new to biblical studies’. Powell goes on to note, however, that these causal connections might become far-fetched, since he believes it is not right to ‘impose upon the Gospels the sort of deterministic plot structure found in some literature’. ‘Still, when it is possible to discern causal links that are sensible, the implied reader is likely to do so’ (p. 42). Why are the Gospels not reflective of a straightforward cause and effect, as are other kinds of literature? What constitutes being far-fetched or sensible? What does it mean to ‘impose’ deterministic plot structure, when Powell claims that finding cause and effect is the contribution of narrative criticism? Powell does not answer these questions.

Recognizing that there may be some objections to narrative criticism, Powell attempts to answer them. For example, regarding the criticism mat the Gospels are treated as coherent narratives, he usefully cites similar emphases in redaction criticism. In response to the objection that narrative criticism uses methods developed for modern literature and applied to fiction, he misses a key opportunity to point out that ancient literary criticism was concerned with the same questions he raises. Regarding the supposed failure of narrative criticism to provide objective criteria for the analysis of texts, Powell falls into his frequent personification of the text, as if it were something that could speak and define itself. Recent work in discourse analysis provides a much more substantial basis for performing many of the functions that Powell sees narrative criticism doing, but on the basis of a definable method, and one perhaps not given over to so much unrestrained optimism and hyperbole.


Stanley E. Porter

Roehampton Institute, London