Narrative Time in the New Testament: Essays on Mark, John, and Paul (Terra Nova) 9789042939363, 9789042939370, 9042939362

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TERRA NOVA 8

Narrative Time in the New Testament Essays on Mark, John, and Paul

by Normand Bonneau

PEETERS

NARRATIVE TIME IN THE NEW TESTAMENT

Collection Terra Nova La collection Terra Nova – Perspectives théologiques canadiennes / Canadian Theological Perspectives, de la Société canadienne de théologie, entend diffuser des travaux théologiques issus du Canada ou qui se rapportent aux théologies de ce pays. Elle accorde une attention particulière à la production franco-canadienne, mais ouvre aussi ses portes à des ouvrages en anglais. Elle s’applique à refléter la créativité et le dialogue caractéristiques d’une société encore jeune. Elle publie des travaux soucieux de rigueur intellectuelle et de pertinence sociale, et marqués par le milieu interdisciplinaire de l’Université publique. Dirigée par Alain G, Université de Montréal (Montréal, QC, Canada)

Comité scientifique de la collection Terra Nova Marc  K, Université St-Paul (Ottawa, ON, Canada) Bruno D, Institut de pastorale des Dominicains (Montréal, QC, Canada) Marc D, Université de Sherbrooke (Sherbrooke, QC, Canada) Robert M, Université Laval (Québec, QC, Canada) Jean-François R, Université de Montréal (Québec, QC, Canada)

TERRA NOVA 8

NARRATIVE TIME IN THE NEW TESTAMENT Essays on Mark, John, and Paul by

NORMAND BONNEAU

PEETERS LEUVEN – PARIS – BRISTOL, CT

2020

A catalogue record for this book is available from the Library of Congress. ISBN 978-90-429-3936-3 eISBN 978-90-429-3937-0 D/2020/0602/86 © 2020, Peeters, Bondgenotenlaan 153, B-3000 Leuven, Belgium No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage or retrieval devices or systems, without prior written permission from the publisher, except the quotation of brief passages for review purposes.

TABLE OF CONTENTS A .........................................................................................

IX

I ..........................................................................................

1

C 1. e Illusion of Immediacy: A Narrative-Critical Exploration of the Bible’s Predilection for Direct Reported Speech ................................................................................

7

C 2. Mark: Story, History, eology .....................................

29

C 3. Jesus and Human Contingency in Mark: A NarrativeCritical Reading of ree Healing Stories ..................

43

C 4. Suspense in Mark 5:21-43: A Narrative Study of Two Healing Stories ........................................................

63

C 5. Mise en intrigue et suspense dans Marc 5,1-20 .........

87

C 6. Narrative and Its eological Import in 1 essalonians .................................................................................. 101 C 7.

e Narrative Dynamism of Genesis 15 in Romans 4

115

C 8. Reading and Rereading: Being Transported............... 129 C 9. Framed to Break the Frame: e Liturgical Proclamation of John’s Gospel ............................................................... 141 C 10. Recognizing the Risen Jesus: Narrative Curiosity in John 21:1-14 ...................................................................... 159 C 11. Direct Reported Speech and the Risen Jesus in John... 179 C 12. Socio-rhetorical Interpretation’s ‘Narrational Texture’ in Dialogue with Narratology ....................................... 199 B ........................................................................................... 209 A .............................................................................. 223 I Subjects .................................................................................................. 225 Author ................................................................................................... 231 Biblical References ............................................................................... 235

To Anne “A friend loves at all times” (Proverbs 17:17)

ABBREVIATIONS AB ABD ABRL ANTC AsSeign BELS BETL BIS BPCS BSac CbNT CBQ CCT CTC CCP EKKNT ÉTR GBS GNS HNT HTCNT HTKNT ICC JAAR JBL JETS JSNT JSNT SS JSOT LD LDC LHB/OTS MdB NDST NovT NovTSup NTOA NTS RRAS RSR RTL SANT SBL DS

Anchor Bible Anchor Bible Dictionary Anchor Bible Reference Library Abingdon New Testament Commentaries Assemblées du Seigneur Bibliotheca ephemerides liturgicae subsidia Bibliotheca ephemeridum theologicarum lovaniensium Biblical Interpretation Series Biblical Performance Criticism Series Bibliotheca Sacra Commenatire biblique. Nouveau Testament Catholic Biblical Quarterly Challenges in Contemporary eology Critics of the Twentieth Century Columbia Classics in Philosophy Evangelisch-katholischer Kommentar zum Neuen Testament Études théologiques et religieuses Guides to Biblical Scholarship Good News Studies Handbuch zum Neuen Testament Herder’s eological Commentary on the New Testament Herders theologischer Kommentar zum Neuen Testament International Critical Commentary Journal of the American Academy of Religion Journal of Biblical Literature Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society Journal for the Study of the New Testament Journal for the Study of the New Testament Supplement Series Journal for the Study of the Old Testament Lectio Divina Lectio Divina. Commentaires Library of Hebrew Studies/Old Testament Studies Monde de la Bible Notre Dame Studies in eology Novum Testamentum Supplements to Novum Testamentum Novum Testamentum et Orbis Antiquas New Testament Studies Rhetoric of Religious Antiquity Series Recherches de sciences religieuses Revue théologique de Louvain Studien zum Alten und Neuen Testaments Society of Biblical Literature Dissertation Series

X SBL SS SNTS MS SP SubBi THL TL SM VTSup WBC WTJ WSEP WUNT

 Society of Biblical Literature Supplement Series Society of New Testament Studies Monograph Series Sacra Pagina Subsidia biblica eory and History of Literature Trends in Linguistics, Studies and Monographs Supplements to Vetus Testamentum Word Biblical Commentary Westminster Theological Journal Warwick Studies in European Philosophy Wissenschaliche Untersuchungen zum Neuen Testament

INTRODUCTION

e essays assembled in this volume all have to do, as the title indicates, with narrative biblical texts (more specifically New Testament passages) and narrative time. Written over nearly a score of years, they highlight various narrative-theoretical aspects of time as illustrated in one or another selected biblical passage, with four of the more recent studies venturing into liturgical use of biblical texts. Why a narrative approach to biblical texts? Bible and Narrative. In sheer volume, narrative as a genre dominates in the Bible, accounting for roughly three-quarters of its contents.1 Narrative appears in a variety of forms: myths, legends, folktales, fables, satires, histories, apocalypses, and gospels, to name the most prominent.2 e fact alone is worthy of attention. But more importantly, this observation raises the question: is the narrative nature of these texts merely tangential or incidental to their interpretation? Would an investigation of their narrative make-up shed light on their meaning, or at least contribute toward providing new insights leading to an enhanced appreciation of what they are and how they communicate? Narrative and Time. A recent rereading of these essays, originally published in journals and conference proceedings, made it all the more obvious to me that narrative time in its various aspects provides the common thread throughout. Time is integral to narrative, constituting the key feature that distinguishes it from other communicative genres. Narrative represents – mimics – actions, events, happenings, all of which necessarily occur in time. Indeed, narrative pervades human existence, as Peter Brooks elaborates: “Narrative is one of the large categories or systems of understanding that we use in our negotiations with reality, specifically, in the case of narrative, with the problem of temporality: [our] time-boundedness, [our] consciousness of existence within the limits of mortality.”3 Time 1. Anja C, “eology and Narrative,” in David H – Manfred J – Marie-Laure R (eds.), Routledge Encyclopedia of Narrative Theory, London, UK – New York, NY, Routledge, 2005, 599-600. 2. See, for example, David H. R, “Biblical Narrative,” in David H – Manfred J – Marie-Laure R (eds.), Routledge Encyclopedia of Narrative Theory, London, UK – New York, NY, Routledge, 2005, 40-41. 3. Peter B, Reading for the Plot: Design and Intention in Narrative, Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press, 1984, p. xi. See also Monika F, “Time in Narrative,” in David H – Manfred J – Marie-Laure R (eds.), Routledge Encyclopedia of Narrative Theory, London, UK – New York, NY, Routledge, 2005, 608-612.

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in narrative, therefore, is a topic of vast proportions, as impressively illustrated, for example, in Paul Ricœur’s magisterial three-volume Temps et récit.4 e object of these essays is more limited in scope; the aim is to offer exploratory probes on one or another aspect of narrative time that sheds new light on a biblical text. Narrative deals with time in a two-fold manner. Most narratological theories posit a distinction, now considered axiomatic, between story time and discourse time, represented time and representing time.5 Story time has to do with actions, events, and happenings portrayed as occurring in the represented world. In this storyworld,6 time is assumed to be linear, moving chronologically from past to present to future. e only access to this reconstructed, imagined world is through the discourse. Unlike the linearity of story time, discourse time can be manipulated through various “anachronies or chronological deviations”:7 duration, speed, analepsis, prolepsis, gaps, etc. Reconstructing the chronological story time through the manipulated discourse time is achieved through the interplay between these two levels – indeed this interplay in essence defines the specificity of narrative, its narrativity.8 Moreover, narrative’s unique capacity of dealing with time can be known and experienced ultimately only in time, that is, in the taking place, in the telling/reading, in the playing of the interplay between story and discourse. e present participial inflection “–ing” denotes present time and being present. It suggests that only in the here-and-now activating (playing, setting in motion) of the discourse can narrative’s unique capacities be realized. It is this aspect of time, the here-and-now activating of a narrative text, that provides the specific aspect of time, uniting, implicitly or expressly, these essays. e topic is not new. Wolfgang Iser, in the third chapter of his monograph, The Act of Reading: A Theory of Aesthetic Response, addresses it in what he entitles a “Phenomenology

4. Paul R, Temps et récit I, Paris, Seuil, 1983; Temps et récit II, Paris, Seuil, 1984; Temps et récit III, Paris, Seuil, 1985. 5. Dan S, “Story-Discourse Distinction,” in David H – Manfred J – Marie-Laure R (eds.), Routledge Encyclopedia of Narrative Theory, London, UK – New York, NY, Routledge, 2005, 566-568. 6. David H, “Storyworld,” in David H – Manfred J – Marie-Laure R (eds.), Routledge Encyclopedia of Narrative Theory, London, UK – New York, NY, Routledge, 2005, 569-570. 7. Ken I, “Temporal Ordering,” in David H – Manfred J – MarieLaure R (eds.), Routledge Encyclopedia of Narrative Theory, London, UK – New York, NY, Routledge, 2005, 591-592. 8. Meir S, “How Narrativity Makes a Difference,” in Narrative 9 (2001) 115-122.



3

of Reading.”9 Although not unrelated, my interest lies elsewhere. Rather than a phenomenological approach, I focus on narratological theory. Accordingly, I seek to identify and analyze some of the narrative techniques and features, particularly as they relate to time, that produce narrative’s cognitive and emotive effects on the reader. And since it is a question of narrative effects, I have increasingly incorporated key aspects of Meir Sternberg’s functional approach to narrative.10 Bible, Narrative, and Time. Why the particular interest with the playing of biblical narrative texts? e fascination stems from liturgical proclamation, the public reading aloud of a biblical narrative text in the midst of a worshipping assembly.11 In this context, the essential time features of narrative – playing, activating, setting in motion the discourse time through which the story time can emerge in the imagination of those gathered – become palpably manifest.12 Only in an activity that takes place in their present time and in their presence can those gathered be transported in imagination from their here-and-now to the there-andthen of the storyworld, into the story’s else-where and else-when. Indeed, biblical texts were originally written to be read aloud.13 Abetting the oral/aural nature underlying the here-and-now activating of narrative biblical texts is the non-negligible factor that they were (and are mostly) written in alphabet-based scripts.14 Alphabetic signs represent sounds, sounds that must be vocalized to produce words, words that then convey meaning. Granting priority to the oral/aural mode is not intended to marginalize silent reading and private study of narrative biblical texts, which, with

9. Wolfgang I, The Act of Reading: A Theory of Aesthetic Response, Baltimore, MD – London, UK, Johns Hopkins University Press, 19802, p. 107-134. 10. Meir S, “Universals of Narrative and eir Cognitivist Fortunes (I),” in Poetics Today 24 (2003) 297-395, p.  362; , “Reconceptualizing Narratology: Arguments for a Functionalist and Constructivist Approach to Narrative,” in Enthymema 4 (2011) 35-50. 11. Rowan W, “e Discipline of Scripture,” in , On Christian Theology (CCT), Oxford, UK – Malden, MA, Blackwell, 2000, 44-59, p.  50; Albert H, “e  Rediscovery of the Liturgy by Sacramental eology (1950-1980),” in Studies in Liturgy 15 (1982-1983) 158-177, p. 158-159. 12. Walter J. O, “Maranatha: Death and Life in the Text of the Book,” in Interfaces of the Word: Studies in the Evolution of Consciousness, Ithaca, NY – London, UK, Cornell University Press, 1977, 230-271, p. 267-268. 13. William A. G, Beyond the Written Word: Oral Aspects of Scripture in the History of Religion, Cambridge, UK, Cambridge University Press, 1987, p. 65. 14. O, “Maranatha” (n.  12), p.  258; Robert K. L, The Alphabetic Effect: The Import of the Phonetic Alphabet on the Development of Western Civilization, New York, NY, William Morrow and Company, 1986.

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the exception of performance criticism,15 remain the primary modalities for interpreters. e public reading aloud simply exhibits the optimal modality for the producing of narrative effects; silent reading and study represent but a difference in mode, not in kind. Even in the silent reading of an alphabet-based script, vocalizing words is internalized. ere is always an oral basis inherent in activating an alphabetic-based script.16 All the aspects of narrative time discussed above – the vocalizing of the text in order to activate the discourse through which can emerge in imagination the represented storyworld – are not merely tangential or incidental, but rather inherent to and constitutive of the interpretative process. Setting them aside as merely marginal or inconsequential cannot but impoverish the appreciation of a narrative text, all the more so a biblical narrative text. ese essays, then, seek to underscore that, when it comes to interpreting narrative biblical texts, time is of the essence. The Essays. Each essay was conceived to stand on its own, independently of the others. us, although there is a certain amount of repetition from one study to another, especially in the presentation of narratological concepts, I have le them substantially in their original versions, merely adding fuller notes to the essays published in conference proceedings (space constraints necessitated limited length), all the while slightly revising a small section (Part 4, Section 6 “Simultaneous Revelation”) in the first study, “e Illusion of Immediacy.” In this volume, they are placed in a loosely-conceived sequence based on content rather than year of publication. e first one, “e Illusion of Immediacy: An Exploration of the Bible’s Predilection for Direct Report Speech,” is the most theoretical. e fruit of research conducted during an academic sabbatical leave (and the first essay chronologically), it sets out a number of the narratological principles and features that in one way or another underpin all the subsequent studies. e next four focus on Mark’s gospel: “Gospel of Mark: Story, History, eology”; “Jesus and Human Contingency in Mark: A Narrative-Critical Reading of ree Healing Stories”; “Suspense in Mark 5:21-43: A Narrative-Critical Study of Two Healing Stories”; and “Mise en intrigue et suspense dans Mc 5,1-20.” e next two

15. On this topic, see, for example, the Biblical Performance Criticism Series, directed by David R – Holly H – Kelly I, published by Cascade Books, Eugene, OR. 16. O, “Maranatha” (n. 12), p. 258; Walter J. O, Orality and Literacy: The Technologizing of the Word, London, UK – New York, NY, Methuen, 1982, p. 7-8; Hans-Georg G, Truth and Method. Second, revised edition. Translation revised by Joel W – Donald G. M, London, UK – New York, NY, Continuum, 1989 [1975], p. 153.

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5

each examine a passage from Paul’s letters: “Narrative and Its eological Import in 1 essalonians”; and “e Narrative Dynamics of Genesis 15 in Romans 4.” Essays 8, 9, 10, and 11 feature reflections on the liturgical use of John’s Gospel: “Reading and Rereading: Being Transported”; “Framed to Break the Frame: e Liturgical Proclamation of John’s Gospel”; “Recognizing the Risen Jesus: Narrative Curiosity in John 21:1-14”; and “Direct Reported Speech and the Risen Jesus in John.” e last essay, “Socio-rhetorical Interpretation’s ‘Narrational Texture’ in Dialogue with Narratology,” forms a sort of inclusio with the first essay by dealing once again with more theoretical matters. All but one of the essays are in English. Four of these were translated and originally published in French, the one exception being “Mise en intrigue et suspense dans Mc 5,1-20” which was originally written and published in French. e following lists where the essays first appeared17: 1. “e Illusion of Immediacy: An Exploration of the Bible’s Predilection for Direct Discourse,” in Theoforum 31 (2000) 131-151. 2. “Évangile de Marc: récit, Histoire, théologie,” in Christian D – Yvan M (eds.), trad. Anne E. Raconter Dieu. Entre récit, Histoire et théologie (Le Livre et le Rouleau, 44), Bruxelles, Lessius, 2014, 129-146. (RRENAB 2011 Symposium Papers). 3. “Jesus and Human Contingency in Mark: A Narrative-Critical Reading of ree Healing Stories,” in Theoforum 32 (2001) 321-340. 4. “Suspense in Mark 5:21-43: A Narrative-Critical Study of Two Healing Stories,” in Theoforum 36 (2005) 131-154. 5. “Mise en intrigue et suspense dans Mc 5,1-20,” in Anne P – Daniel M – André W (eds.), L’intrigue dans le récit biblique. Quatrième colloque international du Réseau de Recherche en Narratologie et Bible (RRENAB), Université Laval, Québec, 29 mai – 1er juin, 2008 (BETL, 237), Leuven – Paris – Walpole, MA, Peeters, 2010, 231-243. 6. “Explorations du fait narratif et son effet théologique dans 1  1–3,” in Camille F – André W (eds.), trans. Anne E. Analyse Narrative et Bible: Deuxième Colloque International du RRENAB, Louvain-la-Neuve, Avril 2004 (BETL, 191), Leuven, University Press – Peeters, 2005, 437-448. 7. “Le dynamisme narratif de Genèse 15 dans Romains 4,” in Claire C – Corina C-G – Jean-Daniel M – 17. I am grateful to the publishers for permissions to present these essays as they appear in this volume.

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8.

9.

10.

11.

12.

Christophe N (eds.), trans. Anne E. Écritures et réécritures. La reprise interprétative des traditions fondatrices par la littérature biblique et extra-biblique. Cinquième colloque international du Réseau de Recherche en Narratologie et Bible (RRENAB), Universités de Genève et Lausanne, 10-12 juin 2010 (BETL, 248), Leuven – Paris – Walpole, MA, Peeters, 2012, 363-375. “Reading and Rereading: Being Transported,” in Régis B – Didier L – Geert V O (eds.), Le Lecteur. Sixième colloque international du Réseau de Recherche en Narratologie et Bible (RRENAB), Université Catholique de Louvain, 24-26 mai 2012 (BETL, 273), Leuven – Paris – Bristol, CT, Peeters, 2015, 283-294. “Encadré pour faire éclater le cadre. La proclamation liturgique de l’Évangile de Jean,” in Alain Gignac (ed.), trans. Richard C – Alain G. Narrativité, oralité et performance. 7e colloque international du Réseau de Recherche en Narratologie et Bible (RRENAB), 5-7 juin 2014, Université de Montréal (Terra Nova, 4), Leuven – Paris – Bristol, CT, Peeters, 2017, 219-239. “Recognizing the Risen Jesus: Narrative Curiosity in John 21:1-14,” in Didier L – Hans A (eds.), Temporalité et intrigue. Hommage à André Wénin (BETL, 296), Leuven, Peeters, 2018, 279-294. “Direct Reported Speech and the Risen Jesus in John,” in André W (ed.), La contribution du discours à la caractérisation des personnages bibliques. Neuvième colloque international du Réseau de Recherche en Narratologie et Bible (RRENAB), Louvain-la-Neuve, 31  mai – 2 juin, 2018 (BETL, 311), Leuven – Paris – Bristol, CT, Peeters, 2020, 253-266. “Socio-rhetorical Interpretation’s ‘Narrational Texture’ in Dialogue with Narratology,” in Theoforum 46 (2016) 43-52.

I offer these essays in the hope that they will enhance appreciation for, and stimulate further research in, the narrative approach in interpreting biblical texts. Human beings live in time, time produces story, both the biblical story, and, since for believers this story is so intimately woven into theirs, the story of their lives. It is my conviction, therefore, that a better understanding of biblical narrative represents a vital and consequential dimension of faith seeking understanding. Normand B Saint Paul University 223 Main Street Ottawa, ON K1S 1C4 Canada

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THE ILLUSION OF IMMEDIACY A Narrative-Critical Exploration of the Bible’s Predilection for Direct Reported Speech 1. Introduction Biblical narrative manifests a clear predilection for direct reported speech, the storytelling technique through which the narrator seemingly steps aside to let a character speak. Direct reported speech purports to present a transcription of the actual words spoken by a character, as though a stenographer had been on the scene to record them.1 e technique lends to a narrative a sense of vividness, of seemingly unmediated directness. It makes the story come alive in a way that a narrator’s mere reporting of a character’s words could not achieve. Robert Alter, who devotes an entire chapter to the phenomenon in his highly-acclaimed and now classic study, The Art of Biblical Narrative,2 observes that, by and large, the biblical narrator tends to be laconic and self-effacing, preferring to let the drama be carried by the characters in the story.3 Since Alter, the appearance of several full-length studies on direct reported speech in the Bible attests to the growing fascination with this narrative technique.4 1. at direct reported speech creates the effect of a transcription is merely convention. For a thorough discussion of the “reproducibility” aspect of direct quotation compared to real conversation, as well as the subordinate function of direct quotation to the main narrative, see Meir S, “Point of View and the Indirections of Direct Speech,” in Language and Style 15 (1982) 67-117. 2. Robert A, “Between Narration and Dialogue,” in The Art of Biblical Narrative, New York, NY, Basic Books, 1981, chapter 4, 79-110; also p. 182-185. 3. Jean-Louis S – Jean-Pierre S – André W, L’Analyse narrative des récits de l’Ancien Testament (Cahiers Évangile, 107), Paris, Cerf, 1999, p. 10: “De tous les ingrédients qui peuvent entrer dans la composition d’un récit, les auteurs bibliques choisissent donc uniquement ceux qui ont trait à l’action: discussions, décisions et actions. Parmi ces différents éléments, il en est un qui occupe une place particulière, le dialogue. Celui-ci forme la charpente de bien des récits et il contient la plupart des éléments décisifs.” 4. Samuel A. M, Speaking of Speaking: Marking Direct Discourse in the Hebrew Bible (VTSup, 46), Leiden, Brill, 1992. On p.  4-5 he points out that the use of direct reported speech in the Hebrew Scriptures is uneven: J is less inclined to use it than E, while P minimizes its use to “reduce the ‘story-telling qualities’ of his sources. Nevertheless, the general impression that dialogue has a high profile in the Bible is a feature shared with other Semitic literatures such as Akkadian [...] and Ugaritic.” George W. S,

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While most studies on the topic deal with the Hebrew Scriptures, similar observations about the relationship between narrator and characters in the use of direct reported speech apply to the four canonical Gospels, Acts of the Apostles, and Revelation as well, for these books are, of course, narratives in their own right. A rapid statistical tally of the number of verses containing direct reported speech in each demonstrates the importance this narrative technique assumes: in Matthew, 806 of 1061 verses, or 76%, are, in whole or in part, devoted to citing the words of characters in the story; in Mark, 393 of 666 verses, or 60%; in Luke, 779 of 1149 verses, or 68%; in John, 627 of 868 verses, or 72%; in Acts, 518 of 1006 verses, or 52%; all of Revelation. Except for the last one listed, the narrator, as typically in the Hebrew biblical narratives, remains, more oen than not, off to the side, allowing much of the story to be carried through the verbal performance of the characters. However, studies noting the phenomenon, whether in the Hebrew Scriptures or in the Greek Testament, have not yet explored the precise narrative mechanisms that help create what might be called “the illusion of immediacy” – the impression, all the more intense in instances of direct reported speech, that the reader is immediately on the scene watching and listening to the characters interact.5 In great part this is because Telling and Retelling: Quotation in Biblical Narrative, Bloomington, IN, Indiana University Press, 1988, p. 12: “Given the reticence of biblical writers about describing their characters in much detail, direct speech assumes even greater importance. Within the scenic mode typical of much biblical narrative, it is dialogue that adds dramatic presence to the story and encourages confrontation between the characters.” For related discussions, see Eric S. C, Time to Tell: Narrative Strategies in Ecclesiastes (JSOT SS, 280), Sheffield, UK, Sheffield Academic Press, 1998; Robert P, Moses and the Deuteronomist. Part One: Deuteronomy, Joshua, Judges: A Literary Study of the Deuteronomic History, New York, NY, Seabury, 1980; Hugh W, Narration and Discourse in the Book of Genesis, Cambridge, UK, Cambridge University Press, 1991. 5. e apt phrase “illusion of immediacy” appears in Adam A. M’s article “e Position of the Present in Fiction,” in Philip S (ed.), The Theory of the Novel, New York, NY, Free Press, 1967, 255-280, p. 264, 265, 272, 275. e words “presence” and “presentness” that pepper his discussion essentially express the same phenomenon. On p.  276-279, treating what he calls the “dramatic method” of the use of dialogue in the novel, Mendilow writes: “e lavish use of dialogue is an important element in the dramatic method, and is perhaps the most obvious means of producing the illusion of immediacy and presentness in the reader.” e phrase “illusion of immediacy,” as well as Mendilow’s entire article, served as one of the key inspirations for my essay. However, my effort is focused specifically on identifying the narrative techniques that produce direct reported speech, one of the key elements that create this sense of immediacy in a narrative text. Generally, the phenomenon of direct reported speech in New Testament studies is treated under the discussion of point of view. See, for example, Richard Alan C, “Narrator and Point of View,” in Anatomy of the Fourth Gospel: A Study in Literary Analysis, Philadelphia, PA, Fortress, 1983, chapter 2, p. 13-49; Stephen H. S, “Point of View in Mark’s Gospel,” in A Lion with Wings: A  Narrative-Critical Approach

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narratologists have oen been too quick to relegate discussion of direct reported speech to the periphery of narrative theory. e following reflections aim to uncover some of the key techniques in narrative theory that make direct reported speech such a favored ploy in biblical narrative, and then suggest some general implications for the interpretation of the Bible in particular. 2. The Illusion of Immediacy Scholars tend to pay little attention to direct reported speech in the Bible because of the perplexity surrounding the topic in narrative theory. To a great degree, the befuddlement stems from the traditional distinction proposed by Plato between narrative (diegesis) and imitation (mimesis). Plato defined pure narrative as the storyteller telling the story in his/ her own voice, pure imitation as the story told by a (or the) character(s) with as little interference from the storyteller as possible. Plato clearly devolved his notion of pure mimesis from the theater, where indeed the story is told entirely, or nearly entirely, by the characters.6 However, this importation of theatrical notions into the modality of storytelling characterized by the presence of a narrator – whether the narrator is physically present in a live setting or figuratively present as an encoded “voice” emanating from a written text – leads to unnecessary confusion. Using the popular terms “telling” and “showing” for diegesis and mimesis respectively points out the source of the difficulty. Unlike theater where “showing” dominates (there is usually no narrator visible or audible), everything in a narrative is, in effect, “telling”: in a story told by a narrator, the narrator must “re-present” not only the words the characters say, but also must “re-present” in words everything else that theater

to Mark’s Gospel, Sheffield, UK, Sheffield Academic Press, 1996, chapter 5, especially p. 181-185. 6. Monika F, The Fictions of Language and the Languages of Fiction: The Linguistic Representation of Speech and Consciousness, London, UK – New York, NY, Routledge, 1993, p. 28, explains that “when Plato opposes narration (diegesis) to mimesis (imitation), he does so within a generic contrast of drama (all imitation) versus the dithyramb (all diegesis) and the epic (mixed), and the diegesis is here not simply ‘narrative,’ but very explicitly the author’s direct voice. For Plato, of course, does not distinguish between a narrator and the author, which is the only way that the narrator of the epic would become identified with the speaker in elegiac verse. In narrative theory Plato’s distinctions have been forgotten, with the result that diegesis has come to signify narration, per se, that is to say the narrator’s rendering of the story in everything except the clearly defined discourse not attributable to this enunciator, i.e., the character’s directly quoted speech and thought acts” [emphasis in original].

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simply (visually) “presents” such as place, setting, actions, gestures, etc.7 Narrative, then, is an act of verbal performance that can contain two different types of representation, representation of those aspects of the story that were originally non-verbal, as well as representation of those aspects that were already verbal, that is, the speaking of the characters. More precisely still – and this is where the confusion is greatest – direct reported speech is not so much the verbal “re-presentation” of a character’s words as a “re-performance” of a character’s act of “re-presentation”: the narrator speaks again the words a character once spoke. us in narrative the so-called “showing” of direct reported speech is really not “showing” at all but rather “telling again.”8 e equivocation between “telling” and “showing” has led narratologists by and large to relegate discussion of direct reported speech to the study of drama, a realm they consider to lie beyond the pale of narrative characterized by the presence of a narrator.9 F. K. Stanzel, for example, 7. See Elaine S, Dreaming by the Book, New York, NY, Farrar, Strauss, Giroux, 1999, p. 5: “e verbal arts [...] – unlike painting, music, sculpture, theater, and film – are almost wholly devoid of actual sensory content. [...] [V]erbal art, especially narrative, is almost bere of any sensuous content. Its visual features, as has oen been observed, consist of monotonous small black marks on a white page. It has no acoustical features. Its tactile features are limited to the weight of its pages, their smooth surfaces, and their exquisitely thin edges. e attributes it has that are directly apprehensible by perception are, then, meager in number. More important, these attributes are utterly irrelevant, sometimes even antagonistic, to the mental images that a poem or novel seeks to produce [...]” [emphasis in original]. 8. Narratologists also make this observation. Shlomith R-K, Narrative Fiction: Contemporary Poetics, London, UK, Routledge, 1983, p. 54, for example, notes that all narrative texts “are made of language, and language signifies without imitating. Language can only imitate language, which is why the representation of speech comes closest to pure mimesis. [...] All that narrative can do is create an illusion, an effect, a semblance of mimesis, but it does so through diegesis.” See also Meir S, “Proteus in Quotation-Land: Mimesis and the Forms of Reported Discourse,” in Poetics Today 3 (1982) 107-156, p. 107: “In quotation, first of all, the two discourse-events enter into representational (‘mimetic’) relations. It should be borne in mind that quoting consists in a representation, one that differs from other acts of representing the world only in the represented object. For its object is itself a subject or manifestation of subjective experience: speech, thought, and otherwise expressive behavior; in short, the world of discourse – from direct through the free or the plain indirect to the most summary or allusive quotation – is a mimesis of discourse.” Nevertheless, the recourse to drama as the best way to account for the illusion of immediacy created by direct reported speech remains a nearly constant factor in these discussions. 9. In its generic meaning, “narrative” can of course include theater, which is a form of storytelling, as Patrick O’N, Fictions of Discourse: Reading Narrative Theory, Toronto, University of Toronto Press, 1994, p. 17, for example, points out: “[...] events on the stage are not merely ‘occurring,’ they are being presented as occurring, in a certain sequence, from a certain perspective, to a certain effect. at presentation, in spite of the lack of a perceptible narrative voice, necessarily presupposes a presenting instance, a consciousness that selects and orders, a narrative instance, in fact, which instead of ‘telling’ has chosen exclusively to ‘show,’ or, to be more accurate, has chosen to ‘tell’ the story by ‘showing’ it unfolding.”

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in his effort to develop a taxonomy of narrative literature around the fundamental concept of narrative as mediacy, divides the elementary forms that constitute narrative into two categories, the “specifically narrative forms (report, description, comment) and the non-narrative forms (speech, dramatized scene).”10 He then defines “dramatized scene” as consisting “essentially of dialogue interspersed with narrative elements which function as stage directions and as brief reports of the action.” On this basis, he explains that “mimesis, in the strict sense of direct or drama-like presentation, is possible in the novel actually only by means of dialogue. Strictly speaking, the dialogue scene is, therefore, a foreign body in the narrative genre, because in the novel a long quotation in direct speech must be regarded as an avoidance of mediacy, i.e., the mode of transmission by a narrator.”11 What saves dramatic scene from being completely foreign to a narrative, that is, of being simply theater, are the interspersed “he/she said” and other “stage directions” provided by the narrator.12 Stanzel’s pervasive use of concepts drawn from theater in his treatment of direct reported speech brings to mind Mieke Bal’s off-hand comment: “for dramatic embedded texts [direct reported speech], one should consult the theory of drama, and a general semiotic theory.”13 Gérard Genette, in his pioneering and now classic Narrative Discourse: An Essay in Method, discusses direct reported speech under the heading of “distance” which, with the notion of “perspective,” constitutes one of the two aspects of what he calls “narrative mood.”14 A narrator can create the impression of more or less distance to the story whether narrating events or reporting a character’s words. In narrating events, less distance (greater mimesis) is achieved when the narrator is least visible and provides the maximum of information, while greater distance (more diegesis) occurs when the narrator is most perceptible. Genette summarizes this narrative effect in the following “rule”: “mimesis [is] defined by a maximum of information and a minimum 10. Franz Karl S, A Theory of Narrative, trans. Charlotte G, Cambridge, UK, Cambridge University Press, 1984 [1979], p. 65. 11. Ibid. [emphasis added]. 12. Ibid., p. 3. It is clear that even here the language of theater is applied only figuratively to narrative, for unlike theater, of course, the characters are not physically present in narrative. 13. Mieke B, Narratology: Introduction to the Theory of Narrative, revised 2nd edition, trans. Christine V B, Toronto, University of Toronto Press, 1997, p. 60-61. 14. Gérard G, Narrative Discourse: An Essay in Method, trans. Jane E. L, Ithaca, NY, Cornell University Press, 1980 [1972], p. 161-185.

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of the informer, diegesis by the opposite relationship.” e impression of more or less distance can occur as well when the narrator cites characters’ words. Here, the least mimetic and therefore most distant from the story is what he calls “narratized or narrated speech,” while “the most ‘mimetic’ form is [...] where the narrator pretends literally to give the floor to his character.”15 Subsequent to these observations, Genette explains the current use of the word “scene” to describe “pure mimesis” in the novel to be the result of the historic influence of drama on narrative. Once again narrative theory turns to drama for an explanation of “the illusion of immediacy” that a narrative creates when using direct reported speech.16 Is it possible to account for this narrative “sleight-of-word” primarily through narrative theory without having to immediately defer to drama theory? 3. Narrative Theory Narrative theories are multiple, complex, and in constant evolution.17 Nevertheless, there is sufficient consensus on the fundamental elements

15. Ibid., p. 172. 16. R-K, Narrative Fiction (n. 8), p. 54: “[t]he purest scenic form is dialogue [...]” in which, except for a few “stage directions,” a “passage looks more like a scene from a play than like a segment of a narrative.” See also Seymour C, Story and Discourse: Narrative Structure in Fiction and Film, Ithaca, NY – London, UK, Cornell University Press, 1978, p.  166-169. Meir S, who has written extensively on nuancing the overly-sharp distinctions between diegesis and mimesis by pointing out how the narrative quoting frame necessarily influences the quoted inset, can state that “the direct style is doubtless judged more suitable for bringing out the speaker’s personality and the drama of the situation [...],” “Point of View” (n. 1), p. 86. 17. e following are some of the more helpful and well-known works on narrative theory: B, Narratology (n. 13); Jacques B, La narrativité, Louvain-la-Neuve, Duculot, 1994; Peter B, Reading for the Plot: Design and Intention in Narrative, New York, NY, Alfred A. Knopf, 1984; C, Story and Discourse (n.  16); Seymour C, Coming to Terms: The Rhetoric of Narrative in Fiction and Film, Ithaca, NY, Cornell University Press, 1990; Mark C, Postmodern Narrative Theory, New York, NY, St. Martin’s Press, 1998; F, The Fictions of Language (n. 6); Monika F, Towards a ‘Natural’ Narratology, New York, NY, Routledge, 1996; G, Narrative Discourse (n.  14); Gérard G, Narrative Discourse Revisited, trans. Jane E. L, Ithaca, NY, Cornell University Press, 1988; omas M. L, What Stories Are: Narrative Theory and Interpretation, University Park, PA, Pennsylvania State University Press, 1986; Wallace M, Recent Theories of Narrative, Ithaca, NY, Cornell University Press, 1986; O’N, Fictions of Discourse (n. 9); Gerald P, Narratology: The Form and Functioning of Narrative (Junua Linguarum, Series Maior, 108), Berlin, Mouton Publishers, 1982; R-K, Narrative Fiction (n. 8); Robert S – Robert K, The Nature of Narrative, London, UK, Oxford University Press, 1990; S, A Theory of Narrative (n. 10); Philip John Moore S, Narrativity: Theory and Practice, Oxford, UK, Clarendon, 1992.

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that constitute narrative and on how they function to fruitfully explore the dynamics at play in direct reported speech. e following sketch of narrative theory presents only those aspects germane to the analysis of how a narrative creates “the illusion of immediacy” in using direct reported speech: narrative levels, narrative agents, and time. 3.1. Narrative Levels Narrative theory evolved as a tool best suited to study the specific type of communication called narrative.18 e fundamental key to all narrative analysis is the distinguishing of different narrative levels.19 As Chatman argues, unlike the text-types of Argument and Description, for example, which are basically static and atemporal, Narrative has the unique characteristic of telling a story.20 Telling a story involves a double time logic: “[...] what makes Narrative unique among text-types is its ‘chrono-logic,’ its doubly temporal logic. Narrative entails movement through time not only ‘externally’ (the duration of the presentation of the novel, film, play) but also ‘internally’ (the duration of the sequence of events that constitute the plot). e first operates in that dimension of narrative called Discourse (or récit or syuzhet), the second in that called Story (histoire or fabula).”21 In addition to the discourse and the story levels, narratologists posit yet a third level, this one referring to the enunciating of the discourse through which the story can be reconstructed. Shlomith Rimmon-Kenan calls this third level “narration”: “[s]ince the text is a spoken or written discourse, it implies someone who speaks or writes it. e act or process of production is the third aspect – ‘narration.’”22 18. For a helpful survey of the recent history of the approach, see Wallace M, Recent Theories of Narrative (n. 17). 19. O’N, Fictions of Discourse (n. 9), p. 19. 20. Seymour C, Coming to Terms (n.  17), p.  9, uses upper case initials for Narrative, Argument, and Description as a way to identify what he calls “text-types.” ese are abstract categories that identify what is common to these types beyond their expression in specific modalities. For example, Narrative as a text-type includes novels, film, drama, ballet. See also his article “What Can We Learn from Contextualist Narratology?” in Poetics Today 11 (1990) 309-328, p. 311: “Other text-types do not have two time orders. ere is no internal time dimension in a deductive or inductive argument, nor in a description or an exposition. ese other text-types have only one chrono-logic, that of external or discourse time.” Also on the difference between argument and narrative, see Paul R, Temps et récit I, Paris, Seuil, 1983, p. 213. 21. C, Coming to Terms (n. 17), p. 9. For a table listing the various terms and terminologies found in recent theories of narrative, see O’N, Fictions of Discourse (n. 9), p. 21. 22. R-K, Narrative Fiction (n. 8), p. 3. See B, Narratology (n. 13), p. 6, for a discussion of the theoretical necessity of narrative levels: “ese definitions suggest

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e three narrative levels can easily enough be illustrated with the notion of time. On the story level, events take place in the strict chronological sequence that constitutes the fundamental experience of time for all human beings: time moves in one direction only, with the present marking the continually moving point between past and future. On the discourse level, however, the sequence of events can be presented in a different order from that of the story level through such techniques as flashbacks, flashforwards, gaps, etc. Moreover, the ratio of discourse time to story time can vary widely. A mere sentence on the discourse level can represent a long period of time having elapsed on the story level, while an entire paragraph on the discourse level can recount an event that on the story level might have transpired in but a few seconds. On the third level, narration time is the time it takes to “tell” (or in written texts, to “perform,” i.e., tell or read) the discourse through which one imagines the story. e different times of the three levels are intimately related, however. For example, it is only through the time it takes in telling/reading (narration level time) the discourse (the configuration of time on the discourse level) that the hearer/reader can reconstruct the story time (the chronology and duration of the events on the story level). e interplay of time on the three narrative levels is one of the contributing factors to the “illusion of immediacy,” as will be discussed below. 3.2. Narrative Agents e addition of a “narration” level opens the door to the discussion of narrative agents, for, as already implied above in the definition of narrative, “someone” tells the story to “someone” else. Underlying the positing of narrative agents is the realization that narrative structures can best be assessed not only by what they are in themselves but also by the narrative purposes they serve, that is, the communication of stories by storytellers

that a three-layer distinction [...] is a reasonable basis for a further study of narrative texts. [...] Such a distinction carries with it the assumption that it is possible to analyse the three layers separately. at does not mean that these layers ‘exist’ independently of one another. [...] at a text can be divided into three layers is a theoretical supposition based upon a process of reasoning. [...] e reader wishing to analyse a text [...] distinguishes different layers of a text in order to account for particular effects which the text has upon its readers.” Also, O’N, Fictions of Discourse (n. 9), p. 21, points out that these different narrative layers “have no independent existence, but rather exist only metaphorically, by virtue of their interdependent relationship with the other postulated levels” [emphasis in original].

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to listeners.23 In recent decades, the traditionally taxonomic concerns, which were based primarily in linguistics and which were oen modelled on a grammatical paradigm in an attempt to identify and classify the structural features of narrative, have been infused with more dynamic notions drawn from a communication model succinctly described as the trilogy “sender-message-receiver.” Since narrative is a form of communication, there must be agents sending and receiving the story. In the most obvious and natural setting of an oral/aural context, a storyteller addresses a story to a listener or an audience.24 In light of the three narrative levels described above, the narrator speaks (narration level) the discourse (discourse level) so that the listener might reconstruct what happened (story level, in which the characters speak to each other). When the communication is delayed in the form of written texts, the narrative agents are considered to be encoded in the text itself.25 e result is the now quite common model of embedded concepts of a real author who communicates to a real reader via a text. Encoded in the text is an implied author who communicates to an implied reader via the also encoded mechanism of a narrator who tells the story to a narratee, with the story containing the communication among the characters. e following diagram attempts to illustrate both the narrative levels and

23. “e most important of these has been the shi from formally defined linguistic models to communication models,” M, Recent Theories of Narrative (n. 17), p. 27. On the importance of communication for a fuller and more accurate understanding of narrative, see Meir S, “Telling in Time (II): Chronology, Teleology, Narrativity,” in Poetics Today 13 (1992) 463-541; W, Narration and Discourse in the Book of Genesis (n. 4), p. 3-40. 24. B, La narrativité (n. 17), p. 73, observes that the shi toward the inclusion of communication models in narrative studies came from the human sciences such as psychology, sociology, and sociolinguistics that study narratives in living settings rather than merely abstractly. 25. As the last five (implied author/implied reader; narrator/narratee; characters in the story) are properties of the text, narrative criticism is thus fundamentally a textoriented approach. See F, The Fictions of Language (n. 6), p. 441-442. e communication model, therefore, is applied to and within the text itself, such that the text “contains all three components (sender, message, and receiver) and so is complete in itself,” Mark Allan P, What Is Narrative Criticism? (GBS), Minneapolis, MN, Fortress, 1990, p. 20. On the value of staying within the text, see Seymour C, “What Can We Learn from Contextualist Narratology?” (n. 20). See also R-K, Narrative Fiction (n. 8), p. 3-4: “In the empirical world, the author is the agent responsible for the production of the narrative and for its communication. e empirical process of communication, however, is less relevant to the poetics of narrative fiction than its counterpart within the text. Within the text, communication involves a fictional narrator transmitting a narrative to a fictional narratee.”

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their agents,26 with the square brackets indicating the agents encoded within the text: real author - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - text - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - real reader [implied author - - - - - - - (discourse level) - - - - - - - - implied reader] [narrator - - - - - - - - - (narration level) - - - - - - - - - - narratee] [characters - - - - - - -(story level) - - - - - - - - characters]

Beyond the characters in the story, four other textually encoded agents need introduction, for the real author and the real reader are not properties of the text. e implied author refers to that profile of the author inferred from the text. It is the figure that “emerges only from our overall reading of the positions, values, and opinions espoused by the narrative text as a whole, reconstructed by that reading as the semiotically necessary authorial stance demanded by this particular text.”27 e implied author is the narrative stance that provides the arrangement and configuration of such elements of the discourse as chronologization, localization, characterization, focalization, and verbalization of a text. If according to the communication model there are both senders and receivers, then the narrative stance of the implied author has a counterpart in the receptive stance of the implied reader: “the implied reader is the reader ‘called for’ by the text, just as the implied author is the author ‘called for’ in its production.”28 Both the implied author and the implied reader, as configurations of the text, are static. e first has no “voice,” the second has no “ears.” For the implied author’s static text on the page to be activated into a communication to the implied reader, both implied author and implied reader need active agents, the one a “voice” that speaks the text’s configurations, the other “ears” to hear that communication. Every narrative has a teller: “[a]ll narratives are uttered, whether metaphorically or literally, by the voice of a narrator.”29 In oral/aural contexts, there is no difficulty in discerning the narrator – it is the one 26. Adapted from R-K, Narrative Fiction (n. 8), p. 86; O’N, Fictions of Discourse (n. 9), p. 114; P, What Is Narrative Criticism? (n. 25), p. 27. Correlating narrative levels and narrative agents together in one formula, O’N proposes the following: “Story is to text is to narration as what is to how is to who,” Patrick O’N, The Comedy of Entropy: Humour, Narrative, Reading, Toronto, University of Toronto Press, 1990, p. 87, as cited in O’N, Fictions of Discourse (n. 9), p. 23. 27. O’N, Fictions of Discourse (n. 9), p. 66 [emphasis in original]. 28. Ibid., p. 74. 29. Ibid., p. 60. See also Richard A, “Hearing Voices in Narrative Texts,” in New Literary History 29 (1998) 467-500; Mieke B, “First Person, Second Person, Same Person: Narrative as Epistemology,” in New Literary History 24 (1993) 293-320.

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(usually) physically present whose voice the listener/audience hears tell the story. In the case of a written narrative, where the communication is delayed, the notion of narrator is figuratively applied to the text. e reader “hears” a voice in a written narrative, a voice not the reader’s own, that is telling the story. It is the “voice” that speaks the “script” of the discourse provided by the implied author.30 ere are various types of narrators, depending upon their place in relationship to the story and to the reader.31 According to the communication model, the narrator as the agent speaking the discourse of the story, must, as a speaker, be speaking to someone. is is the narratee: “the narratee is the agent addressed by the narrator.”32 As a counterpart to the narrator, so also are there various 30. O’N, Fictions of Discourse (n.  9), p.  77: “[...] the narrator is thus neither a person nor even a character but rather a narrative position, a position or point on the narrative scale, situated between the level of the implied author and that of character, potentially coincident with either or neither of these, and seen as identifying the point of utterance of the narrative voice” [emphasis in original]. See also B, Narratology (n. 13), p. 22: “As soon as there is language, there is a speaker who utters it; as soon as those linguistic utterances constitute a narrative text, there is a narrator, a narrating subject. From a grammatical point of view, this is always a ‘first person.’” C, Coming to Terms (n.  17), p.  116: “Remember, when we speak of the narrator, we are speaking neither of the original creators of narrative texts – the flesh-and-blood authors, nor of the principle of invention in the text we call the implied author, but someone or something in the text who or which is conceived as presenting (or transmitting) the set of signs that constitute it. As part of the invention of the text, the implied author assigns to a narrative agent the task of articulating it, or actually offering it to some projected or inscribed audience (narratee).” 31. An external, non-perceptible narrator, is, as the name suggests, outside the story being narrated. Moreover, this type of narrator does not present itself overtly to the narratee, and thus is non-perceptible. A good example of such a narrator is the narrator in Mark’s Gospel. An external, perceptible narrator is a narrator who, although not a character in the story it is telling, uses the first person singular in addressing the narratee, for example, the narrator of Luke’s Gospel, who presents himself in the prologue, using “I” to address the narratee eophilus. In this instance both narrator and narratee are external and perceptible. A character narrator is a character in the story it tells, and thus is necessarily perceptible. It speaks in the first person singular “I” or, by speaking as one or two or more characters, as “we.” is type of narrator can be involved in the story it is telling, as for example John of Patmos in the Book of Revelation who recounts the visions he had, or the “we” sections in Acts of the Apostles where the up-till-then external narrator becomes a character narrator, involved and participating in the adventures of Paul and companions. Because the implied author and the narrator are different narrative agents, there can be a discrepancy between the two, as, for example, when a modern novel uses what is called an unreliable narrator. However, in the Gospels and in the bible generally, the narrator shares the same values and point of view as the implied author. To simplify matters somewhat, references to the narrator in what follows implicitly include the implied author. is is to avoid the cumbersome descriptions such as “the narrator speaks the discourse provided by the implied author.” For helpful typologies of narrators, see B, Narratology (n.  13), p.  19-30; R-K, Narrative Fiction (n. 8), p. 94-103. 32. R-K, Narrative Fiction (n. 8), p. 104.

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types of narratees, depending upon their place in relationship to the story and to the reader.33 ese four agents account for the communication on two of the three narrative levels, the discourse level and the narration level: the implied author communicates the discourse to the implied reader via the narrator who speaks the discourse to the narratee. ere remains one level unaccounted for, the story level. On this narrative level, the characters in the story speak to each other, which leads to the third element of narrative theory necessary in understanding the illusion of immediacy created by direct reported speech – embedded texts. 3.3. Embedded Texts is last topic complexifies the narrative picture.34 Oentimes in a narrative, a character is portrayed as telling a story (for example, Jesus telling a parable.) is means that a character on the story level becomes in his/her own right a narrator whose verbal performance includes all three narrative levels: Jesus (the narrator) speaks a discourse (the words that make up the parable) to the audience who reconstruct the story (what happened). e result is a secondary narrative embedded in a primary narrative, both narratives having the full panoply of narrative levels and narrative agents. Such embeddedness could theoretically go on in infinite regression. But the words spoken by a character in the story that are not in the form of a narrative also constitute an embedded text. While not functioning strictly speaking as a “narrator,” the character is nonetheless a speaker who addresses another character in the story world, thus engaging in an activity (i.e., speaking) similar to that of the narrator of the primary narrative who, on the narration level, addresses the discourse to the narratee.35 In other words, there are two speakers, 33. O’N, Fictions of Discourse (n. 9), p. 77: “e narratee [...] is the point of reception of the narrative voice, that transactional point on the narrative scale at which the narrative voice is seen to be aimed; situated again between the level of character and that of the implied reader and again potentially coincident with either or neither of these.” 34. For helpful discussions on embedded texts, see B, Narratology (n. 13), p. 43-75; O’N, Fictions of Discourse (n. 9), p. 107-116. 35. “e speech-acts of characters, on the other hand, tend to be different. Although a character can, of course, tell a story within the main story, most of his speech-acts will be appropriate to that actual framing scene and those will have all the variety in the (imagined) world: that is, his speech acts, like his other acts, will be addressed to the other characters and objects around him. So he enters into a wider set of relationships than do the narrator and the (implied) reader,” Seymour C, “e Structures of Narrative Transmission,” in Roger F (ed.), Style and Structure in Literature: Essays in New Stylistics, Ithaca, NY, Cornell University Press, 1975, p. 225 [emphasis in original].

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the narrator on the narration level and the character on the story level, distinguishable one from the other in answer to the question, Who speaks? e narrative technique of embedded texts, along with narrative levels and narrative agents, are the ingredients needed to examine the underlying narrative mechanisms creating the “illusion of immediacy” in direct reported speech. 4. Direct Reported Speech and the Illusion of Immediacy Various combinations and interactions of the several narrative elements presented above lead to the following six observations on the how direct reported speech creates “the illusion of immediacy.” 4.1. Coordination of Deictics Deixis concerns the adjustment of spatiotemporal coordinates according to the level of narration, that is, according to who is speaking, the narrator or the characters.36 In a narrative where a narrator cites the characters, there are grammatical and syntactical indicators distinguishing the embedded text from the primary narrative. e grammatical distinction is expressed in verbal tenses. In the primary narrative, the narrator usually narrates in the past tense (e.g., “Jesus came from Galilee [...]”).37 On the story level, however, the characters speak to each other in the present tense (e.g., “Amen, amen, I say to you”). e syntactical distinction between the levels appears in pronominal usage. While the narrator speaks of the characters in the third person (“he said to the paralytic”), 36. “In the modern use of the term, deixis covers the function performed by the whole set of grammatical and lexical elements – notably tense, personal pronouns, and demonstratives (like this, that, here, now, tomorrow) – which relate the utterance to the spatiotemporal coordinates of the situation of utterance. Normally, the speaker relates all the persons, events, and objects he talks about to the unique here-and-now of his own deictic context; the addressee correspondingly identifies, places, and links the referents in relation to the same zero point,” S, “Point of View” (n. 1), p. 110 [emphasis in original]. For a more extensive treatment of deixis, see William F. H, “Deixis,” in David H – Manfred J – Marie-Laure R (eds.), Routledge Encyclopedia of Narrative Theory, London, UK – New York, NY, Routledge, 2005, 99-100. For a functional approach to the characteristics of direct speech, see Charles N. L, “Direct Speech and Indirect Speech: A Functional Study,” in Florian C (ed.), Direct and Indirect Speech (TLSM, 31), Berlin – New York, NY – Amsterdam, Mouton de Gruyter, 1986, 29-45. 37. “[N]arration is always in the past tense,” M, Recent Theories of Narrative (n. 17), p. 132; “[...] the preterite is the tense par excellence of the narrative genre of speech [...],” Tullio M, “e Force of Reportive Narratives,” in Papers in Linguistics 17 (1984) 235-265, p. 249.

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the characters in the story use first and second person pronouns when speaking to each other (“Amen, amen, I say to you”). e demonstratives such as this, that, here, now, tomorrow adjust so as to coordinate with their respective narrative levels.38 is deictic coordination allows for the use of such grammatical and discourse features as vocatives and imperatives among the characters on the story level that are not possible on the narration level between the narrator and the narratee.39 4.2. Overlap of Presents e adjustment of deictics results in the apparent overlap of two presents. is can be explained as follows. e distinction between the narrator-narratee’s here-and-now communication on the narration level on the one hand, and the events that once took place on the story level on the other hand, is relatively clear when the narrator relates those events in past tense verbs. However, the boundary between the here-andnow of the narrator-narratee communication and the then-and-there of the story level becomes blurred when the characters in the story speak. In this instance, since the embedded text uses present tense verbs denoting that the characters are interacting in their own here-and-now, there are two “here-and-nows” going on at the same time, the present time here-and-now of the narrator-narratee communication and the already past here-and-now, expressed in present tense verbs, of the characters among themselves in the story world. e result is the overlap of two “here-and-nows” or of two “presents.”40 e present time of the narrator’s narrating of the discourse and the present tense of the characters speaking in the story coincide into the same present. us, both the narrator

38. e study of deictics is described in Cynthia L. M, “Discourse Functions of Quotative Frames in Biblical Hebrew Narrative,” in Walter R. B (ed.), Discourse Analysis of Biblical Literature: What It Is and What It Offers (SBL SS, 27), Atlanta, GA, Scholars, 1995, 155-182, p. 157-158. See her summary, p. 158: “us, the relation between direct quotation and its frame is one of independence. is independence is manifested in two ways. First, the quotation is syntactically independent of the frame. Second, pronominal reference within the quotation is not identical to that of the frame, but is determined with reference to the frame and in accord with the pragmatic context.” 39. S, “Point of View” (n. 1), p. 111. For a similar discussion, see C, “e Structures of Narrative Transmission” (n. 35), p. 225. 40. e reader can become aware of the overlap of the two “presents” when the narrator intrudes by directly addressing or indirectly “winking” at the reader, what Mendilow calls “the intrusive author”: “e sense of immediacy and presentness which the reader enjoys on the plane of ‘fictional time’ is destroyed by the implied reference to his chronological time, his moment of present sensation. He becomes conscious of the ‘solecism of the two presents,’” M, “e Position of the Present in Fiction” (n. 5), p. 268.

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in the primary narrative level and the characters in the embedded text apparently speak at the same time.41 4.3. Apparent Equality of Narration, Discourse, and Story Time As mentioned earlier, one of the tricks narrative can play because of its distinct levels is to vary the ratio between discourse time and story time: a few words or sentences of discourse can represent years on the story level, while an entire paragraph of discourse can represent an event that took but a few seconds to transpire on the story level. Direct reported speech gives the impression that discourse time and story time are equal – the words a character spoke once upon a time in the story are the same words now configured (“quoted”) in the discourse. Moreover, prescinding from non-encodable speech behaviors such as an individual character’s pauses, cadences, and rhythms, it takes the same amount of time for the narrator on the narration level to say again the words once uttered by a character on the story level.42 e illusion is made all the more effective when the narrator’s so-called “stage directions” (“he said,” “she said”) are at a minimum. us, not only do the narrator and the character speak at the same time, as mentioned in point 4.2 above; they both take the same amount of time to speak.43

41. “What distinguishes narrative effects as such from all others is less their play over time than their interplay between times. For it is the interplay of the represented and the presented dynamics, whether in ‘iconic’ concordance or ‘arbitrary’ tension, that sets narrative apart as a discourse with a double time-pattern,” S, “Telling in Time (II)” (n. 23), p. 519. See also B, Narratology (n. 13), p. 22; G, Narrative Discourse (n. 14), p. 244. 42. G, Narrative Discourse (n. 14), p. 94: “[...] scene, most oen in dialogue, [...] realizes conventionally the equality of time between narrative and story” [emphasis in original]. R-K, Narrative Fiction (n. 8), p. 52, points out that this impression is a result of convention: “Even a segment of pure dialogue, which has been considered by some a case of pure coincidence between story-duration and text-duration, cannot manifest complete correspondence. A dialogue can give the impression of reporting everything that was said in fact or in fiction, adding nothing to it, but even then it is incapable of rendering the rate at which the sentences were uttered or the length of the silences. It is, therefore, only by convention that one speaks of temporal equivalence of story and text in dialogue. is convention probably arises from the fact that a dialogue is a rendering of language in language, every word in the text presumably standing for a word uttered in the story, whereas the linguistic rendering of non-verbal occurrences does not seem to call for any particular fixed rate of narration. [...] e relations in question are, in fact, not between two durations but between duration in the story (measured in minutes, hours, days, months, years) and the length of text devoted to it (in lines and pages), i.e. a temporal/spatial relationship.” 43. See Anna W, “e Semantics of Direct and Indirect Discourse,” in Papers in Linguistics 7 (1974) 267-308.

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4.4. Narrative presence On the discourse level, the story is presented in the past tense, intimating that the narrator (or the narrator’s source[s]) was once upon a time present (really or fictively) at the events recounted, while the narratee was absent. On the narration level, the narrator speaks the discourse presently to the narratee, but in the absence of the events recounted on the story level.44 is means, of course, that the characters in the story are also absent from the communication between the narrator and the narratee. e narrator can make the characters present – not only speak about them but make them speak – only by voicing the words they once said then-and-there, thereby creating, due to the overlap of presents mentioned earlier, the illusion that the characters are speaking in the hereand-now of the narrator-narratee communication. More precisely, in citing the words of the characters, the narrator creates the impression that both narrator and narratee are projected from their own here-andnow communication to the here-and-now communication of the characters that once took place then-and-there. To hear someone speaking, one must be within earshot; to hear a character speaking in the here-andnow of the story, the narratee must, along with the narrator, be (imaginatively) in the presence of the characters. e coincidence of the two presents in the narrator’s speaking (the present time of the narration level and the present tense of the characters on the story level) creates the impression of presence.45 44. If the story events were still present and both narrator and narratee present as well, there would be no need to narrate anything: both narrator and narratee would simply watch and listen with no need for one to report to the other what happened. 45. “e reference to the speech event is telescoped with the reference to the narrated speech event, interlocutors are combined with hearers [narratees with hearing characters], and speakers [characters] talk through the mouths of narrators,” M, “e Force of Reportive Narratives” (n.  37), p.  246. See also O’N, Fictions of Discourse (n. 9), p. 59. As B, La narrativité (n. 17), p. 141, notes, the illusion is all the more effective when the narrator uses “historic present” tense: “Le présent narratif permet – entre autres – d’annuler fantasmatiquement la distance reconté / temps du reconteur; de raconter ‘en direct’ en quelque sorte.” Of course, narrative convention has it that the characters are totally unaware of the narrator and narratee listening in on them. ere is no communication between narrative levels. B, Reading for the Plot (n. 17), p. 22-23, offers some fascinating reflections on the play of past, present, and future in narrative: “We should here note that opposed to this view stand other analysts, such as Claude Brémond, or Jean Pouillon, who many years ago argued (as a Sartrean attempting to rescue narrative from the constraints Sartre found in it) that the preterite tense used classically in the novel is decoded by the reader as a kind of present, that of an action and a significance being forged before his eyes, in his hands, so to speak. It is to my mind an interesting and not wholly resolvable question how much, and in what ways, we in reading image the pastness of the action

   

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Narrative convention has it that there is no communication between the narrator-narratee and the characters in the story – the characters are blithely unaware of these textual agents “observing” their every action and “eavesdropping” on their conversations. Narrators cannot address characters in the story, nor can characters in the story address the narratee.46 However, the impression of presence created by the overlap of presents in direct reported speech, while not crossing the boundary between levels, nevertheless makes the reader that much less aware of the existence of this boundary. 4.5. Enacting vs. Representing In narrative, the representation of (historical or fictive) reality is effected through words – things, places, people, events, gestures, etc., are not presented as such (as in theater) but are first transformed into words, the “stuff” of discourse. In quoting the words of characters in the story, however, what is re-presented is already in the verbal form. ere is no intermediate step of the narrator having first to transform other sense perceptions of story realities into words.47 e result is the overlap of two speech acts, that of the narrator and that of the character. Already on the narration level the narrator is engaging in an act of speech by addressing the story to the narratee. In quoting the words of a character on the story level, the narrator speaks again the speaking of the character on the story level. In this instance, then, the narrator is not representing but rather enacting (performing, role-playing) a character’s act of speech.48 In a presented, in most cases, in verbs in the past tense. If on the one hand we realize the action progressively, segment by segment, as a kind of present in terms of our experience of it, [...] do we not do so precisely in anticipation of its larger hermeneutic structuring by conclusions? [...] If the past is to be read as present, it is a curious present that we know to be past in relation to a future we know to be already in place, already in wait for us to reach it. Perhaps we would do best to speak of the anticipation of retrospection as our chief tool in making sense of narrative, the master trope of its strange logic” [emphasis in original]. 46. O’N, Fictions of Discourse (n. 9), p. 36-41. 47. In written texts, of course, there is the implied transformation from oral to written. See C, “e Structures of Narrative Transmission” (n. 35), p. 238. 48. S, “Proteus in Quotation-Land” (n.  8), p.  108-109. See also M, Recent Theories of Narrative (n. 17), p. 50-51: “Traditional theorists assume that narrators use words to represent or convey a picture of ‘reality’ (factual or fictional) to an audience. But when a character speaks, the words are not a substitute for, or representation of, something else. e language of the character is the character, just as the words you and I speak are ourselves, in the eyes of others. e separation of form, subject, and content disappears when we recognize that all three are present – not ‘represented’ – when we, and characters in a novel, speak to someone” [emphasis in original]. See also L, “Direct

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parallel fashion, just as the narrator’s and the character’s speaking overlap, so also do the roles of the narratee and the listening characters overlap: narratee and listening characters hear the speaking character at the same time. us, the enacting of the present tense speaking of the character on the story level in the present time speaking of the narrator on the narration level further abets the illusion of the character’s presence.49 4.6. Simultaneous Revelation e overlap of the present tenses in the narrator’s speaking again to the narratee the words that the characters spoke once upon a time in the then-and-there of the story world (nos. 4.4 and 4.5 above) contributes yet another effect to the illusion of immediacy: “simultaneous revelation.” is effect, one of the modalities of the narrator’s timed control of information, concerns the narrative agents who receive (“hear”) a character’s direct reported speech, that is, the narratee on the narration level and the other characters on the story level. If in some instances the narrator discloses to the narratee information that the characters do not know, and in yet other instances withholds from the narratee information that is known to the characters, the narrator’s enacted speech of a character is revealed simultaneously to both the narratee on the narration level and the other characters on the story level. Such an outcome devolves from the “defining trait of quotation (as a mimesis of discourse),” which, as Sternberg explains, “consists in the fact that its represented object is itself

and Indirect Speech” (n.  36), p.  38: “In direct speech, the reporter-speaker [narrator] plays the role of the reported/original speaker [character]. e reporter-speaker intends for the hearer to believe that the form, the content and the non-verbal messages such as gestures and facial expressions of the reported speech originate from the reported speaker.” 49. “[...] while the narrator reports an event, in using reported speech he also enacts that event [...] [R]eported speech is a performative speech act. e performative character of reported speech contributes to its veracity, to its power to convince. Nevertheless, the truth at stake is not that of the logician (propositional) but rather the felicity or happiness of the conditions. e important thing to bear in mind [is …] that while the narrator reports an event, in using reported speech he also enacts that event,” M, “e Force of Reportive Narratives” (n. 37), p. 256 [emphasis in original]. See also Florian C, “Reported Speech: Some General Issues,” in Florian C (ed.), Direct and Indirect Speech (n. 36), p. 2: “In direct speech the reporter lends his voice to the original speaker and says (or writes) what he said, thus adopting his point of view, as it were. Direct speech, in a manner of speaking, is not the reporter’s speech, but remains the reported speaker’s speech whose role is played by the reporter.” For a fascinating study of reading as performing and vice versa, see David C, Acting as Reading: The Place of the Reading Process in the Actor’s Work, Ann Arbor, MI, University of Michigan Press, 1992.

   

25

a subject with expressive features: verbal, moral, sociocultural, thematic, aesthetic, informational, persuasive.”50 In different terms, Wallace Martin describes the same phenomenon: “[…] when a character speaks, the words are not a substitute for, or representation of, something else. e language of the character is the character, just as the words you and I  speak are ourselves, in the eyes of others.”51 Since human beings are essentially unknowable from inside but mainly from how they behave and by what they say,52 the representing or mimesis of a narrative character’s speech will necessarily appear to be as unpredictable and unforeseeable to the narratee and to the other characters in the story as it is in real life. us, the “simultaneously revelation” of information further abets the illusion of immediacy, the impression that the reader is a present witness of and in the story. 5. Conclusion ese six observations demonstrate that narrative theory has developed sufficient analytic sophistication to account for “the illusion of immediacy” created when a narrative uses direct reported speech. e interplay among the narrative levels, narrative agents, and embedded texts uncovers the subtle mechanisms that conspire to create in the reader the impression of being imaginatively present in the story world, of watching and hearing the characters as they interact. If, unlike propositional and expositional texts, narrative communicates by mimicking experience, direct reported speech greatly enhances narrative’s effectiveness, for the characters in the story appear to be speaking on their own behalf, using their own words, rather than through the advocacy of someone else and in someone else’s words. It is not surprising, then, that biblical narrative favors direct reported speech. While direct reported speech is common to narratives every50. S, “Proteus in Quotation Land” (n. 8), p. 108-109. 51. M, Recent Theories of Narrative (n. 17), p. 51 [emphasis in original]. See note 48. 52. M, “e Position of the Present in Fiction” (n. 5), p. 279-280: “We do not see ourselves as others see us. We are aware in ourselves of the whole pressure of the past on our present, of the tug and clash of forces that may or may not express themselves in terms of action. We know ourselves from the inside; we are to a greater or lesser extent omniscient about ourselves. As regards others, however, we are mere spectators; we can only guess at their motives from their actions and behaviour; direct evidence of the interior of their minds we cannot have. at is why other people are so much more simple to us than we ourselves. We know only the resultant of the forces that work in them as it expresses itself in outward behaviour; in ourselves, we are aware of the complex and ever shiing equilibrium of conflicting forces as well, before they reach their expression in action.”

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where, its unique ability to create in the reader the sense of being there, of seeing and hearing for oneself, recommends it as a particularly apt technique for articulating the complexities and ambiguities of the divinehuman relationship, the Bible’s central theme. As far as the Gospels are concerned, for example, early Christian kerygma was obviously not content to speak about Jesus, but preferred to have Jesus speak for himself. Readers, then, hear for themselves, seemingly at first hand, what Jesus says, just as the characters in the story do. e sense of immediacy enhanced by the narrative use of direct reported speech invites the reader’s active participation not only in imaginatively reconstructing the story but also by inviting the reader to ponder the meaning and import of the characters’ interactions. And while there is no communication between the narration level and the story level (the characters are not at all aware of the narrator and narratee eavesdropping in on them), the sense of immediacy is all the more palpable where the Gospel narrator portrays Jesus exhorting in such words as “whoever [...], anyone who [...], the one who [...].” ese generic phrases, because spoken in direct reported speech, have the added effect of implicitly reaching beyond the crowds in the story world to embrace even the reader. Finally, given the high percentage of verses containing direct reported speech in all four Gospels, and the concomitant self-effacement of the narrator, it is also worth pondering whether the theological stakes in the various Gospel episodes are to be found as much in the characters’ words an in the narrator’s recounting.53 e sense of immediacy is, however, an illusion. It is but an impression created through narrative techniques. e decisions about who among the characters in the story will speak, when they will speak, and what they will say have already been made and configured in the discourse by the implied author, a discourse to be then spoken by the narrator. “[T]he world inhabited by actors [the characters in the story],” observes O’Neill, “is one that in principle they cannot escape, for like Lear’s flies to wanton boys, they have absolutely no recourse against the essentially arbitrary narrative decisions of the discourse – the narrative abode of those discourse gods that kill them for their sport.”54 e illusion of immediacy – past absence made present presence – is the result of an extraordinary sequence and concatenation of mediating techniques. e narrative pres53. If, according to L, “Direct Speech and Indirect Speech” (n. 36), p. 40: “[...] direct quote is the most common mode of expression at the peak of oral narrative in many languages,” could not the narrative peak of many a Gospel episode lie in direct reported speech? 54. O’N, Fictions of Discourse (n. 9), p. 41.

   

27

ence of Abraham, Ruth, David, Jesus, etc., is entirely mediated by the implied author and the implied author’s speaking instance, the narrator. Only in the narrator’s speaking can they speak. e value of exploring direct reported speech in the Bible lies not so much in explaining away the “sleight-of-word” that mediates immediacy as in marvelling at the subtle narrative techniques that make biblical narrative the perennially powerful purveyor of God-suffused experience it has proved to be throughout the centuries. e analysis also sheds further light on the awesome power of story. It implicitly underscores the immense responsibility of a story’s “performers,” first and more particularly the story’s creators, who select and arrange and configure the discourse, and secondly the story’s hearers and readers, who allow themselves both to be lured by the discourse and to engage with it. Could it be that the Bible’s prodigal use of narrative rests in the fact that there are fundamental aspects of the divine-human drama that can best (only?) be transmitted through the mediation of story?

C 2

MARK: NARRATIVE, HISTORY, THEOLOGY Mark’s Gospel, as is the case for all biblical historical narratives, is a unified blend of narrative, history, and theology. I propose in the following reflections to explore how and to what extent Arthur C. Danto’s main ideas on history and narrative, expressed in his book Narrative and Knowledge, can shed light on Mark’s story of Jesus. More particularly, what, in Danto’s terms, can be identified as the specificity of Mark’s Gospel? While Danto focuses more on the philosophy of historical knowledge than on the poetics of narrative or of narrative history, it is my contention that his work is worth incorporating in reflections on narrative, history, and theology generally and on Mark in particular. What follows, therefore, is entirely exploratory and experimental, inspired overall by one of Danto’s key statements: “to exist historically is to perceive the events one lives through as part of a story later to be told.”1 1. Historical Consciousness and Knowledge 1.1. Historical existence: stories later to be told In the 1964 preface to Analytic Philosophy of History, the earlier version of what was later revised and published as Narrative and Knowledge, Danto writes that “It is impossible to overestimate the extent to which our common ways of thinking about the world are historical.” He further states that his reflections compose what he calls “a descriptive metaphysic of historical existence.”2 While it is not possible to do justice to the long and at times intricate argumentations he offers, his notion of historical awareness or historical consciousness is, for our purposes, a good place to begin. History – its production, consumption, appreciation – presupposes a certain type of consciousness, commonly called historical consciousness. 1. Arthur C. D, Narrative and Knowledge. With a new introduction by Lydia G and a new conclusion by Frank A (CCP), New York, NY, Columbia University Press, 2007 [1985]. Including the integral text of Analytic Philosophy of History [1964], p. 342. 2. Ibid., p. xv.

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It is not simply a consciousness of temporality, of being in the present, but of realizing that the present “is more than a moment one is conscious of as simultaneous with one’s consciousness of it.”3 It is the consciousness that one is living in time, that the present is something the meaning of which will be given only in the future, through retrospection. us, as Danto succinctly expresses it, “to exist historically is to perceive the events one lives through as part of a story later to be told.”4 e awareness that present events are part of a story later to be told arises from the realization that present events, insofar as they are the future outcome of past events, confer new significance on those past events. “[H]istorical consciousness is a matter of structuring our present in terms of our future and their past.”5 Just as stories commonly have a beginning, a middle, and an end, the story history tells is assumed to have a beginning (the past), a middle (the present), and an end (the future).6 In using the term “story,” Danto intimates that history and narrative go hand in hand. is link between history and narrative evokes Peter Brooks’ observation that “narrative is one of the large categories or systems of understanding that we use in our negotiations with reality, specifically, in the case of narrative, with the problem of temporality: [our] time-boundedness, [our] consciousness of existence within the limits of mortality.”7 If this is the case for narrative generally, it is all the more so in the case of historical narrative. 1.2. History brings new knowledge Because historical consciousness is awareness that events one is living through are part of a story later to be told, history produces new knowledge. It does so for the simple reason that people living events do not know the future outcome of these events. As a result, even eyewitnesses or chroniclers cannot plumb the deeper significance of an event, for only 3. Ibid., p. 342. 4. Ibid. 5. Ibid. 6. Ibid., p. 9: “I quite agree with Professor Löwith’s claim that this way of viewing the whole of history is essentially theological, or that it has, at all events, structural features in common with theological readings of history, which is seen in toto, as bearing out some divine plan.” While this total history cannot as such be known because of human historicity, it is nonetheless assumed eventually to be known to have been the case. See Adolf D – Jörg S, “History: 1. History and Historicity,” in Karl R (ed.), Encyclopedia of Theology: The Concise Sacramentum Mundi, New York, NY, Seabury, 1975, 618-627, esp. p. 618, 624. 7. Peter B, Reading for the Plot: Design and Intention in Narrative, Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press, 1984, p. xi.

: , , 

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a future event to which it is relevantly related can do so. is kind of meaning comes only retrospectively, once the future event has occurred and, from the historian’s perspective, is past. Danto describes this phenomenon in what he calls “narrative sentences” (which in fact could better be called “historical sentences”8). For example, someone present at the birth of Isaac Newton could not at that moment have said the following: “is is the birthplace of Sir Isaac Newton.” Only the future life of Newton, once it was past, could offer the retrospective knowledge that Sir Isaac Newton was born here.9 Indeed, “the whole point of history is not to know about actions as witnesses might, but as historians do, in connection with later events and as parts of temporal wholes. To wish away this singular advantage would be silly, and historically disastrous, as well as unfulfillable.”10 e epistemology of history, that is, historical knowledge, is a matter of when is it possible to say what about the past. But it is not a matter simply of a future event providing new meaning that was unknowable to those living a present event. Danto specifies that “to be alive to the historical significance of events as they happen, one has to know to which later events these will be related, in narrative sentences, by historians of the future.”11 at is to say, it is not a matter simply of predicting what the outcome of a present event might be, but of 8. As does G in “Aerwords: An Introduction to Danto’s Narrative and Knowledge” (n. 1), xxiv-xxvii. 9. D, Narrative and Knowledge (n. 1), p. 158-159. 10. D, Narrative and Knowledge (n. 1), p. 183. In the same vein, see Bernard J. F. L, Method in Theology, Toronto, University of Toronto Press, 1971, p. 179: “In brief, where exegesis is concerned to determine what a particular person meant, history is concerned to determine what, in most cases, contemporaries do not know. For, in most cases, contemporaries do not know what is going forward, first, because experience is individual while the data for history lie in the experiences of many, secondly, because the actual course of events results not only from what people intend but also from their oversights, mistakes, failures to act, thirdly, because history does not predict what will happen but reaches its conclusions from what has happened and, fourthly, because history is not merely a matter of gathering and testing all available evidence but also involves a number of interlocking discoveries that bring to light the significant issues and operative factors.” Paul R, Temps et récit I, Paris, Seuil, 1983, p. 316: “Si tout récit met en œuvre, en vertu même de l’opération de mise en intrigue, une connexion causale, cette construction est déjà une victoire sur la simple chronologie et rend possible la distinction entre l’histoire et la chronique. En outre, si la construction de l’intrigue est œuvre de jugement, elle lie la narration à un narrateur, et donc permet au ‘point de vue’ de ce dernier de se dissocier de la compréhension que les agents ou les personnages de l’histoire peuvent avoir eu de leur contribution à la progression de l’intrigue; contrairement à l’objection classique, le récit n’est aucunement lié à la perspective confuse et bornée des agents et des témoins immédiats des événements; au contraire, la mise à distance, constitutive du ‘point de vue,’ rend possible le passage du narrateur à l’historien.” 11. D, Narrative and Knowledge (n. 1), p. 169.

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knowing to which future event the present event will be relevantly related. Awareness that history brings new knowledge is assumed, for example, in the rhetoric of politicians. Phrases like “history will judge,” or “our children and grandchildren will thank (or condemn, or ...) us for what we do today,” intimate that politicians are aware that future perspectives will grant as yet unknown significance to present actions, decisions, events. ey therefore take an imaginative leap into the future in an attempt to see the present as though it were already past. ey do this in the hope that their present deeds will eventually be seen to have been relevant and pertinent to future events. Such thinking implies that people are aware that the events they live are part of a story, and thus they are able, at least in some form, to answer such questions as Who are we? Where are we? What’s wrong? What’s the solution? What time is it?12 As a result of this type of consciousness, people take stances, make decisions, and engage in actions that they hope will prove to have future relevance and pertinence. is historical consciousness or awareness is so endemic to human existence that it appears to be inculcated with the acquisition of language, for language itself is replete with time indicators.13 Since this is common to human beings in all times and places, it might go a long way in explaining what underlies historical narrative, but it does not as such constitute the specificity of biblical narrative. is specificity will be discussed below. 1.3. History produces an asymmetry between the narrator and the characters Given its distinctiveness, the historian’s perspective creates an asymmetry between the historian and the order of events described. e historian knows things that those living the events in their present time could not have known, that is, how things turned out. Were this perspective known by the people living the events described in a historical account,

12. e questions are adapted from N. omas W, The New Testament and the People of God, Minneapolis, MN, Fortress, 1996, p. 132-133, and his Jesus and the Victory of God, Minneapolis, MN, Fortress, 1996, p. 443-474. 13. D, Narrative and Knowledge (n. 1), Preface to the 1964 edition, p. xv: “[...] our common ways of thinking about the world are historical [...] exhibited, if by nothing else, by the immense number of terms in our language, the correct application of which, even to contemporary objects, presupposes the historical mode of thought.” Also, p. 91-92.

: , , 

33

there would be no narrative, for the characters would be living their future as present. Narrative, however, requires that characters in the story face the future as an unknown, as something that is yet to come. As a result, the knowledge that the historian has is logically outside the world of the characters. It is knowledge different from the knowledge inside the order of events narrated. As Danto puts it, “the reason an event is mentioned in a narrative is typically distinct from the reason the event happened: different, in brief, from its historical explanation.”14 Indeed, “[...] a narrative is already a form of explanation. A narrative describes and explains at once.”15 “What happened” cannot be dissociated from “why it happened.” If this is so of narrative generically, then it is all the more so for historical narrative. Another aspect of this difference in knowledge can be observed in what are called unintended consequences. As an example, Danto writes that the actions of Frederick, the Palatine Elector, “had, at every turn, consequences which he never intended and which, in view of our ignorance about the future, he could not have intended. Yet it is in view of these consequences, and in terms of their wider bearing upon the irty Years War, that his actions have acquired, in historical perspective, the significance they bear. We see them, briefly, in a way in which Frederick could not have, and certainly not at the time of their performance. He would, indeed, almost certainly have been horrified to learn the sorts of narrative sentences which were, in time, to cover his actions.”16 1.4. History, knowledge, and narrative roughout his reflections on historical epistemology, Danto uses the word story. “To ask for the significance of an event, in the historical sense of the term, is to ask a question which can be answered only in the context of a story.”17 e linkage of events in a temporal perspective – the meaning of the past depends upon a future event to which it is related, both of which

14. Ibid., p. 356. G, “Aerwords” (n. ), p. xxv [emphasis in original]. 15. D, Narrative and Knowledge (n. 1), p. 141 [emphasis in original]. 16. Ibid., p. 183 [emphasis in original]; also, p. 294: “Events under narrative descriptions could not have been experienced as such by those who lived through them – unless those people had a knowledge of the future we would very likely impugn as impossible. Subsequent events, internally related via narrative ligatures to earlier ones, permit redescriptions of earlier ones which would have been inaccessible to contemporaries, participant in those events or not. e object and places – ‘the place where Danton met his death,’ ‘the mask that inspired Les demoiselles d’Avignon’ – existing and observable at the earliest time referred to by a narrative sentence could not have been observed under the sentence’s description at that time.” Also, R, Temps et récit I (n. 10), p. 316. 17. D, Narrative and Knowledge (n. 1), p. 11 [emphasis in original].

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are past to the historian – is essential to history, and this can be done only through narrative, and narrative tells a story. Moreover, since new, future events continue to occur, the story history tells also changes. Danto explains further: “e identical event will have a different significance in accordance with the story in which it is located, or, in other words, in accordance with what different sets of later events it may be connected. Stories constitute the natural context in which events acquire historical significance [...].”18 In her introduction to Danto’s book, Lydia Goehr expresses the same idea more succinctly: “e original events acquire new significance in relation to what occurs aerward, and the description accordingly changes.”19 is process of acquiring new significance will continue until events stop occurring, that is, until there is an end to the story history tells. 2. Biblical Historical Narrative e next task is to characterize biblical narrative history generally in light of Danto’s ideas sketched above. In the third section, the ideas developed in this section and the preceding one will be brought to bear on Mark’s Gospel. 2.1. Historical consciousness “plus” ere is no doubt, as Robert Alter,20 Meir Sternberg,21 Albert Cook22 and others have argued, that most biblical narratives present themselves as history. Cook, for example, puts the matter this way: “e criteria are incidental by which we would deny not only a historiographic purpose but also a historiographic result to the biblical narrative about the successive events in the collective life of the Hebrews from the Exodus, or even earlier, to the destruction of the First Temple.”23 e distinctive feature of biblical narrative history is the added theological dimension. If, using Danto’s terms regarding historical consciousness, “to exist historically is to perceive the events one

18. Ibid. [emphasis in original]. Also, p. 340: “[...] so far as the future is open, the past is so as well; and insofar as we cannot tell what events will someday be seen as connected with the past, the past is always going to be differently described.” 19. G, “Aerwords” (n. 8), p. xxv [emphasis in original]. 20. Robert A, The Art of Biblical Narrative, New York, NY, Basic Books, 1981. 21. Meir S, The Poetics of Biblical Narrative: Ideological Literature and the Drama of Reading, Bloomington, IN, Indiana University Press, 1985. 22. Albert C, History/Writing, Cambridge, UK, Cambridge University Press, 1989. 23. Ibid., p. 139: “While the Old Testament writer – whom we could minimally call a compiler – has a different relationship to his documents from that of ucydides or Tacitus (who differ in this from each other), he does rely on documents that he finds trustworthy enough to be brought together even when there are overlaps or discrepancies in them.”

: , , 

35

lives through as part of a story later to be told,” then people in the biblical narrative “perceive the events they live through as part of a divine story later to be told.”24 Biblical narrative makes no distinction between what we would call “secular history” and “divine history”; for biblical narrative these are one and the same.25 e linkage of events in a temporal perspective, which constitutes the specific knowledge of history, presupposes, in biblical narrative, an ultimate linkage that comes from God. at is, the plot of this story is constituted and ultimately determined by God, as has been noted by students of biblical narrative. Robert Alter, for example, writes e ancient Hebrew writers, as I have already intimated, seek through the process of narrative realization to reveal the enactment of God’s purposes in historical events. is enactment, however, is continuously complicated by a perception of two, approximately parallel, dialectical tensions. One is a tension between the divine plan and the disorderly character of actual historical events, or, to translate this opposition into specifically biblical terms, between divine promise and its ostensible failure to be fulfilled; the other is a tension between God’s will, His providential guidance, and human freedom, the refractory nature of man.26

24. My reformulation with my emphasis. W, The New Testament and the People of God (n. 12), p. 132; Ben F. M, The Early Christians: Their World Mission and SelfDiscovery (GNS, 16), Wilmington, DE, Michael Glazier, 1986, p.  44-52. Alexander J. M. W, Jesus and the Historians (WUNT, 269), Tübingen, Mohr Siebeck, 2010, p. 42, raises the questions whether “grand narratives” or “metanarratives” are integral to the past events themselves or to the observer, or both. However, he continues, “[...] in the case of other ‘grand narratives’ such as that of ‘salvation history’ that is by no means so clear. It may be that it is the theologians of a later period who discern this pattern, but it is also claimed that, for instance, certain New Testament writers presented the foundational events of the Christian church and its antecedents in the history of Israel in salvation-historical terms. In other words, it seems that in principle such ‘grand narratives’ may be located in the past events themselves or, more likely, in the perception of participants in those events in the past or in the analyses of more recent observers.” 25. See B, “III. History of Salvation (‘Salvation History’),” in R (ed.), Encyclopedia of Theology (n. 5), 1506-1512, p.  1506; also, S, The Poetics of Biblical Narrative (n.  21), p.  32: e Bible “claims not just the status of history, but as Erich Auerbach rightly maintains, of the history – the one and only truth that, like God himself, brooks no rival” [emphasis in original]; C, History/Writing (n. 22), p. 139: “Of course, his criteria of evidence differ from those that have been in force for some time, and probably not even a devout Jewish or Christian historian would either write under such rules of evidence or accept them here other than on faith. But if they are accepted as a prior assumption, the narrative then demonstrates the sense of key mutations in progressing events that one would deny to most medieval narratives or quasi narratives, even The City of God, which simply subsume all narrated events directly under the will of God, without any effect of truly sequent interpretation.” [...] “One must still hold steadily in view when reading Samuel and Kings, or other parts of the Torah, that the writer puts at the center of his narrative an active agent, God, whose presence cannot be established by the canons of evidence that the modern historian uses.” 26. A, The Art of Biblical Narrative (n. 20), p. 33.

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Albert Cook offers a similar assessment when he writes that the Old Testament author “relies on what he cannot be faulted for regarding as evidence, the relationship of God to the Hebrews. is is so central to his conception of the unfolding of events that he would have been remiss in leaving it out – as remiss as a Braudelian would be for totally ignoring demographic data.”27 If this is so in the way biblical narrative interprets the present significance of past events, it will therefore be the same for present events once they are past and their future outcome known. 2.2. Biblical historical narrative brings new knowledge If in history later relevant events bring new significance to earlier events, the same of course can be observed in biblical historical narrative. e biblical historian, because he knows the outcome, can grasp the significance of a prior event, but it is a significance that is imbued with insight gained from being related to the divine plan. e following excerpt from Psalm 44 is but one of many illustrations of this new knowledge gained from historical perspective: We heard with our own ears, O God, our ancestors have told us, what deeds you performed in their days, in the days of old: you with your own hand drove out the nations, but them you planted; you afflicted the peoples, but them you set free; for not by their own sword did they win the land, nor did their own arm give them victory; but your right hand, and your arm, and the light of your countenance, for you delighted in them (Ps 44:1-3, NRSV).

27. C, History/Writing (n. 22), p. 139. Similarly, Jean-Pierre S, “Un drame au long cours. Enjeux de la ‘lecture continue’ dans la Bible hébraïque,” in RTL 42 (2011) 371-407, p. 393, reflecting on the overarching extension and range of biblical narratives, opines that “[…] s’avancer dans le récit biblique, d’épisode en épisode, c’est progresser dans une séquence temporelle sous-tendue par une causalité irréductible à celle des hommes, mais en constante interaction avec celle-ci; c’est revisiter de mille manières la séquence nucléaire de Gn 1,3, mais distendue en raison d’une récalcitrance humaine généralisée; c’est découvrir que, nonobstant la distension des choses, mais aussi à travers elle, Dieu ‘veille sur [sa] parole pour l’accomplir’ (Jr 1:12)”. See also Kevin J. V, Biblical Narrative in the Philosophy of Paul Ricœur: A Study in Hermeneutics and Theology, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1990, p. 207.

: , , 

37

Looking back on the events described, the psalmist realizes that the victory in battle is due not merely to human effort but is God’s doing. e story that is told now, aer the events have taken place and are in the past, carries deeper significance than was possible to know when the events were occurring, and this deeper significance involves God and God’s mysterious plan. 2.3. Asymmetry As in all historical narrative, biblical historical narrative also necessarily entails the asymmetry mentioned above by Danto. e author/ historian knows more than the characters depicted in the narrative, for he/she knows the outcome of those events. In addition, the kind of surplus knowledge is presented as coming from God, thus interpreting the related events in terms of God’s plan. It is not that this divine future is already known but that the authors and their readers are aware that the events they live are part of this divine story later to be told. While at times certain characters are “vouchsafed promises, enigmatic predictions [...], the future, like the moral reality of their contemporaries, remains for the most part veiled from them, even from an Abraham or a Moses who has been privileged with the most direct personal revelation of God’s presence and will.”28 us, as in all historical narrative, the characters in the story are portrayed as positioning themselves and as acting according to what they trust will be relevant and pertinent to this divine future, that is, to be in conformity with God’s will. If they see themselves and the events they live through as part of a divine story later to be told, then they are depicted as choosing in view of their hoped-for role in, and being evaluated according to the correctness or not of their stances in light of, the divine plan. 3. Mark’s Gospel 3.1. Mark’s story of Jesus is a historical narrative e specific genre of Mark’s narrative has been the subject of much discussion in the last centuries. Many interpreters have proposed that it is a new, sui generis genre – gospel – all the while having points of similarity with literature of its historical time and situation. More specifically, when compared with similar literature of its Hellenistic context, it can 28. A, The Art of Biblical Narrative (n. 20), p. 157-158.

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be designated as a historical type of didactic ancient biography, which, according to Adela Yarbro Collins, can also be called a historical monograph.29 However, Yabro Collins proposes a yet better characterization of Mark’s gospel that goes beyond its biographical and historical aspects: Mark focuses on Jesus and his identity, not in the interest of establishing his character or essence, but in order to write a particular kind of history, which may be called a narration of the course of the eschatological events, which are yet to be completed (thus the open-endedness of the ending). e gospel is not only ‘the good news that God was present in Jesus for our salvation’; it is the good news that God has acted and is acting in history to fulfil the promises of Scripture and to inaugurate the new age. e gospel begins with a reference to Jesus Christ [the Son of God], not out of interest in his character, but to present him as God’s agent. […] Although the Gospel of Mark is not history in the rational, empirical Greek sense or in the modern critical sense, it seems to have been such in an eschatological or apocalyptic sense and in the intention of the author.30

us, Mark is not simply a historical narrative. Mark presupposes that the story he tells is part of the overarching divine plan, part of the divine story later to be told, and is therefore a historical biblical narrative “in its apocalyptic mode.”31 But there is more. e words eschatological and apocalyptic in the above citation point to the specificity of Mark’s gospel. Before further discussing this specificity, it will be helpful to sketch the historical biblical features of the Second Gospel in the terms developed earlier based on Danto’s ideas regarding history. 3.2. Mark’s story of Jesus is a biblical historical narrative It is probably not necessary to elaborate that from beginning to end Mark, whether through the narrator’s words or through the dialogue of the characters in the story, is permeated with the awareness that the events recounted are perceived as being part of the divine story later to be told. is sense of living within a divine story appears in the citations and allusions to the Scriptures; in the constant mentions – explicit or implicit – of God, whether in teachings, debates, or healings; in such

29. Adela Y C, Mark: A Commentary (Hermeneia, 7), Minneapolis, MN, Fortress, 2007, p. 33. Eve-Marie B, “e Gospel of Mark in the Context of Ancient Historiography,” in Patricia G. K – Timothy D. G (eds.), The Function of Ancient Historiography in Biblical and Cognate Studies (LHB/OTS, 489), New York, NY – London, T. & T. Clark, 2008, p. 127. 30. Adela Y C, “Narrative, History, and Gospel,” in Semeia 43 (1988) 145-153, p. 148. 31. Ibid., p. 149.

: , , 

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religious-social institutions as the synagogue, the Temple, the High Priesthood; in the various religious parties (Pharisees, Sadducees, zealots); and in the exorcism stories. e last item mentioned clearly evoke an eschatological story line, particularly when the unclean spirits express their fear that Jesus has come to destroy them and their kingdom. As well, affiliation to one or another religious party implies a stance vis-à-vis the divine plan: each party insists, in counter-distinction to the others, that their way to think and to behave will in fact prove to be the correct one, in Danto’s terms “relevantly related,” to the future revelation of God’s plan. Finally, the crowds and the minor characters attracted to Jesus are clearly people in expectation, awaiting the fulfillment in some form or other of Scriptural promises. 3.3. Asymmetry in Mark’s historical biblical narrative As in all narratives, and especially historical narratives, there is an asymmetry in Mark between what the historian knows and what the people described in the account know: as a historian, Mark knows the future outcome of the events related. Because of this, the narrator recounts only the events that, seen from their future outcome, have turned out to be relevantly related to the past. Awareness of this asymmetry in fact underlies the several stages of the quest for the historical Jesus, as Leander Keck explains, for this quest assumes the difference between what Jesus knew as he lived the events of his life and what the evangelists knew when they wrote their accounts: When viewed as a whole, the quest has produced variations on one theme – difference, clearly manifest in the negative criterion and its rationale. Even though this criterion was not spelled out at the outset (Reimarus being an exception), it was operative from the beginning. It is no exaggeration to say that apart from this preoccupation with difference there would not have been a quest, for there would have been no reason to develop one.32

us far, all the key features developed from Danto and applied to the Scriptures are found in Mark: it is a historical biblical narrative that, because of the asymmetry between the evangelist and the events he recounts, brings new knowledge. But in Mark there is more than the usual asymmetry found in historical as well as biblical historical narratives. 32. Leander K, Who Is Jesus? History in Perfect Tense, Edinburgh, T. & T. Clark, 2001, p. 19.

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3.4. Mark’s Specificity: The end of the divine story already revealed What are the effects on a biblical historical narrative when the asymmetry is created by the revelation, already in the present, of the future end of the divine story? is in fact is what happens in Mark, for the future event allowing him to bring new meaning to the past is nothing less than the resurrection of Jesus, as Keck explains: at the Jesus of history differed from the Jesus of the gospels is not to be doubted, though for reasons other than those that the Enlightenment cherished. Among them is this consideration: Were there no difference, Jesus’ followers – both those who transmitted the traditions orally and the Evangelists who used them to create a running narrative – would not have believed that the resurrection disclosed anything about him that they had not known before. Actually, they were convinced that aer the resurrection they understood Jesus better than those who had been with him at the time of his ministry, for they did not regard the resurrection as marking a mere resumption.33

e resurrection of Jesus was not a mere resumption of his previous life. If resurrection is defined as the manifestation of God’s eschatological victory over the powers of sin and death, then in the resurrection of Jesus this future and final outcome of the divine story is made known before the end. Using Danto’s ideas, one can say that for Mark the resurrection of Jesus is the telling of the end of the divine story that, until that moment, had remained only later to be told.34 at is why Yarbro Collins could apply the terms eschatological and apocalyptic to her description of the genre of Mark’s biblical historical narrative. e asymmetrical retrospection made possible by Jesus’ resurrection leads Mark to portray Jesus as always correctly choosing stances and positioning himself such that what he says and does will prove to be, in counter-distinction to the Pharisees, the Sadducees, the scribes, and the authorities, relevantly related to the future of the overarching divine

33. Ibid. Also, p. 142: “It is not difficult to surmise what animated this bold hermeneutic in which a sequence of events, intelligible in its own right as a historical account, is construed as the way in which God’s predetermined purpose came to pass: the conviction that Jesus’ resurrection validated him as the inaugurator of the New Age, the time of salvation.” 34. B, “Salvation. III. History of Salvation (‘Salvation History’)” (n. 25), p. 1511: “[...] the resurrection of Jesus has brought on the final situation itself [...]. is notion of the end-time being already localized in the present, of which there are traces everywhere in the NT, especially in Jn, the pre-Pauline community at Corinth, in Paul and the synoptic missionary discourses, is what is really new in the notion of the history of salvation, from the point of view of religious history.”

: , , 

41

plan. His resurrection confirms that this is so.35 And since the divine plan includes the story of the people of God as related in the Scriptures and in Jewish tradition, Jesus, because he is raised, is portrayed by Mark as fulfilling the ancient promises contained therein. Finally, the story of the Chosen People includes the story of all of humankind, as the Genesis proto-history and later the prophets intimate. us, Jesus’ words and actions, and especially his crucified death, take on a depth of universal, even cosmic, significance as intimated in the exorcism stories, for the divine plan embraces the story from beginning to end (from Genesis to the Apocalypse). e readers of the gospel are privileged both with the view of the characters in the story whose future is yet to be lived and the view of the narrator who relates the story from the retrospective future outcome resulting from the resurrection of Jesus. On the one hand, therefore, they experience the puzzlement and the difficult discernment of the characters regarding who Jesus is and his role in the divine story, and on the other hand are encouraged to adopt for themselves Jesus’ stances and views as the correct way to reach the now-revealed end of the divine story. If according to Danto “[...] historical consciousness is a matter of structuring our present in terms of our future and their past,”36 then Christian historical consciousness as articulated in Mark’s Gospel is a matter of Christians structuring their present in terms of the final outcome of the future, revealed in Jesus’ resurrection, and his past: his resurrection is past for him but future for them. us, they can paradoxically become, as it were, future historians of their own present. 4. Conclusion When applied to the biblical historical narrative and to Mark’s Gospel in particular, Danto’s reflections on the philosophy of historical existence, summarized so well in his statement that “to exist historically is to perceive the events one lives through as part of a story later to be told,”37 help discern what these have in common with history generally as well as where their specificity lies. Both historical biblical narrative and Mark’s Gospel include the added dimension of being not merely history, 35. As W, Jesus and the Victory of God (n. 12), p. 444, notes: “All that Jesus and his followers were doing only meant anything if they thought they were, in some sense, the true people of the covenant god [sic]; but they were quite unlike what most other Jews had imagined such a people to be.” 36. D, Narrative and Knowledge (n. 1), p. 342. 37. Ibid.

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but also present themselves as expressions of the history of salvation, whose present events are part of a story later to be told. Mark’s Gospel tells the story of Jesus with the yet further dimension that the final, future outcome of the divine story has been revealed in history, and as such, as a consequence of this revelatory event, has had and continues to have an effect on and in history.

C 3

JESUS AND HUMAN CONTINGENCY IN MARK A Narrative-Critical Reading of Three Healing Stories 1. Introduction Of the four canonical Gospels, Mark’s Gospel presents the most “human” portrait of Jesus.1 Identified as Son of God from the outset, Jesus is nevertheless portrayed experiencing emotions such as anger, exasperation, compassion, sorrow, even anguish.2 Narrative critics, in their assessments of the character Jesus in the overarching story of Mark’s Gospel, have done much to bring renewed prominence to his human characteristics.3 However, even in those episodes where the lacquered veneer of the divine-infused portrait would appear to be the most resistant, narrative criticism can discern hidden cracks through which Jesus’ human experience appears. A good place to illustrate this is in his dealings with minor characters, particularly the healing stories where manifestations of his authority and power would tend more thoroughly to eclipse his human traits.4

1. “M[ar]c est l’Évangéliste qui nous livre l’image la plus humaine, la plus incarnée pourrait-on dire, de Jésus,” Lucien D, Synopse de Matthieu, Marc et Luc, Paris, Desclée de Brouwer, 1962, p. 258. 2. Stephen H. S, A Lion with Wings: A Narrative-Critical Approach to Mark’s Gospel, Sheffield, UK, Sheffield Academic Press, 1996, p.  62, provides a helpful list, as does D, Synopse (n. 1), p. 258. 3. S, A Lion with Wings (n. 2), p. 60-63; David R – Joanna D – Donald M, Mark as Story: An Introduction to the Narrative of a Gospel, Minneapolis, Fortress, 1999, p.  103-115. On the relationship between narrative characters and real people, see S, A Lion with Wings (n. 2), p. 60 and the references there. On the more general topic of a narrative’s relationship to reality, see Paul R, Temps et Récit I, Paris, Seuil, 1983, p. 76: “Et si nous traduisons mimèsis par représentation, il ne faut pas entendre par ce mot quelque redoublement de présence, comme on pourrait encore l’entendre de la mimèsis platonicienne, mais la coupure qui ouvre l’espace de fiction. L’artisan de mots ne produit pas des choses, mais seulement des guise-choses, il invente du comme-si. En ce sens, le terme aristotélicien de mimèsis est l’emblème de ce décrochage qui, pour employer un vocabulaire qui est aujourd’hui le nôtre, instaure la littérarité de l’œuvre littéraire.” 4. “[...] thumb-prints of the divine abound, not least in the exorcisms, healings, and nature miracles [...],” S, A Lion with Wings (n. 2), p. 62.

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Elizabeth Struthers Malbon has studied the role of minor characters in Mark through the lens of narrative criticism.5 Aer determining the traits that make them minor rather than major characters,6 she examines how they contribute to what she considers to be the two major plot lines of the Gospel. In light of the “outworking of who Jesus is as ‘Christ, Son of God’” (1:1), those who receive his healing power help to bring out his authority; in terms of illustrating the meaning of discipleship, they most probably exemplify “what following him entails.” As a result, she maintains that in fact these minor characters have major importance. Important as they are, though, Malbon concludes that they “tend to present commentary on the plot more than contribute to its movement.”7 In her appraisal, Malbon appears to have in mind the overarching plot of the Gospel, and here she might very well be right. However, a more detailed narrative analysis reveals that minor characters contribute to the movement of the plot at least within the individual episodes in which they appear.8 Moreover, since characterization in a narrative is intimately intertwined with the plot,9 precisely in moving the plot forward minor characters also contribute to the development of the major character(s) 5. Elizabeth Struthers M, “e Major Importance of the Minor Characters in Mark,” in Elizabeth Struthers M – Edgar V. MK (eds.), The New Literary Criticism and the New Testament (JSNT SS, 109), Sheffield, UK, JSOT Press, 1994, p. 57-86. 6. Characters are minor, she suggests, because they lack something, but not all lack the same characteristic. While some are nameless, yet others have a name; most are “flat,” that is unidimensional, rather than rounded characters, yet some “flat” characters such as the Pharisees play a major role. She concludes that in addition to these possible lacks, their not contributing in an essential way to the development of the plot remains the key factor in dubbing them minor; M, “e Major Importance” (n. 5), p. 59-60. 7. Ibid.; Jack Dean K, The Christology of Mark’s Gospel, Philadelphia, Fortress, 1983, also underlines the revelation of who Jesus is as the main plot of Mark’s Gospel. 8. As David R, “Jesus and the Syrophoenician Woman in Mark: A NarrativeCritical Study,” in JAAR 62 (1994) 343-375, p. 343, points out, “[m]ost Markan studies employing narrative criticism have dealt with the Gospel as a whole or with some feature which ranges across the entire narrative, such as the technique of foreshadowing. Yet it is important to provide narrative studies of individual episodes which show how integral each episode is in the overall design of the Gospel.” 9. Robert C. T, “e Gospel of Mark as Narrative Christology,” in Semeia 16 (1979) 57-95, p. 58: “In the Gospel of Mark there is little description of the inner states of the story characters. Instead, characterization takes place through the narration of action. We learn who Jesus is through what he says and does in the context of the action of others. erefore, the study of character (not in the sense of inner qualities but in the sense of defining characteristics as presented in the story) can only be approached through the study of plot.” See also Shlomith R-K, Narrative Fiction: Contemporary Poetics, London, UK, Routledge, 1983, p. 35; Seymour C, Story and Discourse: Narrative Structure in Fiction and Film, Ithaca, NY, Cornell University Press, 1978, p. 110.

     

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in the story.10 In Mark’s Gospel the minor characters, as they come forward and present Jesus with unforeseen challenges, help create situations that provide glimpses into Jesus’ human experience.11 In other words, indications in the text suggest that Jesus not only affects other characters in the story, but that he himself is also affected by his encounters with them; thus they contribute, at least implicitly, to who he is.12 While this is true throughout the Gospel, the following narrative analysis of three episodes in which minor characters encounter Jesus – the Healing of the Paralyzed Man in Mark 2:1-12; the Healing of Jairus’ Daughter in 5:2124, 35-43 with the intercalated Healing of the Woman with the Flow of Blood in 5:25-34 – will serve as an illustration. Before delving into the analysis proper, it is necessary first to present some key aspects of narrative criticism that will be germane to this study. 2. Narrative theory According to David Rhoads, narrative criticism “analyzes the formal features of [...] narratives: point of view, plot, character, setting, style, and rhetoric.”13 e fundamental insight that undergirds all narrative criticism and its analysis of these formal features lies in the distinction 10. M, “e Major Importance” (n.  5), p.  59-60; R, “Jesus and the Syrophoenician Woman” (n. 8), p. 346, who comments that the roles of the minor characters serve to exemplify response to the kingdom: “e appearance of each new suppliant with faith expands and deepens our understanding of faith in Mark’s narrative.” 11. R, “Jesus and the Syrophoenician Woman” (n.  8), p.  361, says as much where he writes that the Syrophoenician woman succeeded in changing Jesus’ mind about his mission to the Gentiles. See also André W’s review of Robert A, L’art du récit biblique (traduit de l’anglais par P. L – Jean-Pierre S (Le livre et le rouleau, 4), Bruxelles, Lessius, 1999, in RTL 31 (2000) 78-82, p. 80. While his comments have to do with the character God in the scriptures, a character endowed with human traits might with the proper adaptations also be applied to Jesus, who has both divine and human traits: “En scrutant les personnages et leur manière d’évoluer dans l’intrigue, [la critique narrative] rend attentif non à des idées, mais à une dynamique de relations complexes où Dieu et les hommes acquièrent une réelle consistance existentielle, qui n’est pas étrangère d’ailleurs à l’expérience humaine ou spirituelle du lecteur. Une attention précise à la façon dont les récits se développent permet de considérer un Dieu aux prises avec des hommes ou avec un peuple, la plupart du temps inconstants; elle donne d’observer des êtres humains confrontés au dessein d’un Dieu obstiné et parfois déroutant, et cela, au cœur d’une histoire pleine d’inattendus, de contradictions, de soubresauts, d’avancées spectaculaire ou de reculs désespérants – une histoire analogue, en somme, à celle que connaît le lecteur.” 12. R-K, Narrative Fiction (n.  9), p.  41-42: “Characters who do not develop are oen minor, serving some function beyond themselves [...]. At the opposite pole there are fully developed characters [...]. e development is sometimes fully traced in the text [...] and sometimes only implied by it [...].” 13. R, “Jesus and the Syrophoenician Woman” (n. 8), p. 343.

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“between the two ‘levels’ of story and discourse, between ‘what really happened’ (the content of the narrative) and ‘how what really happened is told’ (the expression of the narrative). As Seymour Chatman economically puts it, “the story is the what in a narrative that is depicted, discourse the how.”14 While it is true that the only way a reader15 can imagine the story is through the discourse, the two are nevertheless distinct. e discourse, which in the case of written narratives takes the form of a text, is the first thing the reader “sees.”16 It is the product of what narratologists call the implied author, defined by O’Neill as the organizing and arranging instance that “emerges only from [one’s] overall reading of the positions, values, and opinions espoused by the narrative text as a whole, reconstructed by that reading as the semiotically necessary authorial stance demanded by this particular text.”17 e discourse, continues O’Neill, consists of “the combination of a number of acts of arrangement performed by the implied author.”18 Of the countless 14. Patrick O’N, Fictions of Discourse: Reading Narrative Theory, Toronto, University of Toronto Press, 1994, p.  20, citing Seymour C, Story and Discourse: Narrative Structure in Fiction and Film, Ithaca, NY, Cornell University Press, 1978, p. 19 [emphasis in original]. 15. While it assumes a written text, the word “reader” is an abstract narratological term specifying the general term “addressee,” which comes from applying the communication model (addresser – message – addressee) to narratives. Narratives, of course, are not limited to written texts, for story-telling as a human activity exists first of all in oral form and thus predates the invention of writing. For the purposes of this essay which deals with Mark’s Gospel, a text that was written primarily to be performed orally, the term “reader” as a narratological, abstract agent thus encompasses “hearers” or “audience.” For the introduction of the communication model in narrative theory, see for example Wallace M, Recent Theories of Narrative, Ithaca, NY, Cornell University Press, 1986, p.  153-155. For discussions of the oral use of ancient texts, see Paul J. A, “Omne verbum sonat: e New Testament and the Oral Environment of Late Western Antiquity,” in JBL 109 (1990) 3-27 and the literature cited therein. For discussions of Mark’s Gospel and orality, see Werner K, The Oral and the Written Gospel: The Hermeneutics of Speaking and Writing in the Synoptic Tradition. Mark, Paul, and Q, Philadelphia, PA, Fortress, 1983; Joanna D, “Mark as Interwoven Tapestry: Forecasts and Echoes for a Listening Audience,” in CBQ 53 (1991) 221-236, esp. p. 32-44. 16. “ere is not, first of all, a given reality, and afterward, its representation by the text. e given is the literary text; starting from it, by a labor of construction […] we reach that universe where certain characters live, comparable to the persons we know ‘in life,’” Tzvetan T, Introduction to Poetics, trans. by Richard H (THL, 1), Minneapolis, University of Minnesota Press, 1981, p. 27, as cited in O’, Fictions of Discourse (n.  14), p.  108 [emphaisis in original]. O’Neill does not indicate whether the emphasis is his or in the original. 17. O’N, Fictions of Discourse (n. 14), p. 66 [emphasis in original]. 18. ese acts of arrangement involve “the following essential elements: (a) chronologization, or the arrangement of time, transforming action into plot; (b) localization, or the  arrangement of space, transforming place into setting; (c) characterization, or the

     

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contingencies that make up real life, the implied author selects what he or she considers the most relevant and expresses them in a purposeful sequence of words. Like a literary god, the implied author knows the story’s outcome and all the events that lead inexorably to it, knows the strengths and foibles of the characters and the roles they will play, knows the settings where the events occur, etc. – every word the reader finds in the text has been selected and set in place. at is why the preterite is the tense par excellence in narrative discourse: a narrative usually recounts what has already taken place.19 is is also why, from the perspective of the implied author on the narrative level of discourse, there are no surprises. It is altogether otherwise for the actors in the story world. If the hallmarks of the discourse level are arrangement, predetermination, predictability, it is just the opposite on the story level: the characters’ milieu “is sequentiality, uncertainty, unpredictability.”20 To them, the story world is real. ey do not know the future, they usually cannot know what other characters are thinking, they do not know how the various events and encounters that impinge upon them will affect their lives. If for the implied author everything is past, for the actors in the story world events occur in what is for them their present. While for the implied author the future of the characters is already past, for the actors in the story world the future is being created through their participation in events. eir world is filled with contingencies that at the moment they occur have no immediately discernible meaning. From the perspective of the actors in the story, the world is filled with surprises. A number of narrative critics posit yet a third level, that of narration.21 is is the “voice” that tells the script of the discourse provided by the implied author. If the discourse is the inert construction arranged and determined by the implied author, narration is the activation, the actualization, of the discourse by the narrator. In short, narration is the “speaking” of the discourse (that which “is spoken”) through which the story (what is “spoken of”) emerges. In written texts, the narrator is arrangement of personality traits, transforming actors into characters; (d) focalization, or the arrangement of narrative perspective; (e) verbalization, or the arrangement of words on the page, making all of the implied author’s arrangements known to the reader and duly received by the reader as the ‘voice’ of the narrator; and (f) validation of the narrator’s degree of reliability,” O’N, Fictions of Discourse (n. 14), p. 68 [emphasis in original]. 19. “Les temps verbaux du récit sont (essentiellement) ceux de l’époque passée,” Jacques B, La narrativité, Louvain-la-Neuve, Duculot, 1994, p. 125. 20. O’N, Fictions of Discourse (n. 14), p. 112. 21. Ibid., p. 11-32. See especially p. 21 where he presents a comparative table of twelve different models, some “two-level” and some “three-level.”

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experienced as the reader’s actualization of the words on the page in such a way that the events of the story unfold in time and keep coming over the horizon until the story ends.22 ere are two features to note of the narrator’s relating the story to the reader:23 (1) the characters in the story world are blithely unaware of the presence of the narrator and of the reader eavesdropping on them – they are living in their “here and now” while the narrator relates this present to the reader as “there and then”; (2) the narrator can in varying combinations reveal information to, or withhold information from, the reader and the characters. It is precisely this control of information that helps heighten the reader’s awareness of the contingency experienced by the characters in the story, contingency already “set up” as inevitability by the implied author. is control plays on the “double logic” of the narrative: the reader, while following with the characters the unfolding of the unknown future, is nevertheless subliminally aware that the discourse is predetermined, that the outcome of the story is already known. Since contingencies – unforeseen, unexpected, unpredictable occurrences – are the stuff of life mimicked in the story world of narratives, observing how the implied author of Mark’s Gospel, through his designated agent of the narrator, maneuvers the discourse into creating such contingencies on the story level will show how the main character Jesus is at least implicitly affected through his encounters with minor characters. In great part this can be done by examining the narrator’s control of information in setting up the plot: what does the narrator divulge or withhold, from whom, and when? Before turning to the three selected healing episodes, as few general comments sketching Mark’s story line will help set the stage. 3. The Markan Gospel Narrative e narrating stance the implied author of Mark’s Gospel employs is that of a third-person, omniscient and omnipresent narrator who is not 22. “[…] language prescribes a linear figuration of signs and hence a linear presentation of information about things. Not only does it dictate a progression from letter to letter, word to word, sentence to sentence, etc., it also imposes upon the reader a successive perception of bits of information even when these are meant to be understood as simultaneous in the story,” R-K, Narrative Fiction (n. 9), p. 119-120. 23. To be fully consistent with the three-level view of narrative, where the narrative agents are all factors of the text, one would say that the communication passes from the implied author to the implied reader, via the narrator’s narrating to the narratee. However, for the purposes of this study, the “reader” will include both the implied reader and the narratee.

     

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a character in the story.24 rough the narration, the narrator constitutes the characters in the story world: God, Satan and his minions, Jesus, the disciples, the scribes and the Pharisees, Pilate, etc. As the protagonist, Jesus is portrayed as possessing greater powers than the other characters (except God), for he can heal, he can control nature, he can even on occasion read the minds of others. He also is aware of his special divine connection, an awareness shared in the story world only by the demons. Nevertheless, he is neither omnipotent nor omniscient. He cannot impose his will on others, nor is he aware of everything that is going on around him.25 Finally, the remaining human characters in the story do not know of Jesus’ divine connection, and as a result are presented as baffled by what he says and does, forever trying to puzzle out who he is and where he gets his authority and power. Just as the narrator constitutes the characters through the narration, so also the reader is totally dependent on the narrator. e reader can know only what the narrator reveals. From the very outset of the story, the narrator reveals to the reader Jesus’ divine connection, as is evident in the opening statement of the Gospel, The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God (1:1), and in the episode of Jesus’ baptism, where, unlike Jesus and the reader, the other human characters in the story do not perceive the theophanies.26 As a result, the reader has insight into why Jesus is able to say and do the things he says and does, information withheld from the human characters in the story. In the first fieen verses, the Markan narrator launches the main plot of the story: God has taken the initiative to set in motion a program of salvation through the calling and inspiriting of Jesus of Nazareth.27 From his baptism on, Jesus becomes God’s agent, inaugurating God’s salvific reign through word and deed. Again and again, Jesus initiates the action in the story by traveling about bearing the good news – preaching, teaching, healing, exorcizing – as the Markan summaries

24. For a more elaborate presentation of the Markan narrator, see R – D – M, Mark as Story (n. 3), p. 39-62. For a discussion of different types of narrators in the Hebrew Scriptures, see Jean-Louis S, “Our Fathers Have Told Us”: Introduction to the Analysis of Hebrew Narratives (Subsidia Biblica, 13), Roma, Editrice Pontifico Istituto Biblico, 1990, p.  43-54. For a helpful typology of narrators, see R-K, Narrative Fiction (n. 9), p. 94-105. 25. Mary Ann T, Sowing the Gospel: Mark’s World in Literary-Historical Perspective, Minneapolis, Fortress, 1989, p. 94-95. 26. Joel M, Mark 1-8: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary (AB, 27); New York, NY, Doubleday, 2000, p. 166. 27. For a more elaborate presentation of the main plot in Mark, see R – D – M, Mark as Story (n. 3), p. 73-82.

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indicate.28 From the point of view of the characters in the story, God’s initiative in Jesus comes as something unexpected and unforeseen. If people had been awaiting God’s intervention, surely they were not expecting it to come in the guise of a layman from Galilee who had no obvious pedigree or status or education. Jesus’ proclamation of the good news on God’s behalf, experienced by the human characters in the story as contingency, demands a response, and it is in great part these responses, both negative and positive, that the ensuing episodic narrative of Mark’s Gospel relates. While the characters in the story do not know who Jesus is, the reader does. is “inside information” both heightens the impression of contingency and “ups the ante”: how will the people respond to Jesus’ message when they do not know the source of his authority and power? How can they realize the true value of the stakes involved in their response to him? People’s responses to contingencies are critical in ways they can only guess, but which Jesus and the reader know are of utmost importance. But these responses in turn present unexpected contingencies to Jesus: how can he know who will approach him as suppliants and why? Who will accept and who will oppose him and why? How will he respond? 4. The Healing of the Paralyzed Man, Mark 2:1-12 In the episode of the Healing of the Paralyzed Man, first the narrator succinctly relates to the reader that Jesus had returned to Capernaum, And when he returned to Capernaum after some days... (v. 1a).29 Only in the second half of the verse does the narrator inform the reader that the people in the vicinity learn of Jesus’ whereabouts – it was reported that he was at home (v. 1b) – the passive verb leaving unexpressed how and by whom this news was circulated. Jesus remains unaware of the spreading news of his being home,30 news that will ultimately present him with 28. For example, Mark 1:32-34: “at evening, at sundown, they brought to him all who were sick or possessed with demons. And the whole city was gathered together about the door. And he healed many who were sick with various diseases, and cast out many demons; and he would not permit the demons to speak, because they knew him.” See also Mark 1:39; 3:7-12; 6:53-56. 29. Unless otherwise indicated, biblical citations are drawn from the RSV. For a helpful, detailed analysis of the narrative unfolding of this pericope, see Reinhold Z, Montage im Markusevangelium: Studien zur narrativen Organisation der ältesten Jesuserzälung, Stuttgart, Verlag Katholisches Bibelwerk, 1989, p. 251-265. 30. Jesus’ being inside the house (information gleaned in retrospect from the following verse) was probably an effort to escape notice, as 1:45 intimates: he could no longer openly enter a town. See Christopher D. M, Faith as a Theme in Mark’s Narrative (SNTS MS, 64), Cambridge, UK, Cambridge University Press, 1989, p. 87.

     

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an unforeseen contingency: And many were gathered together, so that there was no longer room for them, not even about the door. To the overwhelming response to his presence, Jesus in turn responds not by turning the people away but by preaching to them, and preaching for some duration as use of the imperfect ἐλάλει suggests. e narrator’s pointing out of the overflow attendance and of Jesus’ on-going preaching sets the stage for moving the plot forward. While this is going on inside, the narrator leaves the scene to “train the camera” on an event unfolding outdoors: And they come, bringing to him a paralytic carried by four men. And when they could not get near him because of the crowd, they removed the roof above him; and when they had made an opening, they let down the pallet on which the paralytic lay.31 Since this activity transpires outside, it is beyond the ken and purview of Jesus, but fully revealed to the reader, who can already interpret the little band’s persistent and determined actions as an expression of extraordinary faith – they will overcome any and every obstacle to bring their patient to Jesus. For Jesus who is preaching inside the house, the appearance of the paralyzed man being lowered through a hole in the roof comes as an unforeseen interruption, forcing him to stop speaking. Moreover, only by inference – if they lowered the man aer having dug a hole in the roof, they must have had to climb up on the roof, and they did so because of the crowd blocking the door – can Jesus interpret the meaning of this unexpected occurrence.32 With the appearance of the paralyzed man before Jesus, the reader, who until now was witnessing the scene unfolding outside, returns inside the house such that both the reader and Jesus see the same thing. Both also entertain the same interpretation, for with the words And Jesus, seeing their faith, the narrator corroborates Jesus’ interpretation with that of the reader.33 In the face of this unexpected and stunning manifestation of faith, Jesus in turn responds in an equally stunning and unexpected manner: instead of immediately healing the man, as the characters in the story as well as the reader eavesdropping in on the events expect, Jesus says, “Child, your sins are forgiven.”34 On the story level, where the characters experience life as real with its headlong tumble of events, how 31. Here, the text has two present-tense verbs: ἔρχovται (they come) and χαλῶσι (they let down), which I have supplied. According to B, La narrativité (n. 19), p. 141, “Le présent narratif permet – entre autres – d’annuler fantasmatiquement la distance temps raconté/temps du raconter; de raconter ‘en direct’ en quelque sorte.” 32. M, Faith as a Theme in Mark’s Narrative (n. 30), p. 87. 33. is is the first occurrence of the noun πίστις in Mark. 34. I have rendered the word τέκvov as “Child,” instead of the RSV’s “My son.”

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calculated or premeditated was Jesus’ response? e impression is that Jesus is responding with spontaneity and exuberance to the unprecedented manifestation of faith. It is worth pausing here to note how twice already the narrator has divulged to the reader information withheld from Jesus, in both instances information, since events were taking place outdoors while Jesus was indoors, he could not have known. e reader sees the unfolding of events that will come as a surprise to Jesus, presenting contingencies to which he will have to respond: rather than sending the people away, Jesus welcomes them and preaches to them; rather than turning away the paralyzed man, Jesus correctly interprets the situation as a manifestation of faith and again responds accordingly. On the story level, filled as it is with the unexpected, Jesus could not have foreseen the gathering of the crowd or the appearance of the man. And while his character is strong enough to deal genuinely with any contingency, he nevertheless could not have foreseen exactly who would respond to his proclamation in word and deed, how they would do so, and when. Moreover, were it not for the faith exhibited by the very fact of the crowd seeking him out and by the extraordinary lengths the man’s carriers went through to present him to Jesus, would Jesus have bothered to respond as he did?35 His being inspirited as Son of God does not for all that preclude his being human and therefore having to respond to unexpected events in ways he could not have foreseen. If this is so, then Jesus is affected by his encounters with minor characters such as the crowds and the paralytic and his carriers. ese encounters present unpredictable challenges to his own faith, and thus (at least implicitly) change him.36 Faith not only moves mountains, it moves Jesus. By controlling the revealing and withholding of information, the narrator presents a discourse that provides fascinating 35. Faith also is an essential ingredient in Mark 4:40; 5:34,36; 9:23,24; 10:52; 11:23-24. 36. R – D – M, Mark as Story (n.  3), p.  107: “Jesus is the prime example in the story of how everything becomes possible for one who has faith, because he remains dependent on God, for whom all is possible. Healing, for example, requires trust that the healing is possible – not only on the part of the person being healed but also on the part of the healer [...].” us does the narrative genre articulate what the Letter to the Hebrews states: “erefore he had to be made like his brethren in every respect, so that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest in the service of God [...]” (2:17); “For we have not a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin (4:15)”; “In the days of his flesh, Jesus offered up prayers and supplications, with loud cries and tears, to him who was able to save him from death, and he was heard for his godly fear. Although he was a Son, he learned through obedience through what he suffered [...] (5:7-8).” For further reflections on the faith of Jesus, see Jacques D, Who Do You Say That I Am?: Introduction to Christology, Maryknoll, NY, Orbis Books, 1994, p. 127-128.

     

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glimpses of the human experience of the character Jesus: he is vulnerable to the initiatives of others and dependent on their faith. e episode is far from over, for his exuberant response to the paralyzed man leads him into trouble.37 Now that the reader is inside the house with Jesus, the narrator reveals ominous information that, contrary to the carrying of the man, was known to Jesus but until now remained hidden from the reader: Now some of the scribes were sitting there [...]. e inference is that they have been there all along; their presence creates yet another encounter with minor characters that poses an unforeseen challenge to Jesus.38 Cognizant of their presence, the reader then learns yet more information: they were questioning in their hearts, “Why does this man speak thus? It is blasphemy! Who can forgive sins but God alone?” At first this information remains hidden from the other people in the house except Jesus who, the narrator apprises the reader, immediately, perceiving in his spirit that they thus questioned within themselves […]. e reader knows what the scribes are thinking, and knows that Jesus knows what they are thinking. Only when Jesus speaks aloud the scribes’ hidden thoughts do the people in house learn this information. Despite the rather lengthy discourse used to describe the scribes’ inner musing and Jesus’ mind-reading, on the story level everything takes place in a matter of a few tense seconds.39 As far as the content of the scribes’ musings is concerned, Jesus clearly intuits why they object to his words to the paralytic. Although Jesus did not say “I forgive your sins,”40 the very mention of forgiving sins suggests a link

37. Many historical-critical studies propose that the episode with the scribes is a controversy story intercalated in the miracle story of the healing of the paralyzed man. In addition, scholars debate whether the proposed intercalation is Markan or pre-Markan. For a good presentation of the issue, see Rudolf P, Das Markusevangelium. I. Teil (HTKNT), Freiburg, Herder, 1976, p. 151-162; Karl K, Die Wunder Jesu im Markusevangelium (SANT, 23), München, Kösel, 1970, p. 75-82. 38. While this is the first appearance of the scribes in Mark’s gospel, they are not an indifferent quantity in the story world, for earlier, in the episode of Jesus teaching in the synagogue at Capernaum, the narrator states that the people there “were astonished at his teaching, for he taught them as one who had authority, and not as the scribes” (1:22). Since the scribes were present in the room from the outset, could Jesus’ words to the paralyzed man not be interpreted as a calculated provocation aimed at them? e gaps in Mark’s text leave such matters ambiguous. 39. Z, Montage (n.  29), p.  261-262, notes the essential simultaneity of what is recounted in v. 7-10. Except for the crowd’s amazed response at the very end of the pericope, Jesus is the only character who speaks in this episode: the man says nothing, and the scribes “question in their hearts.” 40. Christopher S. M, Mark: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary (AB, 27), Garden City, NY, Doubleday, 1986, p.  224, points out that there are no examples in the Gospels of Jesus saying, “I forgive your sins.”

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with God. In terms of the imparting of information, by stepping aside to let Jesus speak, the narrator allows the reader as well as the characters in the story together to hear what transpires: “Why do you question thus in your hearts? Which is easier, to say to the paralytic, ‘Your sins are forgiven’, or to say, ‘Rise, take up your pallet and walk?’ But that you may know that the Son of man has authority on earth to forgive sins’ – he said to the paralytic – “I say to you, rise, take up your pallet and go home.”41 e words he said to the paralytic, an aside addressed to the reader, are the only exception, for here the narrator supplies information that, while known to the characters in the story, would otherwise remain unknown to the reader.42 Worth noting are the subtle repetitions of the phrase on forgiveness of sins, the key phrase that raises the question of Jesus’ link with God, a link known to the reader and to Jesus but withheld from the other characters in the story.43 At first, Jesus uses a passive construction, your sins are forgiven, which leaves unexpressed the agent effecting the forgiveness. While Jesus had probably implied God as the agent, the scribes interpret the statement with Jesus as agent. ey object to Jesus arrogating to himself authority and power belonging to God, and thus transform Jesus’ phrase into an active construction: “Who can forgive sins but God alone?” In his reply to the scribes, Jesus cites again his own words with their ambiguous passive construction, “Your sins are forgiven,” but in a generic way, setting them side by side with the words, “Rise, take up your pallet and walk.” Finally, Jesus links the two statements such that they are mutually implicated, the latter being a visible manifestation and proof of the unobservable former. However, in this last instance his use of the phrase on the forgiveness of sins takes greater precision. From an ambiguous passive, “Your sins are forgiven,” Jesus now shis to an active construction with a different agentsubject than the one proposed by the scribes: “But that you may know that the Son of man has authority on earth to forgive sins [...].” Jesus has, in the unfolding of the episode, linked the Son of man with God through their mutual authority to forgive sins, a link confirmed by the subsequent healing of the man: “I say to you, rise, take up your pallet and go home.” As a final step in this constantly evolving set of linkages, Jesus implicitly

41. For a discussion on the narrative techniques employed to create the impression that the reader is present on the scene when characters in the story speak, see my study “e Illusion of Immediacy: A Narrative-Critical Exploration of the Bible’s Predilection for Direct Discourse,” in Theoforum 31 (2000) 131-151 (reproduced in this volume, chapter 1). 42. M, Faith as a Theme in Mark (n. 30), p. 82. 43. For a study of repetitions, see Meir S, The Poetics of Biblical Narrative: Ideological Literature and the Drama of Reading, Bloomington, IN, University of Indiana Press, 1987 [1985], p. 365-440.

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identifies himself with the Son of man by using “I” in his healing command to the paralyzed man, and, in doing so, implicitly links himself with God.44 e sequence of circumstances has in effect constrained Jesus to reveal himself, albeit still somewhat cryptically, and forced him to heal the man as an authentication of his assertions. e episode of the healing of the paralyzed man contains a concatenation of contingencies that, while “set up” and thus already determined by the implied author, unfold as unforeseen events for the characters in the story world. What had begun for Jesus as an attempt to avoid the crowds developed into something else altogether. Had Jesus’ whereabouts not been learned, had the news of his arrival not been circulated, the crowd would not have gathered. Had the crowd not been so great as to block the doorway, the people carrying the man would not have been incited to their extraordinary manifestation of faith. Had they not lowered him through the roof, they would not have elicited from Jesus his statement on forgiveness of sins. Had the scribes not been present, there would not have ensued the controversy over Jesus’ identity. His encounters with the crowd, the paralyzed man and his band, and the scribes – all minor characters – set in motion a chain of ever-complexifying events inexorably drawing him down irreversible paths, placing ever greater demands upon him, forcing him to respond in ways he could not have prepared beforehand.45 e reader is thus led to surmise that, as a character in the story, Jesus, vulnerable to others, cannot but be affected by his encounters even with minor characters – for him, as for all the characters in the story world, events conspire to make “life happen.” 5. The Healing of Jairus’ Daughter and the Healing of the Woman with the Flow of Blood, Mark 5:21-43 At the outset of this episode, Jesus had returned by boat to Jewish territory aer his first foray into Gentile regions where he had exorcised the 44. For a good discussion on how this pericope has to do with Jesus’ identity, see K, The Christology (n.  7), p.  82-83. See also P, Das Markusevangelium (n. 37), p. 161: “Im Gang des Evangelienberichts ist eine weitere Stufe der Offenbarung Jesu erreicht […].” 45. “Quel est alors le rapport entre la foi et le miracle? Le miracle présuppose la foi: pas de miracle sans la foule de ceux qui portent vers Jésus, pas de miracle sans le geste des quatre: – Le miracle est en quelque sorte forcé: Jésus, venu dans la maison pour échapper aux foules, est amené à faire autre chose que ce qu’il avait prévu. Il est contraint par la présence de la foule à lui annoncer la Parole et par l’obstination des porteurs à pardonner et à guérir,” Isabelle P, “L’autorité qui révèle la foi et l’incrédulité: Marc 2,1-12,” in ÉTR 67 (1992) 243-247, p. 246.

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Gerasene demoniac, and he is immediately surrounded by a great crowd. Then comes one of the rulers of the synagogue, Jairus by name; and seeing Jesus, he falls at his feet and beseeches him, saying, “My little daughter is at the point of death. Come and lay your hands on her, so that she may be saved, and live.”46 Jesus is here once again faced with an unforeseen contingency: he had never heard of Jairus, nor could he have known that the synagogue ruler’s daughter was ill.47 Whatever plans he may have had upon disembarking are now called into question. Jesus decides to go with Jairus. e encounter with Jairus sets the episode’s plot in motion, a plot that, the reader and the characters in the story anticipate, will be resolved once the daughter has been made well again. e narrator specifies that the accompanying crowd thronged about him, a telling detail that, very much like the blocked doorway of the episode of the Healing of the Paralytic, will play an important role in what ensues. e narrator then introduces another minor character, a woman who had had a flow of blood for twelve years, and who had suffered much under many physicians, and had spent all that she had, and was no better but rather grew worse. She had heard the reports about Jesus, and came up behind him in the crowd and touched his garment.48 Jesus, along with the other characters in the story, do not know of this woman in the crowd, nor do they know anything about the long history of her illness, and therefore of the threat of ritual impurity she poses by the very fact of touching someone. In a sort of aside, the omniscient narrator further privileges the reader 46. Here again the narrator uses present tense verbs, which I have supplied. Robert G, Mark: A Commentary on His Apology for the Cross, Grand Rapids, MI, Eerdmans, 1993, p. 267, suggests that the present tense here “dramatizes the desperation of Jairus,” and adds a note of urgency. Joachim G, Das Evangelium nach Markus, Vol. 1 (EKKNT, 2), Zürich, Benziger, 1978, p. 212, n. 15, points out that in the episode of the healing of Jairus’ daughter, the present predominates, while in the intercalated episode of the healing of the woman with the flow of blood, the past tense predominates. Whether this fact determines the different origins of each story remains disputed. 47. How Jesus learned that the man was named Jairus and that he was a ruler of the synagogue is not explained. e information is first revealed by the narrator to the reader, but not explicitly to Jesus. e reader assumes that Jairus introduced himself to Jesus. is is a good example of the many gaps in Mark’s narrative that the reader must fill. See R – D – M, Mark as Story (n. 3), p. 46. For an extensive discussion on gaps in biblical narrative, see S, The Poetics of Biblical Narrative (n. 43), p. 186-229. 48. e information about the type, duration, and extremity of the woman’s medical condition provided by the narrator is, according to Genette, a heterodiegetic analepsis, that is, a flashback relating occurrences that took place before the time narrated in Mark’s Gospel; Gérard G, Narrative Discourse: An Essay in Method, trans. Jane E. L, Ithaca, NY, Cornell University Press, 1972, p. 50. Also, the narrator reveals to the reader that the woman had learned of Jesus’ renown, again information that remains unknown to Jesus.

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by divulging the woman’s thoughts, explaining the reason for her action: “If I touch even his garments, I shall be made well.” e effect of the woman touching Jesus, information privy only to the woman and the reader, is instantaneous and thorough: And immediately the hemorrhage ceased; and she felt in her body that she was healed of her disease. Only in the following verse does the always omniscient narrator shi to Jesus, now divulging to the reader information that only Jesus in the story world can know: And Jesus, perceiving in himself that power had gone forth from him [...]. While this type of awareness is superhuman – how can one be aware of “power going forth” from oneself, and at the mere touch of one’s garments? – for the moment Jesus’ knowledge nevertheless manifests distinct limitations: he still does not know that, of all the people jostling him, it is this particular person who touched his garment, that this person is a woman with this particular disease, and that as the result of the touch she has been healed. Unlike the retrospective surmise in the earlier episode by which he could imagine the actions that had necessarily led the carriers to lower the paralyzed man before him, Jesus can learn of the incident of the woman’s healing only by enquiring: [he] immediately turned about in the crowd, and said, “Who touched my garments?”49 e entire incident, set up by the implied author and fully revealed to the reader, comes as a total surprise to Jesus. Moreover, he finds himself in the awkward position of having power going forth from him without his willing it.50 Not only did he not foresee, he does not control, as the narrator’s next observation implies: And he looked around to see who had done it.51 Only when the woman comes forth in fear and trembling – she 49. “Turning around” seems to indicate anger, as is the case in 8:33, where Jesus, turning to face the rest of the disciples, proceeds to berate Peter before them all. France Q suggests that the phrase indicates uncertainty and anguish: “Lui aussi passe par l’incertitude et l’angoisse,” Les femmes de l’Évangile, Paris, Seuil, 1982, p. 61. Also, in v. 32, the Greek has a feminine construction “her having done it” (τὴv τoῦτo πoιήσασαv). is could be from the narrator’s point of view or from Jesus’ point of view; if the latter, Jesus would have to have known somehow that it was a woman who touched him, but the tone of the passage seems to preclude this. See the discussion in M, Mark 1-8 (n. 26), p. 359. 50. “Without his conscious intention,” M, Mark 1-8 (n. 26), p. 359. Even the syntax points to this, for the text has “power had gone forth,” and not “he sent power forth.” 51. Q, Les femmes de l’Évangile (n. 49), p. 61, well captures the tenor of the incident: “La guérison est immédiate, mais Jésus ne la pas maîtrisée. Cela s’est fait tout seul. Les phénomènes physiques priment sur les paroles et les volontés. La femme est avertie de sa guérison par son corps. Jésus a senti une force s’échapper de lui. Il est lésé. On vient de le déposséder de ses prérogatives. Sans parler du contact maléfique de son impureté, la femme, en le touchant, le subjugue et en dispose à sa guise comme s’il était un objet. Elle a littéralement fait main basse sur la personne messianique. Victime d’un larcin et outragé dans sa divinité, Jésus se met immédiatement à la recherche de l’indélicat. Il se retourne vers la foule et demande: ‘Qui m’a touché?’”

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could not have known what Jesus was thinking, nor does the narrator inform the reader52 – and tells everything does Jesus, and along with him the other characters in the story, learn what happened. Since the reader already knows the whole truth, the narrator does not tarry to relate what the woman said. Instead, he proceeds to Jesus’ response: “Daughter, your faith has made you well; go in peace, and be healed of your disease.” By correctly interpreting the woman’s covert action as an expression of faith, Jesus can take control of the situation: it was her faith, not so much her touch, that healed her.53 Finally, Jesus regains full control of the incident by confirming the healing and sending the woman off in peace. As far as the original plot of the episode is concerned, the unexpected interruption of the incident with the woman has consumed such precious time that in the interim Jairus’ daughter has died: While he was still speaking, there come from the ruler’s house some saying: “Your daughter is dead. Why trouble the Teacher any further?”54 Jesus now finds himself faced with the new and unexpected exigence of having to deal not with a sick, but with a dead, girl. While his information had been known to the “off stage” characters at Jairus’ house, it is newly revealed to the characters “on stage” as well as to the reader. Again the headlong tumble of unexpected events: had Jesus not been delayed by the woman with the flow of blood, he might have arrived in time to heal the sick girl. Is Jesus up to the challenge? At least those bearing the sad news to Jairus do not think so: “Your daughter is dead. Why trouble the teacher any further?” e narrator then comments that Jesus “ignored” what they said. is can refer to both their statements. Not only does he continue to “bother” with Jairus’ request, he will also, having entered Jairus’ house, consider the girl not dead but sleeping: “Why do you make a tumult and weep? The child is not dead but sleeping.” Jesus, fresh from the incident of healing the woman where he once again experienced the power of faith, now summons a similar faith on the part of Jairus: Jesus says to the ruler of the synagogue, “Do not fear, only believe.” Not only can Jesus respond only when faith is manifest, he might be summoning his own faith as well, for the outcome of his continuing on to Jairus’ house remains in suspense. Could this be why Jesus dismissed the crowd that had been following him to Jairus’ house, allow[ing] no one to follow him 52. “In the immediate context, it is not the miracle that occasions her fear but the feeling of imminent discovery by Jesus,” M, Faith as a Theme in Mark’s Narrative (n. 30), p. 107. 53. Ibid., p. 101. 54. Here again the narrator uses present tense verbs, which I have supplied.

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except Peter and James and John the brother of James, and why upon entering he put [the people weeping and wailing loudly] all outside? Having finally reached his destination, and now accompanied by faith-filled persons only,55 Jesus goes to the dead girl, takes her by the hand and commands her, “Arise.” With the narrator’s words, And immediately the girl got up and walked, the plot launched by Jairus’ plea to Jesus comes to resolution. From the time of his arrival by boat, a sequence of encounters conspired to lead Jesus step by step down a path that progressively forced his hand, demanding from him words and deeds, that, since he could not have known the future, he must have said and done in faith. Had the crowd not gathered about him, Jairus might not have known where to find him; had Jairus not implored him about his dying girl, Jesus would not have been en route where the woman with the flow of blood surreptitiously drew healing power from him; had the incident with the woman not delayed him, he might not have had to deal with a dead girl. e tumble of events draws Jesus into situations that, as a character in the story, he could not have foreseen. Having accepted the risk of proclaiming God’s coming kingdom, Jesus makes himself vulnerable to the initiatives of others, letting himself be drawn into circumstances that force him to respond in ways he could not have predetermined. Minor characters, by pressing Jesus with their supplications, set in motion sequences of events that Jesus cannot ignore. In doing so, they cannot but affect Jesus and thus contribute, at least implicitly, to the development of who he is. 6. Conclusion As the above presentation illustrates, narrative criticism, through its analysis of the formal structures and techniques at play in storytelling, can tease out of the Markan Gospel glimpses of the human experience of the character Jesus even in passages where his divinely-inspirited power and authority dominate. Son of God though he is, his human experience is not for all that eclipsed. e narrator’s control of the information heightens for the reader the impression of contingency in the story world, where characters are portrayed as meeting the unexpected, the unforeseen, the unknown. If Jesus’ knowledge is limited, then his unexpected and unforeseen encounters with minor characters, encounters that through the unfolding of circumstances lead him into the

55. M, Faith as a Theme in Mark’s Narrative (n. 30), p. 98.

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unknown, must affect him: “life happens” to him as for other human beings.56 e story world, however, is entirely the product of the discourse, which is fully arranged and determined by the implied author. Only through the discourse can the reader access the story world. Because narrative levels “have no independent existence, but rather exist only metaphorically, by virtue of their independent relationship with the other postulated levels,”57 they work together in an indissoluble whole. As a result, the contingencies in the story world exist by virtue of the inevitability of the discourse. is “double logic” of narrative offers a formal analogy for appreciating the Gospels generally. It is commonly accepted that these texts present a post-Easter witness of Jesus of Nazareth: a portrayal of Jesus thoroughly permeated with insights from the Christian communities’ faith in him as the One whom God raised from the dead. e outcome of Jesus’ story, therefore, determined the selection, arrangement, and formulation of the presentation of his words and deeds. us, just as the reader of any narrative, all the while following the unfolding of the future as the characters create it through their actions and responses, nevertheless remains subliminally aware that the story and its outcome are already known and predetermined in the implied author’s discourse,58 so also the reader of the Gospels at once sees both the Christ of post-Easter faith and the Jesus of history. e two perspectives are inextricably melded: he is the Son of God who lives human experiences. In more explicitly Christological terms, the god-like stance of the implied author is akin to Christology from above, which begins its reflection on Jesus from the point of view of God – everything is part of God’s plan, 56. R, Temps et Récit I (n. 3), p. 222: “La phénoménologie appliquée à la capacité pour une histoire d’être suivie est indiscutable aussi longtemps que nous avons affaire à des histoires dont l’issue est inconnue de l’auditeur ou du lecteur, comme c’est le cas quand nous suivons une partie d’un jeu. La connaissance des règles ne nous est ici d’aucun secours pour prédire l’issue. Il nous fait suivre la série des incidents jusqu’à leur conclusion. Les contingences, pour une compréhension phénoménologique, se ramènent à des incidents surprenants et inattendus dans des circonstances données. Nous attendons une conclusion, mais nous ignorons laquelle, parmi plusieurs issues possibles, se produira. C’est pourquoi il nous faut suivre de bout en bout. C’est pourquoi aussi nos sentiments de sympathie ou d’hostilité doivent entretenir le dynamisme du processus entier ” [emphasis in original]. 57. O’N, Fictions of Discourse (n. 14), p. 21 [emphasis in original]. 58. As R, Temps et Récit I (n.  3), p.  224, maintains, the effect on the reader discovering the future with the characters remains even in successive re-readings: “parce qu’ils relèvent de la structure même du récit [...], raconter et re-raconter ont en réalité des traits de l’opération narrative en commun: à savoir, la dialectique entre contingence et ordre, entre épisode et concordance.” (I have slightly modified Ricoeur’s syntax from a rhetorical question to a declarative sentence, but the sense remains the same.)

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eternally known, pre-determined, inevitable – while the experience of the characters in the story world is akin to Christology from below, whose originating locus of reflection lies in Jesus’ human reality and experience where life happens – events are unforeseen, unpredictable, filled with surprises.59 Just as narrative cannot exist without both discourse’s inevitability and story’s contingency,60 so also an integral christology weaves elements “from above” with the “from below.”61 It comes as no surprise, therefore, that the narrative genre emerged as one of the essential vehicles for communicating the early Church’s witness to Jesus Christ.62

59. D, Who Do You Say That I Am? (n. 36), p. 34, describes christology from above as beginning its reflection “from the person of the Son of God who becomes man,” and christology from below as beginning its reflection “from the human Jesus who is personally the Son of God.” 60. “Composer l’intrigue, c’est déjà faire surgir l’intelligible de l’accidentel, l’universel du singulier, le nécessaire ou le vraisemblable de l’épisodique,” R, Temps et Récit I (n. 3), p. 70. See the entire volume for lengthy and insightful reflections on the power of narrative as one of the prime vehicles to make sense out of life. For similar reflections, albeit in different terms, see Peter B, Reading for the Plot: Design and Intention in Narrative, New York, NY, Alfred Knopf, 1984, p. 29: “Let me restate the problem in this way: prior events, causes, are so only retrospectively, in a reading back from the end. In this sense, the metaphoric work of eventual totalization determines the meaning and status of the metonymic work of sequence – though it must also be claimed that the metonymies of the middle produced, gave birth to, the final metaphor. e contradiction may be in the very nature of narrative, which not only uses but is a double logic” [emphasis in original]. 61. D, Who Do You Say That I Am? (n. 36), p. 36: “We have asserted the validity and the mutual complementarity of the christological approaches from above and from below. An integral Christology needs to combine both [...].” 62. Jean-Louis S – Jean-Pierre S – André W, L’analyse narrative des récits de l’Ancien Testament (Cahiers Évangile, 107), Paris, Cerf, 1999, p. 58-59, first citing Paul R, “Le récit interprétatif. Exégèse et éologie dans les récits de la Passion,” in RSR 73 (1985), p. 19-20 and then commenting, pointing in the same direction regarding the Hebrew Scriptures: “‘Ce qui a frappé Alter, dans les plus dramatiques de ces récits, c’est le fait que le texte vise à communiquer la conviction que le dessein divin, bien qu’inéluctible, ne se réalise que par le truchement de ce qu’il appelle la récalcitrance des actions et des passions humaines, est une théologie qui engendre du narratif, mieux, une théologie qui appelle le mode narratif comme son mode herméneutique majeur’. C’est donc le propre de ce récit de coordonner en une seule intrigue deux niveaux qu’il est impossible de coordonner spéculativement sinon au prix de distortions dialectiques: le dessein divin et la contingence des libertés humaines” [emphasis in original]. See also Mark I. W, “Parsimony in Mark: Narratology, the Reader and Genre Analysis in Paul Ricœur,” in Studies in Religion 18 (1989) 201-212, p. 207: “Mark’s Gospel combines story and history, kerygmatic necessity and contingent event.”

C 4

SUSPENSE IN MARK 5:2143 A Narrative Study of Two Healing Stories 1. Introduction Mark’s Gospel oen relates a more detailed and vivid account of events than either of the other two Synoptic Gospels, particularly in the healing stories.1 Commentators have noted that, through a combination of stylistic tendencies and compositional features such as repetition, recapitulation, parataxis, use of the historic present, etc.,2 the author of the 1. See Richard T. F, The Gospel According to Mark: A Commentary on the Greek Text, Grand Rapids, MI, Eerdmans – Carlisle, UK, Paternoster Press, 2002, p. 17-18: “e enjoyability of Mark’s storytelling is enhanced by the more extensive use of descriptive detail than in the other gospels. Typically the Marcan version of a miracle story may be twice as long as the equivalent pericope in Matthew, simply because Mark is more vividly descriptive, while Matthew goes straight to the heart of the story. [...] e three miracle stories which take up the whole of the 43 verses of Mark 5 are covered by Matthew in a mere 16 verses. Mark, it is clear, enjoys a good story and relishes the telling of it almost to the point of selfindulgence. [...] e same may be said of the psychological comments which occur from time to time in Mark, with regard to the thoughts and emotions both of Jesus and of his disciples [...]. Whether by exploiting Peter’s memory or by exercising his own imagination, Mark has contrived to give his readers the feeling of ‘being there,’ and that is a large part of what makes his story so easy and rewarding to read.” Mary Ann T, Sowing the Gospel: Mark’s World in Literary-Historical Perspective, Minneapolis, MN, Fortress, 1989, p. 165: “Although all the stories [in Mark 4:35–5:43] relate miracles, the first is a nature miracle involving the interaction of Jesus and the disciples, while the others are healing miracles initiated by people seeking Jesus’ help in much the same pattern observed in the four healing episodes of Mark 1:21–2:12. Unlike those earlier healings, however, the three episodes in Mark 5 provide considerably more information about the people who come and about the circumstances of the healings themselves. Such detail, besides carrying a certain entertainment value aer the serious teachings of the parables, also draws the audience’s attention to these stories individually in a way not evident before.” Joel M, Mark 1–8: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary (AB, 27A), New York, NY, Doubleday, 2000, p. 61: “Even Mark’s style is not as inept as has sometimes been claimed; while it may at times be ungrammatical, it has the rough-and-ready forcefulness of good popular writing or speech and is admirably suited to the Markan portrait of a dynamic, abrasive, intensely emotional Jesus who is the passionate instrument for the advent of the dominion of God.” 2. F, The Gospel According to Mark (n. 1), p. 16-17, identifies the following features contributing to Mark’s distinctive style: “repetition or recapitulation and […] dual expressions […], overuse of the adverb εὐθύς […], the frequent use of ἤρξα(v)τo as an auxiliary verb; πάλιv (26 ×); parataxis more than syntaxis, use of historic present (150 ×), esp. with verb λέγω; frequent use of periphrastic verb forms (most notably ἦν with a present participle).”

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Second Gospel creates the impression of eye-witness reports. ese observations, however, do not directly address the evangelist’s remarkable propensity to create suspense in his narrative. e Oxford English Dictionary defines suspense as “a state of mental uncertainty, with expectation of or desire for decision, and usually some apprehension or anxiety.”3 According to Meir Sternberg, “Suspense derives from incomplete knowledge about a conflict (or some other contingency) looming in the future. Located at some point in the present, we know enough to expect a struggle but not to predict its course, and above all its outcome, with certitude.”4 Suspense, then, results from the interplay of time and information, that is, from the timing of the disclosure of information. If in life the experience of the timing of information disclosure remains beyond our mastery from the simple fact of our time-and-space boundedness – we learn things only in time, and usually only partially – in art, particularly in narrative, it is entirely manipulable. Storytelling deploys a vast array of subtle techniques and strategies regarding “who knows what, when, and how.”5 It pertains to narrative criticism to examine these in order the better to understand how a narrative creates suspense. 3. Other definitions of suspense can be found in Jeremy H, A Concise Glossary of Contemporary Literary Theory, London, UK, Arnold Publishing, 1998, p.  238: “Suspense: e everyday meaning of this word has long been applied to the reading of literature, especially fiction, and to the experience of the spectator of drama. Being in a state of heightened excitement as a result of wanting to know what happens next and what will happen ultimately is one of the forces that keeps the reader turning the pages (or which glues the audience to its seats)”; Gerald P, A Dictionary of Narratology, Lincoln, NE – London, UK, University of Nebraska Press, 1987, p.  94: “Suspense: An emotion or state of mind arising from a partial and anxious uncertainty about the progression or outcome of an action, especially one involving a positive character. Suspense occurs, for instance, when a certain result is possible but whether it will actually come to pass is not clear or when a given outcome is known but how and when it will occur is not.” For a more extensive discussion, see Heta P, “Suspense and Surprise,” in David H – Manfred J – Marie-Laure R (eds.), Routledge Encyclopedia of Narrative Theory, London, UK – New York, NY, Routledge, 2005, p. 578-580. 4. Meir S, The Poetics of Biblical Narrative: Ideological Literature and the Drama of Reading, Bloomington, IN, Indiana University Press, 1985, p. 264. 5. Peter B, Reading for the Plot: Design and Intention in Narrative, Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press, 1984, p. xi. “Narrative is one of the large categories or systems of understanding that we use in our negotiations with reality, specifically, in the case of narrative, with the problem of temporality: [our] time-boundedness, [our] consciousness of existence within the limits of mortality.” Paul R, Temps et récit I, Paris, Seuil, 1983, p. 21: “[...] la spéculation sur le temps est une rumination inconclusive à laquelle seule réplique l’activité narrative”; p.  85: “[…] il existe entre l’activité de raconter une histoire et le caractère temporel de l’expérience humaine une corrélation qui n’est pas purement accidentelle, mais présente une forme de nécessité transculturelle. Ou, pour le dire autrement: que le temps devient temps humain dans la mesure où il est articulé sur un mode narratif, et que le récit atteint sa signification plénière quand il devient une condition de l’existence temporelle” [emphasis in original].

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As an illustration of Mark’s ability to create suspense, the following analysis studies several suspense-creating narrative techniques found in the episodes of the Raising of Jairus’ Daughter and the (intercalated) Healing of the Woman with the Flow of Blood (Mk 5:21-43). Before turning to the gospel text, it is necessary first to present the key elements of narrative criticism that will provide the framework within which to identify suspense-creating strategies and techniques. 2. Narrative Criticism Narrative activity arises from the constitutive human reality of timeand-space-boundedness. Narrative relates events that are no longer present, both in the time and in the space senses of the word; it is the hereand-now communication of what took place then-and-there.6 Precisely because the events are no longer present (they are past and absent) is  there a need to make them present again (both here and now), to re-present them. rough the use of a communication medium (words, images, film, dance, pantomime, music, or any combination of these), narrative transforms past absence into a mediated form of present presence.7 Narrative criticism seeks to identify and analyse the strategies and techniques that a communicative medium employs in configuring narratives. While any medium used to convey a narrative can be subject to 6. Tuillo M, “e Force of Reportive Narratives,” in Papers in Linguistics 17 (1984) 235-265, p. 249: “[...] it is clear that the preterite is the tense par excellence of the narrative genre of speech.” 7. One does not tell a story as the events themselves are taking place, for narrative is a re-presentation aer the fact. Moreover, even if either or both parties to the communication – teller and hearer – were present as the events of the story unfolded then-andthere, the fact that either or both are present here-and-now and no longer then-and-there requires, for the events to be re-presented, a narrative using some form of discourse. See R, Temps et récit I (n. 5), p. 76: “Et si nous traduisons mimèsis par représentation, il ne faut pas entendre par ce mot quelque redoublement de présence, comme on pourrait encore l’entendre de la mimèsis platonicienne, mais la coupure qui ouvre l’espace de fiction. L’artisan de mots ne produit pas des choses, mais seulement des guise-choses, il invente du comme-si. En ce sens, le terme aristotélicien de mimèsis est l’emblème de ce décrochage qui, pour employer un vocabulaire qui est aujourd’hui le nôtre, instaure la littérarité de l’œuvre littéraire.” See also John   H, The Home of Meaning: The Hermeneutics of the Subject of Paul Ricœur, Washington, DC, University Press of America, 1982, p. 148: “History is not a reliving, reenacting, or rethinking of the actions of people but a discovering of the schema, the framework, or the worldview within which such actions took place and can take place again.” See also Jacques B, La narrativité, Louvain-la-Neuve, Duculot, 1994, p.  120: “[…] par le langage et le travail, l’homme se détache de la simple présence animale au monde, de l’évanescence qui la caractérise. Ce détachement de la présence construit l’émergence du présent, par lequel l’homme construit le temps en passé et futur, mémoire et projet.”

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such analysis,8 language in the form of written texts remains the area of study that most readily yields the full range of narratological concepts.9 e fundamental postulate of narrative criticism lies in the distinction between story and discourse: story refers to what happened, discourse to how the words convey what happened.10 A number of narratologists posit yet a third narrative level, that of narration, defined as the time-conditioned activating (telling, reading) of the discourse that allows the hearer/ reader to imagine the story. Because narrative is a form of communication, narrative criticism, in addition to analyzing aspects of the timeconditioned nature of story and discourse, includes within its purview a discussion of narrative agents.11 Distributing the several narrative agents 8. See, for example, Seymour C, Story and Discourse: Narrative Structure in Fiction and Film, Ithaca, NY – London, UK, Cornell University Press, 1978, p. 22-27. 9. According to   H, The Home of Meaning (n. 7), p. 35, Ricœur considers “writing [to be] the complete measure of discourse.” See also his ensuing discussion, p. 35-41. 10. On the subtle relationship between story and discourse, see Patrick O’N, Fictions of Discourse: Reading Narrative Theory, Toronto, University of Toronto Press, 1994, p. 3-4: “e essential point of narrative, as everyone knows, is that it tells a story. In the course of our investigation, however, we shall discuss the implications of what one might call the inherent and simultaneous countertendency of narrative precisely not to tell a story – for narrative, by its nature, always contains the seeds of its own subversion. e founding principle upon which contemporary narratology is constructed is that narrative is an essentially divided endeavor, involving the what of the story told and the how of its telling – or to employ the appropriate technical terms, involving the story (or narrative content) and the discourse (or narrative presentation). On the one hand, the most obvious and ‘natural’ function of narrative discourse is thus to be a completely transparent container for the story, to efface itself completely, to get on with it, to get the story told. On the other hand, and this is where our investigation finds its starting-point, narrative discourse, especially literary narrative discourse, is also expected not just to get the story told but to do so interestingly – which is to say, however, that far from effacing itself it should in fact foreground itself. e central point about narrative discourse to be considered here is that, in consequence of this division, discourse is always potentially subversive of its ostensibly ‘natural’ role as instrument or vehicle” [emphasis in original]. B, La narrativité (n. 7), p. 90: “la mise en récit [...] est toujours mise en spectacle”; also p.  98: “La praxématique – dans le cadre de sa théorisation des rapports langage / réel – avance le concept de spectacularisation, entendu comme ‘ensemble des opérations linguistiques (nominations, expression du critère de réalité, programmes discursifs) par lesquelles le réel est représenté.’ Le récit développe macrostructurellement la fonction de spectacularistion de la microstructure phrastique” [emphasis in original]. H. Porter A, The Cambridge Introduction to Narrative, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2002, p. 19: “One important point that the distinction between story and discourse brings out is that we never see a story directly, but instead always pick it up through the narrative discourse. e story is always mediated – by a voice, a style of writing, camera angles, actors’ interpretations – so that what we call the story is really something that we construct. We put it together from what we read or see, oen by inference” [emphasis in original]. 11. B, La narrativité (n. 7), p. 73, observes that the shi toward the inclusion of communication models in narrative studies came from the human sciences such as psychology, sociology, and sociolinguistics that study narratives in living settings rather

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on their respective narrative levels produces the following communication schema of tellers, text, and receivers, with the square brackets indicating the agents encoded within the text:12 real author - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - text - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - real reader [implied author - - - - - - - (discourse level) - - - - - - - - implied reader] [narrator - - - - - - - - - (narration level) - - - - - - - - - - narratee] [characters - - - - - - -(story level) - - - - - - - - characters]

2.1. Discourse level e distinction between real author and implied author requires comment. Since is it impossible fully to access the real author’s intention and than merely abstractly. For an insightful discussion of the conventions behind the creation of narrative agents such as implied author, implied reader, narrator, narratee, see Susan Sniader L, The Narrative Act: Point of View in Prose Fiction, Princeton, NJ, Princeton University Press, 1981, p. 112-120, esp. p. 118: “[...] the communication between historical author and audience is rendered essentially indirect; it is mediated by the communication between the textual encoded voice(s) and listener(s). is textual speakerlistener construct is homologous but need not be identical to the historical author and audience. However, the reader’s only textual access to the historical communicators is through the mediation of these personae” [emphasis in original]. 12. Adapted from Shlomith R-K, Narrative Fiction: Contemporary Poetics, London, UK – New York, NY, Routledge, 1996 [1983], p. 86; O’N, Fictions of Discourse (n. 10), p. 114; Mark Allan P, What Is Narrative Criticism? (GBS), Minneapolis, MN, Fortress, 1990, p. 27. Correlating narrative levels and narrative agents together in one formula, O’Neill proposes the following: “Story is to text [discourse] is to narration as what is to how is to who,” Patrick O’N, The Comedy of Entropy: Humour, Narrative, Reading, Toronto, University of Toronto Press, 1990, p. 87, as cited in O’N, Fictions of Discourse (n. 10), p. 23. As the last four are properties of the text, narrative criticism is thus fundamentally a text-oriented approach. See Monika F, The Fictions of Language and the Languages of Fiction: The Linguistic Representation of Speech and Consciousness, London, UK – New York, NY, Routledge, p. 441-442. e communication model, therefore, is applied to and within the text itself, such that the text “contains all three components (sender, message, and receiver) and so is complete in itself.” Also, P, What Is Narrative Criticism? p.  20. On the value of staying within the text, see Seymour C, “What Can We Learn from Contextualist Narratology?” in Poetics Today 11 (1990) 309328. See also R-K, Narrative Fiction (n. 12), p. 3-4: “In the empirical world, the author is the agent responsible for the production of the narrative and for its communication. e empirical process of communication, however, is less relevant to the poetics of narrative fiction than its counterpart within the text. Within the text, communication involves a fictional narrator transmitting a narrative to a fictional narratee.” Using other terms, M, “e Force of Reportive Narratives” (n. 6), p. 236, points to some of these narrative agents when he writes: “e following factors must be distinguished in a narrative: narrator, the person who tells the narrative; speakers, the persons who talk within the narrative, in the quotations; hearers, the persons who hear what the speakers say; interlocutors, the persons who hear the narrative” [emphasis in original].

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the various stages of the creative process that led to the production of the text,13 there is a need to account for the narrative invention, discerned in the text itself, that holds the text together.14 is is the implied author, a narrative agent that, according to Patrick O’Neill, “emerges only from our overall reading of the positions, values, and opinions espoused by the narrative text as a whole, reconstructed by that reading as the semiotically necessary authorial stance demanded by this particular text.” e implied author, as O’Neill further explains, is responsible for the arrangement of such essential narrative aspects as (a) chronologization, or the arrangement of time, transforming action into plot; (b) localization, or the arrangement of space, transforming place into setting; (c) characterization, or the arrangement of personality traits, transforming actors into characters; (d) focalization, or the arrangement of narrative perspective; (e) verbalization, or the arrangement of words on the page, making all of the implied author’s arrangements known to the reader

13.   H, The Home of Meaning (n. 7), p. 44: “e author is individualized precisely in his or her production of a singular, individual work. But the presence of the author in the work is not the psychological presence but the stylistic presence.” 14. R, Temps et récit I (n. 5), p. 76-77: “S’il en est bien ainsi, il faut préserver dans la signification même du terme mimèsis une référence à l’amont de la composition poétique. J’appelle cette référence mimèsis I, pour la distinguer de mimèsis II – la mimèsis-création – qui reste la fonction-pivot. [...] Ce n’est pas tout: la mimèsis qui est, il nous en souvient, une activité, l’activité mimétique, ne trouve pas le terme visé par son dynamisme dans le seul texte poétique, mais aussi dans le spectateur ou le lecteur. Il y a ainsi un aval de la composition poétique, que j’appelle mimèsis III [...]. En encadrant ainsi le saut de l’imaginaire par les deux opérations qui constituent l’amont et l’aval de la mimèsis-invention [le texte], je ne pense pas affaiblir, mais bien enrichir, le sens même de l’activité mimétique investie dans le muthos. J’espère montrer qu’elle tire son intelligibilité de sa fonction de médiation, qui est de conduire de l’amont du texte à l’aval du texte par son pouvoir de refiguration.” In more technical terms poesis deals with the making or producing of discourse, while aesthetics concerns its reception. For further discussion of this, see Paul R, Temps et récit III, Paris, Seuil, 1985, p. 228-263. For a helpful study of the reception aspect, see Wolfgang I, The Act of Reading: A Theory of Aesthetic Response, Baltimore, Johns Hopkins University Press, 1978. e very existence of discourse, particularly in the form of a text, manifests a communicative intent, even if, as the debate over the issue of intentional fallacy shows, it is never possible fully to recover the author’s intention and even if, once produced, a text has a life of its own which leaves it susceptible to interpretations different from those intended by the author. Any communication, for that matter, even the simplest verbal expression, is susceptible to misinterpretation. Be that as it may, any text, by the very fact that it presents words structured in sequence and syntax, implicitly contains an “upstream” reference to its production and a “downstream” reference to its reception. For further reflections on a text as the manifestation of a communicative intent, see the various discussions on what has come to be called Speech Act eory: Kevin J. V, “From Speech Acts to Scripture Acts,” in Craig B – Colin G – Karl M (eds.), After Pentecost: Language and Biblical Interpretation, Grand Rapids, MI, Zondervan – Carlisle, UK, Paternoster Press, 2001, p. 1-49, provides a helpful summary.

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– and duly received by the reader as the ‘voice’ of the narrator; and (f) validation of the narrator’s degree of reliability.”15

As the product of the implied author, the discourse is already fully set in place for the benefit of the reader. On the discourse level, therefore, the story’s outcome is already determined. 2.2. Story Level Unlike the discourse level that is characterized by arrangement, predetermination, predictability, the story level features the opposite: the story world for the characters is marked by “sequentiality, uncertainty, unpredictability.”16 For the characters, the future remains opaque, they are unable to divine what other characters are thinking, they cannot discern with any certainty how future events and encounters will affect their lives.17 From the point of view of the implied author, the events are already known because they are past; from the point of view of the characters in the story, events are occurring in their present, their actions and decisions (or lack thereof) shaping the future.18 For them, the world is 15. O’N, Fictions of Discourse (n. 10), p. 66 [emphasis in original]. 16. Ibid., p. 112. 17. at is why the preterite is the tense par excellence in narrative. Cf.  B, La narrativité (n. 7), p. 59, 124, 126. e use of what is called the historic present is a narrative technique aimed at rendering the action more vivid in the reader’s imagination. Paul R, Soi-même comme un autre, Paris, Seuil, 1990, p.  192-193: “La dernière objection repose sur une méprise qu’il n’est pas toujours facile de déjouer. On croit volontiers que le récit littéraire, parce qu’il est rétrospectif, ne peut instruire qu’une méditation sur la partie passée de notre vie. Or le récit littéraire n’est rétrospectif qu’en un sens bien précis: c’est seulement aux yeux du narrateur que les faits racontés paraissent s’être déroulés autrefois. Le passé de narration n’est que le quasi-passé de la voix narrative. Or, parmi les faits racontés à un temps du passé, prennent place des projets, des attentes, des anticipations, par quoi les protagonistes du récit sont orientés vers leur avenir mortel: en témoignent les dernières pages puissamment prospective de la Recherche, déjà évoquée plus haut au titre de la clôture ouverte du récit de fiction. Autrement dit, le récit raconte aussi le souci. En un sens, il ne raconte que le souci. C’est pourquoi il n’y a pas d’absurdité à parler de l’unité narrative d’une vie, sous le signe de récits qui enseignent à articuler narrativement rétrospection et prospection.” 18. Deixis concerns the adjustment of spatiotemporal coordinates according to the level of narration, that is, according to who is speaking, the narrator or the characters. “In the modern use of the term, deixis covers the function performed by the whole set of grammatical and lexical elements – notably tense, personal pronouns, and demonstratives (like this, that, here, now, tomorrow) – which relate the utterance to the spatiotemporal coordinates of the situation of utterance. Normally, the speaker relates all the persons, events, and objects he talks about to the unique here-and-now of his own deictic context; the addressee correspondingly identifies, places, and links the referents in relation to the same zero point,” Meir S, “Point of View and the Indirectness of Direct Speech,” in Language and Style 15 (1982) 67-117, p. 110. For a functional

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filled with contingencies that at the moment they occur have no immediately discernible meaning – the world is filled with surprises. 2.3. Narration level e already-laid-out discourse is static. It must be activated for the reader to come to know the story and its outcome, a process that takes place in linear time from sentence to sentence, from paragraph to paragraph, from episode to episode.19 us, every narrative has a teller: “[a]ll narratives are uttered, whether metaphorically or literally, by the voice of a narrator.”20 In oral/aural contexts, there is no difficulty in identifying the narrator, for it is the one (usually) physically present whose voice the listener hears telling the story. In the case of a written narrative where the communication is deferred over time and space, the notion of narrator is figuratively applied to the text. e reader “hears” a voice, a voice not the reader’s own, telling the story, a voice that speaks the script of the discourse provided by the implied author. O’Neill adds the further specification that “[ ...] the narrator is thus neither a person nor even a character but rather a narrative position, a position or point on the approach to the characteristics of direct speech, see Charles N. L, “Direct Speech and Indirect Speech: A Functional Study,” in Florian C (ed.), Direct and Indirect Speech (TLSM, 31), Berlin – New York, NY – Amsterdam, Mouton de Gruyter, 1986, p.  29-45. David MC, The Scandal of the Gospels: Jesus, Story, and Offense, Oxford, UK, Oxford University Press, 1994, p. viii, captures this play of time when he writes: “[...] characters live in narrative as humans live in time [...].” 19. R, Temps et récit I (n. 5), p. 213: “[...] une ‘conclusion’ narrative n’est rien qui puisse être déduit ou prédit. Une histoire qui ne comporterait ni surprises, ni coïncidences, ni rencontres, ni reconnaissances ne retiendrait pas notre attention. C’est pourquoi il faut suivre l’histoire jusqu’à sa conclusion, ce qui est tout autre chose que suivre un argument dont la conclusion est contraignante. Plutôt que prévisible, une conclusion doit être acceptable. Portant notre regard en arrière, de la conclusion vers les épisodes intermédiaires, nous devons pouvoir dire que cette fin demandait ces événements et cette chaîne d’actions. Mais ce regard jeté en arrière est rendu possible par le mouvement téléologiquement orienté de nos attentes quand nous suivions l’histoire. L’incompatibilité, abstraitement posée, entre la contingence des incidents et l’acceptabilité des conclusions est précisément ce que l’aptitude de l’histoire à être suivie dément. La contingence n’est inacceptable que pour un esprit qui attache à l’idée de compréhension celle de maîtrise: suivre une histoire, c’est ‘trouver (les événements) intellectuellement acceptables après tout’” [Ricœur is here citing W.B. G, Philosophy and the Historical Understanding, New York, NY, Schocken Books, 1964, p. 31]. L’intelligence ici exercée n’est pas celle qui s’attache à la légalité d’un processus, mais celle qui répond à la cohérence interne d’une histoire qui conjoint contingence et acceptabilité” [emphasis in original]. 20. O’, Fictions of Discourse (n.  10), p.  60. See also Richard A, “Hearing Voices in Narrative Texts,” in New Literary History 29 (1998) 467-500; Mieke B, “First Person, Second Person, Same Person: Narrative as Epistemology,” in New Literary History 24 (1993) 293-320.

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narrative scale, situated between the level of the implied author and that of character, potentially coincident with either or neither of these, and seen as identifying the point of utterance of the narrative voice.”21 ere are various types of narrators, depending upon their position in relationship to the story and to the reader.22 e implied author of the Gospel of Mark employs an omniscient narrator, “one who never assumes the guise of a character within his own tale, but remains outside it, looking down from his Olympian throne, though not, like the gods of old, in an impassive, detached manner.”23 e Markan narrator, then, has a key role in the working of suspense, for it is the voice that controls, in a linear timesequence (word by word, sentence by sentence), the disclosure of the information set in place by the implied author. As the above schema indicates, every narrative “teller” has its counterpart “receiver.” e real author communicates, via the narrative medium of a text, to a real reader; the implied author’s vis-à-vis is the 21. O’N, Fictions of Discourse (n. 10), p. 77 [emphasis in original]. See also Mieke B, Narratology: Introduction to the Theory of Narrative (2nd Edition), Toronto, University of Toronto Press, 1997, p. 22: “As soon as there is language, there is a speaker who utters it; as soon as those linguistic utterances constitute a narrative text, there is a narrator, a narrating subject. From a grammatical point of view, this is always a ‘first person.’” Seymour C, Coming to Terms: The Rhetoric of Narrative in Fiction and Film, Ithaca, NY, Cornell University Press, 1990, p. 116: “Remember, when we speak of the narrator, we are speaking neither of the original creators of narrative texts – the flesh-and-blood authors, nor of the principle of invention in the text we call the implied author, but someone or something in the text who or which is conceived as presenting (or transmitting) the set of signs that constitute it. As part of the invention of the text, the implied author assigns to a narrative agent the task of articulating it, or actually offering it to some projected or inscribed audience (narratee).” 22. An external, non-perceptible narrator, is, as the name suggests, outside the story being narrated. Moreover, this type of narrator does not present itself overtly to the narratee, and thus is non-perceptible. A good example of such a narrator is the narrator in Mark’s Gospel. An external, perceptible narrator is a narrator that, although not a character in the story it is telling, uses the first person singular in addressing the narratee. e narrator of Luke’s Gospel, who presents himself in the prologue, using “I” to address the narratee eophilus, provides an example. In this instance both narrator and narratee are external and perceptible. A character narrator is a character in the story it tells, and thus is necessarily perceptible. It speaks in the first person singular “I” or, by speaking as one of two or more characters, as “we.” is type of narrator can be involved in the story it is telling, as for example John of Patmos in the Book of Revelation who recounts the visions he had, or the “we” sections in Acts of the Apostles where the uptill-then external narrator becomes a character narrator, involved and participating in the adventures of Paul and companions. Because the implied author and the narrator are different narrative agents, there can be a discrepancy between the two, as, for example, when a modern novel uses what is called an unreliable narrator. However, in the Gospels and in the Bible generally, the narrator shares the same values and point of view as the implied author. For helpful typologies of narrators, see B, Narratology (n. 21), p. 19-30; R-K, Narrative Fiction (n. 12), p. 94-103. 23. S, A Lion with Wings (n. 2), p. 187.

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implied reader, that is, the reader demanded by the text; the narrator speaks to the narratee; and finally characters speak to other characters in the story. As there is no methodological need in what follows to distinguish between real reader, implied reader, and narratee, the word “reader” will suffice to represent the receiver pole of the communication schema. 3. Suspense in Mark 5:21-43 e above brief aperçu of key elements of narrative criticism provides the tools necessary to identify and analyze Mark’s three suspensebuilding narrative strategies and techniques in the selected excerpt. e interplay of the several narrative agents on their respective levels as this relates to the timely disclosure of information – who knows what, when, and how – is divided into three sections: (1) the characters’ experience of an unknown future; (2) the narrator’s variously timed disclosure of information; and (3) the interaction of a multiplicity of characters. Occasional comparative glances at the Matthean version of these two healing stories (Mt 9:18-26) will serve further to highlight Mark’s suspense-creating narrative style. 24 To facilitate comparison, reproduced here are the two versions in parallel columns as they appear in a gospel synopsis:25

Mark 5:21-43

Matthew 9:18-26

21 When Jesus had crossed again in the boat to the other side, a great crowd gathered around him; and he was by the sea. 22 en one of the leaders of the synagogue named Jairus came and, when he saw him,

18 While he was saying these things to them suddenly a leader came in and

24. Although for slightly different reasons, Mary Rose D’A also compares the Markan and Matthean versions of these episodes in her article “Gender and Power in the Gospel of Mark: e Daughter of Jairus and the Woman with the Flow of Blood,” in John C. C (ed.), Miracles in Jewish and Christian Antiquity: Imaging Truth (NDST, 3), Notre Dame, IN, University of Notre Dame Press, 1999, 83-109, p. 101. 25. Burton H. T, Jr., Gospel Parallels: A Comparison of the Synoptic Gospels, 5th edition, Nashville, TN, Nelson, 1992, p. 83-85.

   :- fell at his feet 23 and begged him repeatedly, “My little daughter is at the point of death. Come and lay your hands on her, so that she may be made well, and live.” 24 So he went with him. And a large crowd followed him and pressed in on him. 25 Now there was a woman who had been suffering from hemorrhages for twelve years. 26 She had endured much under many physicians, and had spent all that she had; and she was no better, but rather grew worse. 27 She had heard about Jesus, and came up behind him in the crowd and touched his cloak, 28 for she said, “If I but touch his clothes, I will be made well.” 29 Immediately her hemorrhage stopped; and she felt in her body that she was healed of her disease. 30 Immediately aware that power had gone forth from him, Jesus turned about in the crowd and said, “Who touched my clothes?” 31 And his disciples said to him, “You see the crowd pressing in on you; how can you say, ‘Who touched me?’” 32 He looked all around to see who had done it. 33 But the woman, knowing what had happened to her, came in fear and trembling, fell down before him, and told him the whole truth. 34 He said to her, “Daughter, your faith has made you well; go in peace, and be healed of your disease.” 35 While he was still speaking, some people came from the leader’s house to say, “Your daughter is dead. Why trouble the teacher any further?” 36 But overhearing what they said, Jesus said to the leader of the synagogue, “Do not fear, only believe.” 37 He allowed no one to follow him except Peter, James, and John, the brother of James.

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knelt before him, saying, “My daughter has just died; but come and lay your hand on her; and she will live.” 19 And Jesus got up and followed him, with his disciples. 20 en suddenly a woman who had been suffering from hemorrhages for twelve years

came up behind him and touched the fringe of his cloak, 21 for she said to herself, “If I only touch his cloak, I will be made well.”

22 Jesus turned, and seeing her he said, “Take heart, daughter; your faith has made you well.” And instantly the woman was made well.

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38 When they came to the house of the leader of the synagogue, he saw a commotion, people weeping and wailing loudly. 39 When he had entered, he said to them, “Why do you make a commotion and weep? e child is not dead but sleeping.” 40 And they laughed at him. en he put them all outside, and took the child’s father and mother and those who were with him, and went in where the child was. 41  He took her by the hand and said to her, “Talitha cum,” which means, “Little girl, get up!” 42 And immediately the girl got up and began to walk about (she was twelve years of age). At this they were overcome with amazement. 43 He strictly ordered them that no one should know this, and told them to give her something to eat.

23 When Jesus came to the leader’s house and saw the flute players and the crowd making a commotion 24 he said, “Go away; for the girl is not dead but sleeping.” And they laughed at him. 25 But when the crowd had been put outside, he went in and took her by the hand,

and the girl got up.

26 And the report of this spread throughout the district.

3.1. The characters’ experience of an unknown future One narrative technique for creating suspense lies in the reader’s imagining the unknown future from the point of view of the characters in the story, for whom time and information disclosure can in great part be made to mimic real life.26 In these instances, the narrator “construct[s] the reading sequence so as to imitate (or even worsen) the conditions of our suspenseful advance from present to future in life, exploiting the opacity of time to human vision in order to multiply gaps, pit hope 26. R, Temps et récit I (n. 5), p. 222: “La phénoménologie appliquée à la capacité pour une histoire d’être suivie est indiscutable aussi longtemps que nous avons affaire à des histoires dont l’issue est inconnue de l’auditeur ou du lecteur, comme c’est le cas quand nous suivons une partie d’un jeu. La connaissance des règles ne nous est ici d’aucun secours pour prédire l’issue. Il nous faut suivre la série des incidents jusqu’à leur conclusion. Les contingences, pour une compréhension phénoménologique, se ramènent à des incidents surprenants et inattendus dans des circonstances données. Nous attendons une conclusion, mais nous ignorons laquelle, parmi plusieurs issues possibles, se produira. C’est pourquoi il nous faut suivre de bout en bout. C’est pourquoi aussi nos sentiments de sympathie ou d’hostilité doivent entretenir le dynamisme du processus entier” [emphasis in original].

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against fear, and delay the resolution to the last possible moment.”27 What do the characters know, when do they learn it, and how? As Jesus is the main protagonist in the selected episodes, it is best to begin with this narrative character. At the outset of the pericope, Jesus returns by boat with his disciples to Jewish territory aer his dramatic healing of the man possessed by a Legion (of demons) in Gerasa (Mk 5:120), a region situated on the eastern shore of the Sea of Galilee.28 Upon disembarking, could Jesus have foreseen what was to occur? While he might have expected that, due to his growing notoriety, “a great crowd” would gather around him, could he have predicted that “one of the leaders of the synagogue” would suddenly come forward, fall at his feet, and beseech him with a heart-rending plea to save his gravely ill daughter? e present tense verbs used to describe Jairus’s actions in v.  22-23 (ἔρχεται, he comes; πίπτει, he falls; παρακαλεῖ, he beseeches), in addition to creating a sense of immediacy,29 suggest that Jairus interrupts Jesus. is unexpected occurrence – the untimely disclosure of information – constrains the character Jesus to decide whether or not to acquiesce to the distraught father’s request, a decision whose consequences at this point remain unknown not only to Jesus, but to the other characters present in the story and to the reader. On the way to the synagogue leader’s house, Jesus is once again interrupted by an unexpected event. An unnoticed and unknown person touches him such that he feels power go forth from him. Until he learns what happened and why – information that comes to light only once the woman confesses all that had happened to her – he will not resume the route to Jairus’ house. en, as Jesus is still speaking to the woman, yet another interruption occurs: people from Jairus’ house bring sad news (5:35). (Here again, Mark’s use of the present tense verb ἔρχovται – “they come” – heightens its unexpected nature.30) e episode of the woman with the flow of blood has so delayed Jesus’ arrival at the synagogue

27. S, The Poetics of Biblical Narrative (n. 4), p. 265. is relates to O’Neill’s comment on the narrator’s position between the discourse level and the story level (see n. 21 above). 28. e disciples, not mentioned in this episode until later at v.  31, are assumed to have arrived with Jesus in the boat, for they are with him during the crossing of sea (the Stilling of the Storm, 4:35-41) and upon reaching shore in Gerasa “they came to the other side of the sea” (5:1). 29. B, La narrativité (n.  7), p.  141: “Le présent narratif permet – entre autres – d’annuler fantasmatiquement la distance temps raconté / temps du raconter; de raconter ‘en direct’ en quelque sorte.” Both the Bible de Jérusalem (BJ) and the Traduction Œcuménique de la Bible (TOB) retain the present tense for these three verbs. 30. Again the BJ and the TOB retain the present tense verb.

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leader’s house that in the meantime the girl has died.31 If at the outset Jesus had agreed to go and lay his hands on a very sick girl, he must now confront the much graver challenge of a raising a dead girl to life.32 Will Jesus, who appears to depend on the faith of others (“‘Daughter, your faith has made you well’”; “‘Do not fear, only believe’”), be able to show himself victorious in the face not only of illness but now of death – a challenge he has thus far not met in Mark’s narrative? As he lives this particular day, therefore, the character Jesus faces unexpected occurrences that wrest from him decisions setting in motion a chain of events that in turn lead him to yet greater unforeseen challenges. rough the interventions of desperate and distraught individuals who seek him out, Jesus lives a future that he could not have predicted or known, a future that, as it continues to unfold in the text’s narration, remains unknown to the reader as well. In the Matthean version of these two healing episodes, the character Jesus could not, any more than in Mark, foresee that the synagogue leader and the woman with the flow of blood would in their desperation seek him out. However, the build-up of suspense is noticeably diminished since, at the very beginning of the episode, the synagogue leader informs Jesus that his daughter is already dead (9:18b).33 e Matthean Jesus thus knows the challenge that lies ahead rather than, as in Mark, originally setting out to heal sickness only to end up being confronted with death. As a result, the intercalated episode of the woman with the flow of blood, which in Mark serves to delay Jesus’ progress to Jairus’ house such that in the meantime his daughter has died, adds no discernable suspense to the Matthean account. Moreover, even though Matthew uses the interjection ἰδoὺ (“behold”) in v.  20 to note the unexpected nature of the woman’s initiative, his Jesus gives the impression of not being particularly surprised by the interruption. Instead of having to stop and seek out the unknown person who touched him because he felt

31. M, Mark 1-8 (n. 1), p. 366: “But now their [Jairus and the woman with the flow of blood] fortunes seem to be suddenly reversed, for his loss of time becomes her gain: the same crowd that has slowed Jesus’ progress toward his daughter’s deathbed offers her the opportunity to be healed. Earlier, in 2:2-4, such a crowd was an obstacle to healing, but here it provides a chance for the woman to make contact with Jesus without being observed.” 32. D’A, “Gender and Power in the Gospel of Mark” (n.  24), p.  98; Simon L, L’Évangile de Marc I (LDC, 5), Paris, Cerf, 1997, p.  334; Rudolf P, Das Markusevangelium I. Teil (HTKNT, 2), Freiburg, Herder, 1976, p. 306. 33. Michel G, “Deux miracles, deux démarches de foi (Marc 5:21-43 par.),” in À cause de l’Évangile: Études sur les Synoptiques et les Actes (LD, 123), Paris, Cerf, 1985, 229-249, p. 236.

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power go forth from him, in Matthew Jesus simply turns and notices her (v. 22). Since less information is proffered, since less information is hidden from him, and since information is disclosed earlier in the episode, the future arrives with less suspense for the Matthean Jesus. Other characters in the Markan version of the story also face the future as unknown and unpredictable. Jairus, for example, could not know ahead of time that Jesus would acquiesce to follow him home in order to heal his very sick daughter. Nor could he have foreseen that the journey would be interrupted by the incident of the woman with the flow of blood, or that due to the delay this caused he would eventually learn the sad news of his daughter’s death. e woman with the flow of blood could not know that upon touching Jesus she would be healed. Her actions and thoughts imply that she had hoped to remain undetected instead of being sought out as in fact happened. Nor could she foresee how Jesus would react to her audacity (she finally approaches Jesus “in fear and trembling”). Insofar as the narrator presents the story from the point of view of the characters, the reader experiences the future as unknown and filled with surprises. As is the case with Jesus, other characters in the story must deal with a future (time aspect) that is unknown (information aspect), the two elements constitutive of suspense. In Matthew, however, where information is more spare and more readily disclosed, the characters experience the future as less fraught with suspense. 3.2. Suspense from the narrator’s divulging or withholding of information If, as discussed in the previous section, a narrator can create a sense of suspense in the reader by relating the story from the point of view of the characters, Mark’s omniscient narrator can also function on the level of the implied author and consequently be the purveyor of the timed disclosure of information beyond what the characters and/or the reader can know.34 Who knows what, when, and how can, depending on the position and activity of the narrator, take on a number of modalities. 3.2.1. e narrator discloses to the reader information assumed to be known by the characters in the story e narrator provides third-person descriptions of settings and of actions so that the reader can “see” what characters on the scene are 34. O’N, Fictions of Discourse (n. 10), p. 77.

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assumed to be seeing, imaginatively transporting the reader from hereand-now to then-and-there. In this way, the information with which the characters in the story are privileged by dint of being on the scene is shared with the hitherto uninformed reader. Such is the purpose, for example, of the narrator’s description of the setting in the opening verse of the designated passage (“When Jesus had crossed again in the boat to the other side, a great crowd gathered around him; and he was by the sea” [5:21]) and of the Jairus’ actions (“en one of the leaders of the synagogue named Jairus came and, when he saw him, fell at his feet” [5:22]). e mere presence of Jesus attracts a crowd, thus allowing the synagogue leader a way to determine where Jesus can be found. As well, Jairus’ behavior – a synagogue leader interrupting Jesus in public, falling to his knees, and repeatedly beseeching Jesus – bespeaks a man who is too desperate and distraught to engage in the usual polite social conventions of proper introductions or to worry about making a spectacle of himself.35 In addition to positioning the reader as an unseen observer,36 these two de descriptive sentences disclose just enough information, and in the most effectively timed sequence, to alert the reader that, as the characters on the scene discover, something out of the ordinary is happening.37 Similar observations regarding the narrator’s disclosure of mise-en-scène information aimed primarily at letting the reader in on what is transpiring apply for v. 37, 38, 40.

35. For a detailed analysis of the language used to express the father’s desperation, see P, Das Markusevangelium (n.  32), p.  300. Regarding Jairus’ behavior, see L, L’Évangile de Marc (n. 32), p. 337-338. 36. B, La narrativité (n. 7), p. 80; also p. 98 “La praxématique – dans le cadre de sa théorisation des rapports langage / réel – avance le concept de spectacularisation, entendu comme ‘ensemble des opérations linguistiques (nominations, expression du critère de réalité, programmes discursifs) par lesquelles le réel est représenté’” [emphasis in original]. 37. While such imparting of information appears at first sight to be straightforward and unproblematic, Mark’s at times succinct telling leads to ambiguity, to “gaps” that can be filled only by the reader’s surmise. What is the purpose of the narrator informing the reader of the synagogue leader’s name? Do the people in the crowd gathered around Jesus know Jairus? e fact that the narrator reveals his proper name suggests that perhaps this is the case – this information is, as with other descriptive elements in the text, for the benefit of the reader and serves as a ploy to involve the reader more intimately in the scene. Do Jesus and the disciples know Jairus’ name and status? If the man was wearing a distinctive garb, then they might have been able to identify him as a synagogue leader, but the text makes no mention of his appearance or apparel. If Jesus and the disciples do in fact learn the man’s name and status, how, when, and from whom? Here again the text is silent: Jairus does not introduce himself, nor does anyone in the crowd do so. On the question of gaps, see esp. S, The Poetics of Biblical Narrative (n. 4), passim.

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3.2.2. e narrator discloses information about a character first to the reader, and then to the other characters in the story e play of who knows what, when, and how can take on – particularly when the narrator is omniscient – subtle nuances.38 In some instances, the reader is temporarily privileged with information at the expense of at least some characters. In Mk 5:25-28 the omniscient narrator informs the reader of the woman’s hitherto incurable illness, of her having heard of Jesus, of her appearing on the scene, and of her peculiar behavior, information that, at this point in the narrative, is not disclosed to any of the other characters on the scene.39 Jesus, the disciples, and the crowd will be made privy to this information only aer the woman, once healed, tells “the whole truth.”40 Such calculated disclosure of information has a double effect on the reader. First, through the sharing of inside 38. S, The Poetics of Biblical Narrative (n. 4), p. 265: “But he [the narrator] may equally exploit his retrospective posture and conventions like omniscience to turn the natural opacity of the future into artful transparency: to play down suspense by revealing at an early point some normally inaccessible information about what lies ahead, whether by way of explicit or implicit forecasting. By this shi in the relations between time and knowledge, perspectivally speaking, the reader comes to occupy an elevated rather than an equivalent position vis-à-vis the unprivileged characters.” e narrator’s comprehension of the event is different from that of the charaters’ as R, Temps et récit I (n. 5), p. 251, explains: “Premier acquis: les narrativistes démontrent avec succès que raconter, c’est déjà expliquer. Le ‘di’allèla’ – le ‘l’un par l’autre’ qui, selon Aristote, fait la connexion logique de l’intrigue – est désormais le point de départ obligé de toute discussion sur la narration historique. Cette thèse de base a de nombreux corollaires. Si tout récit met en œuvre, en vertu même de l’opération de mise in intrigue, une connexion causale, cette construction est déjà une victoire sur la simple chronologie et rend possible la distinction entre l’histoire et la chronique. En outre, si la construction de l’intrigue est œuvre de jugement, elle lie la narration à un narrateur, et donc permet au ‘point de vue’ de ce dernier de se dissocier de la compréhension que les agents ou les personnages de l’histoire peuvent avoir eu de leur contribution à la progression de l’intrigue; contrairement à l’objection classique, le récit n’est aucunement lié à la perspective confuse et bornée des agents et des témoins immédiats des événements; au contraire, la mise à distance, constitutive du ‘point de vue’ rend possible le passage du narrateur à l’historien (Scholes et Kellogg). Enfin, si la mise en intrigue intègre dans une unité signifiante des composantes aussi hétérogènes que les circonstances, les calculs, les actions, les aides et les obstacles, les résultats enfin, alors il est également possible que l’histoire prenne en compte les résultats non voulus de l’action, et produise des descriptions de l’action distinctes de sa description en termes simplement intentionnels [...]” [emphasis in original]. 39. L, L’Évangile de Marc (n. 32), p. 340. See also Werner H. K, “Narrative and Disclosure: Mechanisms of Concealing, Revealing, and Reveiling,” in Semeia 43 (1988) 1-20, p. 1. 40. Petri M, “Characters in the Making: Individuality and Ideology in the Gospels,” in David R – Kari S (eds.), Characterization in the Gospels: Reconceiving Narrative Criticism (JSNT SS, 184), Sheffield, UK, Sheffield Academic Press, 1999, 49-72, p. 64.

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information, the narrator imperceptibly transforms the reader from merely observing to sympathizing with the woman and her plight.41 Second, armed with this privileged information, the reader learns that the stakes for the woman, and eventually for the still unknowing Jesus, are very high indeed. In this way, the narrator creates suspense in both characters, the woman and Jesus, suspense that the reader shares with the former and anticipates regarding the latter. Verses 29 and 33a also offer information first disclosed to the reader, and only later revealed to other characters in the narrative. 3.2.3. e narrator discloses information about characters to the reader only A further, subtler instance of building suspense through the timely disclosure of information arises from the narrator revealing to the reader information about a character that none of the other characters in the story ever learns. In the designated episode, for example, only the reader – not the disciples, nor Jairus, nor the woman, nor the crowd – ever learns of Jesus’ awareness “that power had gone forth from him.”42 While the reader knows the reason for, and therefore grasps the logic of, Jesus’ question (“Who touched my clothes?”), the disciples’ puzzled and exasperated response (“You see the crowd pressing in on you; how can you say, ‘Who touched me?’”) shows they have no idea of what had happened to Jesus. us, the reader is in the privileged position of seeing both points of view, that of the disciples and that of Jesus. From their limited vantage point, the disciples’ response at this point in the story is altogether normal and logical.43 e apparent perplexity from Jesus’ point of view suggests limitations for him also, for the outflow of power from him was unintended.44 41. D’A, “Gender and Power in the Gospel of Mark” (n. 24), p. 98. 42. If the narrator provides information about the woman’s inner thoughts and experience (“she felt in her body that she was healed of her disease”), the reader assumes that she reveals these when she later “told [Jesus] the whole truth.” e inner experience of Jesus, however, is never revealed to the other characters in the story. 43. Contra L, L’Évangile de Marc (n. 32), p. 343. 44. G, “Deux miracles, deux démarches de foi” (n.  33), p.  243; L, L’Évangile de Marc (n. 32), p. 342; Robert A. G, Mark 1–8,26 (WBC, 34A), Dallas, TX, Word Books, 1989, p. 291. France Q, Les femmes de l’Évangile, Paris, Seuil, 1982, p. 61, captures well the tenor of the incident: “La guérison est immédiate, mais Jésus ne la pas maîtrisée. Cela s’est fait tout seul. Les phénomènes physiques priment sur les paroles et les volontés. La femme est avertie de sa guérison par son corps. Jésus a senti une force s’échapper de lui. Il est lésé. On vient de le déposséder de ses prérogatives. Sans parler du contact maléfique de son impureté, la femme, en le touchant, le subjugue et en dispose à sa guise comme s’il était un objet. Elle a littéralement fait main basse sur la

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If in the end Jesus’ perplexity finds resolution once the woman has “told him the whole truth,” the disciples and the crowd never learn from Jesus the full reason for his stopping abruptly to ask who touched him. e secret of Jesus’ true identity, established for the reader in the opening verse of the Gospel and corroborated repeatedly in the episodes preceding the present incident, finds here yet another, if rather peculiar, confirmation: this Son of God can heal unintentionally and must then puzzle out what happened. e impression given is that even the disclosure of such privileged information about Jesus’ identity cannot dispel all mystery, neither for the reader nor for the character Jesus. e sense of mystery surrounding him represents a particularly potent ingredient creating suspense – nothing about him is ever fully known or predictable. 3.3. Suspense due to the multiplicity and unpredictability of characters e previous two sections illustrated how the sense of suspense in a narrative arises through the reader’s living the unexpected future with the characters and through the narrator’s skillful managing of information. e third modality employed in Mark for building suspense lies in characterization. Not only are there more characters in the Markan version than in the Matthean, but they also tend to be more extensively described and prone to more action and dialogue. In Mark, the two intercalated pericopes together present nine different characters: Jesus, the disciples (with Peter, James and John later mentioned by name), the crowd, Jairus, the woman with the flow of blood, people from Jairus’ house, the mourners, the girl’s mother, and the little girl. Matthew, on the other hand, has seven: Jesus, the disciples of John (who appear only as “them” in the opening verse and have no role to play in the designated story), a leader, Jesus’ disciples, the woman with the flow of blood, the mourners, and the little girl. In Mark, the presence of the crowd accompanying Jesus and Jairus to the latter’s house plays a critical role by providing cover for the woman to approach Jesus not only surreptitiously from behind but also anonymously and unobserved.45 personne messianique. Victime d’un larcin et outragé dans sa divinité, Jésus se met immédiatement à la recherche de l’indélicat. Il se retourne vers la foule et demande: ‘Qui m’a touché?’” e Greek has a feminine construction “her having done it” (τὴv τoῦτo πoιήσασαv). is could be from the narrator’s point of view or from Jesus’ point of view; if the latter, Jesus would somehow have had to know that it was a woman who touched him, but the general sense of the passage seems to preclude this. See the discussion in M, Mark 1–8 (n. 1), p. 359. 45. Camille F, L’évangile selon Marc (CbNT, 2), Paris, Cerf, 2004, p. 208: “La foule nombreuse qui le suit et le presse (v. 24b) ne jouera pratiquement aucun rôle dans

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As at the outset of the Matthean version the leader’s daughter is announced as already dead, there is consequently no need for “people [...] from the leader’s house” to inform him that his daughter has died, as in Mark. Mark tends to provide more substantial character descriptions and actions. For example, the distraught father’s name and social status are supplied in Mark (“[...] one of the leaders of the synagogue named Jairus [...]”) whereas in Matthew these identifying touches are lacking. In Mark, Jairus “came and, when he saw him, fell at his feet and begged him repeatedly”; in Matthew, the leader more restrainedly and more soberly “came in and knelt before him, saying [...].” e Markan narrator furnishes more extensive information on the woman’s medical history (twenty-seven words to Matthew’s three), as well as on her initiatives in seeking to be freed of her malady (“she had [...] spent all that she had”; “she had heard about Jesus”). e omniscient narrator’s disclosure of the instantaneous effect of the woman touching Jesus (“her hemorrhage stopped; and she felt in her body that she was healed of her disease” [5:29b]) and the simultaneous sensation in Jesus (“immediately aware that power had gone forth from him” [5:30]) are absent in Matthew. In Mark the woman finally comes forward “in fear and trembling,” of which there is no mention in Matthew. Following the news brought by people from Jairus’ house that the girl had died, Jesus dismisses the crowd and all but three of the disciples who had followed from the outset, thus inexplicably depriving them of witnessing the outcome. Once arrived at the house, the Markan Jesus puts the mourners outside, while Matthew leaves the author of this action unspecified through the use of a passive voice construction, “But when the crowd had been put outside [...]” (9:25).46 In Mark, the little girl not only gets up, as in Matthew, but also begins to walk about. e Markan characters also engage in more dialogue than their Matthew counterparts.47 Five of the Markan characters are portrayed as la suite de l’histoire de la fille de Jaïre, mais bien dans celle de la femme au flux de sang qui vient en interrompre le déroulement.” See also P, Das Markusevangelium (n. 32), p. 299 and 296. 46. M, Mark 1–8 (n. 1), p. 370: “e two men [Jesus and Jairus] proceed to the house where the dead girl is lying. As they proceed, there is a progressive narrowing of the group around them [...].” Marcus omits to mention that is it Jesus who dismisses the crowd and the other disciples: “And he allowed no one to follow him except Peter and James and John the brother of James” (5:37); p. 372: “e reduction of the audience by the ejection of the mourners increases the sense of mystery and drama in the story [ ...].” Here again, it is Jesus who puts the mourners outside. 47. F, L’évangile selon Marc (n. 45), p. 213: “L’importance des actes de langage est grande dans cette péricope qui comporte deux récits de guérison imbriqués. On y passe successivement du monologue du père (v. 23) ou du soliloque en secret de la femme

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speaking compared to only three in Matthew, with nine instances of dialogue in the former (for a total of seventy-five words in the Greek text) compared to four instances in the latter (for a total of thirty-six words). Lacking in Matthew is Jesus’ query about who touched his clothes and the bewildered and exasperated response from his disciples. Also missing in Matthew is the news announced to Jairus that his daughter has died and Jesus’ response, “Do not fear, only believe” (5:36). Finally, Jesus’ words to the little girl, in transliterated Aramaic and in its Greek translation, are not recorded in Matthew.48 e more extensive use of dialogue in Mark contributes to greater suspense for two reasons. First, when the narrator steps aside to let a character speak, neither the other characters in the story, nor the reader and the narrator eavesdropping on the scene, benefit from a privileged position: all learn the information at the same time.49 Second, allowing characters to speak grants them more individuality and autonomy, as Meir Sternberg explains: “[...] the defining trait of quotation (as mimesis of discourse) consists in the fact that its represented object is itself a subject with expressive features: verbal, moral, sociocultural, thematic, aesthetic, informational, persuasive.”50 No one could have guessed what Jairus would say until he speaks. So also with Jesus’ query and the disciples’ response. No one could have predicted that people from Jairus’ house would bear distressing news. Surely Jesus’ (v.  28) au dialogue (v.  30-34 et 36), puis au conflit d’interprétations avec les pleureurs (v. 39-40) et enfin à la parole efficace mais qui doit rester secrète (v. 41,43).” Most of this is absent in Matthew. 48. M, Mark 1–8 (n. 1), p. 372: “[...] Jesus speaks to her as though she were alive – and lo and behold, she is alive!” [emphasis in original]. P , Das Markusevangelium (n. 32), p. 309: “Das Wort wirkt wie ein Heilbefehl den Tote nicht, Schlafende wohl hören können.” 49. M, “e Force of Reportive Narratives” (n.  6), p.  246: “Moreover, reported speech implies the omnipresence of the narrator (who is present at the place of narration and was present when the narrated events allegedly took place), and excludes the possibility of the narrator’s omniscience (possession of knowledge of the characters’ thoughts and feelings).” For a discussion of the capacity of this narrative technique to create in the reader a sense of being present on the scene, see my “e Illusion of Immediacy: A Narrative-Critical Exploration of the Bible’s Predilection for Direct Discourse,” in Theoforum 39 (2000) 131-151 (reproduced in chapter 1 of this volume). 50. Meir S, “Proteus in Quotation-Land: Mimesis and the Forms of Reported Discourse,” in Poetics Today 3 (1982) 107-156, p.  108-109. Wallace M, Recent Theories of Narrative, Ithaca, NY – London, UK, Cornell University Press, 1986, p. 51: “Traditional theorists assume that the narrators use words to represent or convey a picture of ‘reality’ (factual or fictional) to an audience. But when a character speaks, the words are not a substitute for, or representation of, something else. e language of the character is the character, just as the words you and I speak are ourselves, in the eyes of others. e separation of form, subject, and content disappears when we recognize that all three are present – not ‘represented’ – when we, and characters in a novel, speak to someone” [emphasis in original].

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words about the little girl being asleep and not dead come as a total surprise to the characters in the story as well as to the reader and the narrator.51 Together these narrative strategies and techniques conspire to lend to the Markan characters a greater degree of individuality, autonomy, and subjectivity than to the Matthean characters.52 e greater the individuality, autonomy, and subjectivity given to the characters, the greater the unpredictability of their interventions; the greater the unpredictability, the less control Jesus or other characters have over one another; the less the control, the greater the suspense.53 Mark’s more narratively complex characterization, therefore, constitutes a key element in the play of the timely disclosure of information, of who knows what, when, and how.54

51. David MC, “Character in the Boundary: Bakhtin’s Interdividuality in Biblical Narratives,” in Semeia 63 (1993) 29-42, p.  32, comments on the experience of biblical characters: “ese characters are on a threshold, indeed we might say on the threshold, for in these cases they are encountering in some form the word of God. ey are at a potential turning point, and their responses are unpredictable and unknowable until the moment when they respond to the words addressed to them” [emphasis in original]. While this describes well the experience of characters addressed by Jesus, one could apply the same the adjectives “unpredictable” and “unknowable” to Jesus’ responses to the characters approaching him: neither Jairus nor the woman with the flow of blood could have presumed Jesus’ positive response. Indeed, the woman is portrayed as approaching Jesus “in fear and trembling,” an apprehensiveness probably due to the consequences she would face if the surrounding crowd had learned of her state of ritual uncleanness. See the discussion in M, Mark 1–8 (n. 1), p. 357-359. 52. M, “Characters in the Making” (n. 40), p. 66: “e woman is pictured as a character with personal feelings, sensations, relations and intentions.” 53. Ibid., p. 67: “[...] any rendering of personal experience tends to be challenging, at least in the long run. [...] Whenever the individual and his or her experience is given a voice of its own, it tends to challenge any outwardly defined identity that is based upon affinity with the dominant, unified ideology (that is, the ‘culture of affirmation’). is holds true especially for the experience of crisis (that is, a challenge to the dominant means of coping with whatever life brings on), especially crises experienced by those belonging to the subordinate class in the society. In its minimalist form, this challenge consists of the mere representation of individual experience as separate, independent, unintegrated, that is, as the voice of the Other” [emphasis in original]. 54. Ibid., p.  63: “Importantly, however, some figures who perform a similar role in their respective ‘healing type scenes’ receive a greater amount of narrative subjectivity than others. at is, the narrative allows them more power to speak, act and perceive” [emphasis in original]. Bakhtin, in his discussion of ancient Greek romances, presents an observation that can apply to biblical narratives as well: “No artistic genre can organize itself around suspense alone, for the very good reason that to be suspenseful there must be matters of substance to engage. And only a human life, or at least something directly touching it, is capable of evoking such suspense. is human factor must be revealed in some substantial aspect, however slight; that is, it must possess some degree of living reality” [emphasis in original], Mikhail M. B, The Dialogic Imagination: Four Essays, Michael H (ed.), trans. Caryl E – Michael H, Austin, University of Texas Press, 1981, p. 107.

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4. Conclusion e vividness and lifelikeness of Mark’s healing stories are due as much to suspense-creating narrative strategies and techniques as to stylistic cra. While the three strategies analyzed above were presented separately, in effect they together contrive to weave the warp and woof of suspense. By ranging the gamut from outside observer of place and action to eavesdropper on conversations to diviner of inner thoughts and feelings, the narrator discloses to the reader a kaleidoscopic multiplicity of viewpoints. Moreover, by relaying these varied viewpoints in disclosures subtly timed along the process of the narration, the narrator creates a sense of surprise that continually moves the plot forward in unexpected ways. e more extensive characterization enhances the sense of lived experience where matters are personal, stakes are high, and contingency prevails. As Merenlahti aptly puts it, in Mark “[...] the reading process [is] a drama with lines of development, which in itself conveys a particular (and, it would seem, rather modern) view of the human character as dynamic, full of surprises and capable of change.”55 All of these narrative techniques and strategies are, in the end, for the benefit of the reader, for whom the play of who knows what, when, and how creates tension: there is less a sense of foregone conclusion, and conversely a greater sense of suspense, in Mark’s narrative of these two healing stories than in Matthew’s. e Markan version leads the reader to experience, even if only vicariously through narrative characters, the reality that healings require personal initiative and emotional investment from both the one requesting and the one granting.56 In short, Mark offers the reader sense of what healing faith feels like. Narrative’s ability to manipulate time, and thus create suspense, leads to further musings regarding the Bible. Surely it is not indifferent that so much of the Scriptures are in the literary genre of narrative. As noted above, from the point of view of the implied author the story is already determined while from the point of view of the characters in the story the future is unknown, with the narrator ferrying the reader between the two. At first glance, this same play of two contrasting perspectives would appear to obtain in the Scriptures as well. e prophets and the New Testament letters in particular variously speak of God’s plan, which can 55. M, “Characters in the Making” (n. 40), p. 53. 56. In a similar vein, D’A, “Gender and Power in the Gospel of Mark” (n. 24), p. 101, states that “the miracles in Mark, and in particular the miracle of the woman with the flow of blood, present the reader with a christology of shared spiritual power, one in which Jesus’ power is active through the participation of others.”

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easily be imagined as akin to the work of an implied author where everything is already arranged and determined. On the other hand, human beings would be akin to the characters in a story for whom the future remains opaque, filled with uncertainty and unpredictability. In this way, the Bible projects perspectives on time and the disclosure of information, inherent in the very structure of narrative, onto the relationship between human beings and God. Such an attempt to make sense of this relationship is, in the end, but a sleight-of-hand, for narrative’s capacity to control time and the disclosure of information founders on the shoals of the reality of everyday life. If indeed from one point of view the outcome of the story of salvation is already known and determined, it is paradoxically being worked out in and through the contingencies of human timeand-space boundedness where uncertainty and unpredictability – and consequently suspense – are the stuff of our daily bread.57 Try as we might to plumb the mystery of this relationship through the heuristic power of narrative and the imaginary world it creates, its meaning ultimately escapes us. Even Jesus, who appears in our Gospel stories as the master story teller, submitted to this puzzling reality of human being-inthe-world. Narrative, a human face of faith seeking understanding, incarnates rather than resolves the mystery.

57. S, The Poetics of Biblical Narrative (n. 4), p. 161.

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MISE EN INTRIGUE ET SUSPENSE DANS MARC 5,120 Dans son commentaire, J. Marcus décrit le style de l’évangile de Mc comme ayant «une vigueur rudimentaire de bonne littérature ou langage oral populaire, admirablement adapté au portrait d’un Jésus dynamique, abrasif, intensément émotionnel qui est l’instrument passionné de la venue de la souveraineté de Dieu»1. Cette qualité de style chez Mc relève non seulement de son vocabulaire et de sa syntaxe, mais aussi de la construction et de l’agencement de la mise en intrigue. Dans ce qui suit nous proposons une exploration de trois stratégies narratives de mise en intrigue dans le micro-récit Mc 5,1-20 afin d’illustrer comment l’auteur suscite le suspense. 1. Le suspense Le suspense est très étroitement lié au temps, plus précisément à l’opacité du temps dans l’expérience humaine2. Le suspense nous jette en avant dans l’opacité du futur. [...] Il travaille à partir d’une direction temporelle qui est opaque (ouverte, incomplète, indéterminée) par nature: le futur qui obscurcit la résolution des conflits, le changement qui affecte les personnages, les dilemmes personnels, les enchevêtrements interpersonnels, le va-et-vient des idéologies, ou n’importe quel développement survenant dans l’arène du monde3. 1. Joel M, Mark 1-8 (AB, 27), New York, NY, Doubleday, 2000, p. 61: «a roughand-ready forcefulness of good popular writing or speech and is admirably suited to the Markan portrait of a dynamic, abrasive, intensely emotional Jesus who is the passionate instrument for the advent of the dominion of God» (notre traduction). 2. Le suspense, avec la curiosité et la surprise, est un des trois principales charactéristiques du récit selon Meir S, «Telling in Time (II): Chronology, Teleology, Narrativity», in Poetics Today 13 (1992) 463-541, p.  472, propos repris par Raphaël B dans sa monographie La tension narrative: suspense, curiosité et surprise, Paris, Seuil, 2007, p. 42-43, passim. Voir aussi William F. B, «e Nature of Narrative Suspense and the Problem of Rereading», in Peter V – Hans Jurgen W – Mike F (eds.), Suspense: Conceptualizations, Theoretical Analyses, and Empirical Exploration, Mahwah, NJ, Routledge, 1996, 107-127, p. 110. 3. S, «Telling in Time (II)» (n. 2), p. 536-537, cité et traduit par B, La tension narrative (n. 2), p. 269-270. Voir aussi Meir S, The Poetics of Biblical Narrative: Ideological Literature and the Drama of Reading, Bloomington, IN, Indiana University Press, 1987 [1985]), p. 264: «In art as in life, suspense derives from incomplete knowledge about a conflict (or some other contingency) looming in the

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On peut le désigner d’effet cognitif-affectif, car c’est le manque d’information ou de connaissance dans le temps qui suscite une émotion chez le lecteur (ainsi que, mais pas forcément, chez les personnages de l’histoire)4. En tant qu’effet cognitif-affectif, le suspense doit être rangé du côté de l’esthétique plutôt que du côté de la poétique, c’est-à-dire au pôle récepteur plutôt qu’au pôle émetteur de la communication narrative5. Il reste néanmoins qu’un effet cognitif-affectif suscité chez le lecteur est provoqué par le récit, par le texte qui est une production, une poiesis de l’auteur. Si dans une analyse comme nous proposons il s’agit d’identifier les stratégies et les techniques du récit qui sont susceptibles d’évoquer le suspense et comment elles fonctionnent, il faut tenir compte

future. Located at some point in the present, we know enough to expect a struggle but not to predict its course, and above all its outcome, with certitude. Hence a discontinuity that extends from the moment of prospection on the unkown to the moment of enactment and release. Hence also the state of mind that characterizes the intermediate phase: expectant restlessness, awareness of gaps, gap-filling inference along alternative lines, with the attention thrown forward to the point in time that will resolve it all and establish closure by supplying the desired information»; Heta Pyrhönen, «Suspense and Surprise», in David H – Manfred J – Marie-Laure R (eds.), Routledge Encyclopedia of Narrative Theory, London – New York, Routledge, 2005, 578-580. Le Robert: Dictionnaire historique de la langue française nous informe que le mot suspense «[...] est repris (1903) à l’anglais suspense, lui-même emprunté (e s.) au français suspens ou à suspense, “intervalle, délai”: le mot anglais désigne très tôt un état d’incertitude, d’attente angoissée (1440) et un élément dramatique susceptible de provoquer cet état. Le mot, attesté isolément au début du e s., s’est répandu en français à partir des années 1950, à propos d’un passage de film, puis de récit, de nature à faire naître un sentiment d’attente angoissée et, par extension, du genre ainsi créé. Par extension (1956), suspense désigne couramment une situation dont on attend la suite avec impatience et angoisse». 4. B, La tension narrative (n. 2), p. 25: «Jean-Marie Schaeffer souligne la nature indissociable de l’affect et de la cognition: “Ce terme [cognitif] est souvent lié à l’opposition cognitif / affectif. Or, quand je dis ‘fonction cognitive’, c’est une cognition qui est saturée affectivement. Il me semble qu’il n’y a que cette cognition-là qui soit effective dans la vie réelle. Seules les croyances qui sont saturées affectivement guident nos actions». Voir aussi Paul R, Temps et récit I. 1. L’intrigue et le récit historique, Paris, Seuil, 1983, p. 81: «Le plaisir d’apprendre est en effet la première composante du plaisir du texte»; p. 81: «Le plaisir de la reconnaissance est donc à la fois contruit dans l’œuvre et éprouvé par le spectateur»; Meir S, Expositional Modes and Temporal Ordering in Fiction, Bloomington, IN, Indiana University Press, 1978, p. 65: «Both suspense and curiosity are emotions or states of mind characterized by expectant restlessness and tentative hypotheses that derive from a lack of information: both thus draw the reader’s attention forward in the hope that the information that will resolve or allay them lies ahead». 5. B, La tension narrative (n.  2), p.  20. Le suspense, comme la curiosité et la surprise, font partie de la «dimension communicationelle des émotions, ces dernières étant abordées comme un effet ou, plus précisément, comme une fonction thymique du discours narratif, plutôt qu’elles ne se rattachent à une manifestation textuelle des états affectifs du sujet énonciateur».

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non seulement de l’esthétique mais aussi de la poétique d’une communication narrative: qu’est-ce qui crée (la poétique) l’effet (l’esthétique)6? La dynamique principale et distinctive de tout discours narratif qui suscite l’effet cognitif-affectif du suspense chez le lecteur provoqué par la mise en intrigue d’un récit, réside dans le jeu entre le temps représentant (le discours, discourse) et le temps représenté (l’histoire, story)7. Dans le monde de l’histoire (story), le temps représenté est toujours chronologique: les événements se déroulent dans le sens usuel vécu par tous les humains, c’est-à-dire du passé, par le présent, vers le futur. Par contre, la présentation du temps dans le discours, le niveau «temps représentant», est totalement manipulable: l’ordre, la durée, la vitesse, etc., des événements peuvent être configurés selon tout un échantillon de stratégies et de techniques narratologiques – ainsi que par des combinaisons de ces stratégies et techniques – pour créer des délais, des «blancs» (gaps), des renversements, des inattendus, – bref, ce que Baroni désigne par la tension narrative (ou, selon Sternberg «the force of a narrative»)8. Le suspense est donc une dynamique 6. Paul R, Temps et récit III. Le temps raconté, Paris, Seuil, 1985, p. 231: «C’est en effet de l’auteur que part la stratégie de persuasion qui a le lecteur pour cible. C’est à cette stratégie de persuasion que le lecteur répond en accompagnant la configuration et en s’appropriant la proposition de monde du text»; p. 232: «[...] ces techniques sont repérables dans l’œuvre même»; p. 243: «La composante nouvelle dont la poétique s’enrichit relève alors d’une “esthétique” plutôt que d’une “rhétorique”, si l’on veut bien restituer au terme d’esthétique l’amplitude de sens que lui confère l’aisthèsis grecque, et lui donner pour thème l’exploration des manières multiples dont une œuvre, en agissant sur un lecteur, l’affecte. Cet être affecté a ceci de remarquable qu’il combine, dans une expérience d’un type particulier, une passivité et une activité, qui permettent de désigner comme réception du texte l’action même de le lire» [c’est Ricœur qui souligne]. 7. S, «Telling in Time (II)» (n. 2), p. 519: «[...] it is the interplay of the represented and the presented times, whether in ‘iconic’ concordance or ‘arbitrary’ tension, that sets narrative apart as a discourse with a double time-pattern»; p. 529: «I define narrativity as the play of suspense/curiosity/surprise between represented and communicative time (in whatever combination, whatever medium, whatever manifest or latent form)». Voir à ce propos l’importante recension de La tension narrative de B par Emma K in Poetics Today 29 (2008) 377-384, où elle explique que l’auteur a mal compris Sternberg: «Sternberg discerns, first of all, that these three patterns are, logically, the only possible temporal relations between discourse and story and that, as a corollary, suspense, curiosity, and surprise are the only purely narrative emotional effects. Individual narratives can evoke other emotions, but they do so through strategies that are also available to modes of communication that do not share narrative’s paired sequences» [c’est Kafalenos qui souligne]. 8. Selon S, Expositional Modes (n.  4), p.  10-14, l’intrigue est une abstraction. Baroni, La tension narrative (n. 2), p. 20, pour sa part insiste que l’«intrigue [... a] toujours été interprétée, depuis Aristote jusqu’à Ricœur, comme une propriété du discours et non pas comme une propriété de l’action» [c’est Baroni qui souligne]. En effet, R, Temps et récit I (n. 4), p. 66, va dans le même sens: «Or, si la succession peut ainsi être subordonnée à quelque connexion logique, c’est parce que les idées de commencement, de milieu et de fin ne sont pas prises de l’expérience: ce ne sont pas des traits de l’action effective, mais des effets de l’ordonnance du poème». Mais il faut distinguer,

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prospective, orientée vers le futur, plus précisément le futur qui part du moment présent, là où se trouve le lecteur dans le déroulement du texte. Il y a un délai, un retard, dans le dévoilement de l’information concernant le futur, un manque de renseignement qui suscite l’attente, une certaine angoisse chez le lecteur – qu’est-ce qui va arriver? Le suspense est manifesté dans le texte par différentes manipulations de la mise en intrigue, suivant une dynamique qui est principalement chronologique: l’ordre de la présentation des événements tout au long du discours se déroule grosso modo en parallèle avec les événements de l’histoire9. 2. Le schéma narratologique: niveaux et agents Puisqu’il s’agit du jeu entre le temps représenté et le temps représentant dans une perspective communicationelle, il nous faut un instrument pour identifier, pour dénicher les stratégies et les techniques narratives employées par l’auteur implicite en vue de susciter chez le lecteur l’effet cognitif-affectif du suspense, un instrument qui tiendra compte des différents niveaux et agents narratifs. Le schéma, maintenant devenu assez classique, que nous présentons ci-dessous, remplira cette fonction. La distribution des divers agents narratifs selon leur niveau narratif approprié peut être schématisé comme suit, les parenthèses carrées indiquant les agents encodés dans le texte10: Auteur réel - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - texte - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -lecteur réel [auteur implicite- - - - - - - - niveau: discours - - - - - - - lecteur implicite] [narrateur - - - - - - - - - -niveau: narration - - - - - - - - - narrataire] [personnages - - niveau: histoire recontée - - - personnages] comme le fait Sternberg entre l’intrigue et la mise en intrigue, la première relevant de l’histoire, la seconde du discours: la mise en intrigue est manipulable dans le discours, et c’est à travers l’actualisation du discours que le lecteur peut reconstituer l’intrigue. 9. B, La tension narrative (n. 2), p. 259. Les effets de cette stratégie narrative sont, selon S, «to promote empathy and insight in the way best calculated to drive home a point of the greatest thematic importance: the continuity between the human condition inside and outside the world of the text», The Poetics of Biblical Narrative (n. 3), p. 266. 10. Adapté de Shlomith R-K, Narrative Fiction: Contemporary Poetics, London, Routledge, 1983, p. 86; Mark Allan P, What Is Narrative Criticism? (GBS), Minneapolis, MN, 1990, p. 27; Patrick O’N, Fictions of Discourse: Reading Narrative Theory, Toronto, University of Toronto Press, 1994, p. 114. Intégrant les niveaux narratifs et le agents narratifs, O’N propose la formule suivante: «Story is to text is to narration as what is to how is to who» (p. 23). Voir aussi Monika F, The Fictions of Language and the Languages of Fiction: The Linguistic Representation of Speech and Consciousness, London, UK – New York, NY, Routledge, 1993, p.  441-442; Seymour C, «What Can We Learn from Contextualist Narratology?», in Poetics Today 11 (1990) 309-328.

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Le schéma propose trois niveaux: temps représentant (niveau discours), temps représenté (niveau histoire), temps actualisé (niveau narration). L’auteur implicite (niveau discours ou temps représentant) connaît tout. C’est l’instance narrative qui a choisi les données et les informations pertinentes de l’histoire racontée, ainsi que les stratégies et les techniques narratives pour sa narration (intrigue, événements, actions, personnages, focalisations, settings, type de narrateur, etc.). Le lecteur implicite est aussi déjà structuré dans le texte comme le destinataire visé par l’auteur implicite du récit. Le narrateur, situé au niveau de la narration, est l’instance créée par l’auteur implicite, la voix qui “raconte”, qui actualise dans le temps, par le débit successif des mots, des phrases, des scènes, la communication du texte du récit, communication adressée au narrataire. Les personnages, eux, vivent dans le monde du récit, un monde reconstitué et recréé par le lecteur à travers le texte actualisé par la voix du narrateur11. Donc, il y a le temps de l’histoire avec son passé, présent et futur; il y a le temps configuré dans le discours par les stratégies et les techniques narratologiques ; enfin il y a le temps de l’actualisation du texte par le lecteur avec son propre passé, présent et futur12. En ce qui concerne l’identification des stratégies et des techniques de la mise en intrigue qui provoquent l’effet de suspense, il faut cibler surtout, au pôle émetteur de la communication (à gauche du schéma), le narrateur au niveau de la narration, les personnages au niveau de l’histoire, et, au pôle récepteur de la communication (à la droite du schéma), le lecteur13. Le suspense est un effet qui dépend du contrôle de l’information

11. Selon les conventions du type de discours que nous appelons récit (en anglais, narrative), il n’y a aucune communication entre le niveau de la narration et le niveau de l’histoire, comme l’explique O’N, The Fictions of Discourse (n.  10), p.  41, «[...] the world inhabited by actors is one that in principle they cannot escape, for like Lear’s flies to wanton boys, they have absolutely no recourse against the essentially arbitrary narrative decisions on the discourse – the narrative abode of those discursive gods that kill them for their sport». 12. S, Expositional Modes (n. 4), p. 34: Les stratégies et interrelations narratives «derive from an acute consciousness on the part of writers that literature is a time-art, in which the continuum of the text is apprehended by the reader in a continuum of time and in which elements are necessarily communicated and patterns unfolded not simultaneously but successively, and from their realization that these conditions may be exploited and manipulated in order to produce various effects on the reader»; R, Temps et récit III (n. 6), p. 246: «Tout au long du processus de lecture se poursuit un jeu d’échanges entre les attentes modifiées et les souvenirs transformés; en outre, le concept [d’Iser de point de vue voyageur] incorpore à la phénoménologie de la lecture le processus synthétique qui fait que le texte se constitue de phrase en phrase, par ce qu’on pourrait appeler un jeu de rétentions et de protentions phrastiques». 13. Pour notre propos, il suffira d’utiliser le concept de lecteur sans avoir à distinguer les différents agents du pôle récepteur dans leurs niveaux respectifs.

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– sa divulgation ou sa rétention – par le narrateur et/ou les personnages, et sa réception par le lecteur: qui sait quoi, quand, et comment14? 3. Trois stratégies narratives suscitant le suspense dans Mc 5,1-20 Trois stratégies surtout retiendront notre attention. La première concerne le délai de la communication de données de mise en scène («expositional material»). Selon M. Sternberg, tout ce qui précède l’incident déclencheur de l’action, même si cette information est introduite après ce moment incitatif, fait partie de la mise en scène15. Ce choix stratégique crée une certaine déstabilisation chez le lecteur qui doit ajouter des aspects importants à la scène jusqu’alors imaginée dans le déroulement du texte. En plus de cet effort rétrospectif, le lecteur s’engage dans une réflexion prospective: pourquoi et comment cette nouvelle information influencera-t-elle la suite du récit? Si cette première stratégie porte sur le quand de la communication d’information, la deuxième stratégie, qui souvent recoupe la première, concerne à qui l’information est divulguée. Ceci peut créer un écart dans le qui sait quoi parmi les divers 14. Voir Arthur C. G et al., «Who Knows What? Propagation of Knowledge among Agents in a Literary Storyworld», in Poetics 26 (1999) 143-175; S, Expositional Modes (n.  4), p.  260: «[...] the act of narrative communication presupposes a complex of four basic components or participants, namely, the author who creates the story, the narrator who tells it, the audience or reader who receives it, and the fictive agents who enact it. As regards information privilege, therefore, point of view involves a set of no less than six closely connected relationships, some of which may occasionally overlap, as when the narrator is practically identical with the author or when he is himself one of the agents. Of these six fundamental relationships, that between the author and the characters alone always remains constant in its informational inequality; while the five others – between author and narrator, author and reader, narrator and reader, narrator and characters, and reader and characters – are flexibly variable». 15. Selon S, Expositional Modes (n.  4), p.  21: «e expositional material, always antedating the first scene, may correspondingly precede it in point of its actual position in the sujet. In this case, the large disparity between the time-ratio of the expositional part and that of the opening scene […] lays bare the preparatory nature of whatever precedes the temporal signpost. e communication of the expositional material, however, may also be delayed, so that it will succeed the first discriminated occasion in its actual ordering. In this case, the expositional information will retrospectively throw light on it, that is, enrich, modify or even drastically change the reader’s understanding of it; for, within the sharply circumscribed, enclosed world of the literary text, almost every motif or occurrence antedating another tends to illuminate it in some way, no matter what their order of presentation in the sujet. e point marking the end of the exposition in the fabula thus coincides with that point in time which marks the beginning of the fictive present in the sujet – the beginning of the first time-section that the work considers important enough to be worthy of such full treatment as will involve, according to the contextual scenic norm, a close approximation or correspondence between its representational time and the clock-marked time we employ in everyday life». Voir aussi p. 13 et 25.

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agents narratifs. La troisième stratégie relève de par qui l’information est divulguée, soit par le narrateur soit par les personnages. Ces trois stratégies parsemées dans Mc 5,1-20 contribuent, chacune à sa façon, à susciter chez le lecteur un effet de suspense, car c’est par ce biais que le texte crée une tension en communiquant l’inconnu, l’imprévu, l’inattendue. 3.1. Délais dans la divulgation d’informations de mise en scène Le délai stratégique de communiquer des informations essentielles appartenant à la mise en scène varie en emplacement et en ampleur. Par exemple, à l’échelle d’une phrase seulement, au v. 2 (et étant sorti de la barque, aussitôt vint à sa rencontre venant des tombeaux un homme avec un esprit impur16) le narrateur ajoute une donnée importante qui aurait pu être relatée plus tôt. Avant même la mention du mot «homme», sujet du verbe «rencontrer», le texte précise ἐκ τῶν μνημείων. Donc, dans la région des Générasiens, près du lieu où Jésus vient tout juste de mettre pied, il y a des tombeaux. Ce détail exige du lecteur qu’il reprenne son esquisse imaginaire du lieu en y insérant maintenant des tombeaux. De plus, cette mention évoque la mort, l’impureté rituelle, contraire de la vie en société17. Information imprévue et insolite qui regarde à la fois vers le passé du récit et vers son déroulement futur, elle pose question chez le lecteur et suscite donc le suspense18. Plus amplement, les versets 3 à 5 s’attardent longuement sur des réalités qui existaient avant l’incident incitatif de l’arrivée de Jésus. Ces versets constituent une analepse décrivant la situation désolante de l’homme possédé. Puisqu’il s’agit d’une description élaborée de ses comportements dans le passé visant à expliquer l’état présent de l’homme, il s’agit ici de données expositionnelles: le lecteur, toujours guidé par le narrateur, quitte le présent de l’histoire dont le déroulement est maintenant en arrêt pour remonter le temps afin de mieux connaître la réalité tourmentée de l’homme. La première phrase lequel son habitation il avait dans les tombeaux explique pourquoi au verset précédent l’homme est sorti des tombeaux. Dans la suite du verset 3, dans une syntaxe elle-même assez

16. La traduction assez littérale vise à conserver l’ordre des mots et des phrases du grec. 17. Simon L, L’évangile de Marc. Tome I (LDC 5), Paris, Cerf, 1997, p.  320, opine que «cette dernière précision apparaît trop tôt dans le récit, parce qu’on ne sait pas encore ce qu’on apprendra plus loin». Au contraire, comme stratégie narrative, le placement de la phrase au v.  2 fait que le lecteur se questionne sur son sens et cherche une explication dans la suite du récit. Voir S, Expositional Modes (n. 4), p. 161-162. 18. Il y a toujours une ou des raisons d’introduire des données d’exposition, surtout comme le fait souvent Marc dans ce passage, par petites bribes tout au long du récit.

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tourmentée, et même pas avec une chaîne non plus personne était capable de lier lui, la description du narrateur implique des gens de la région qui ont tenté de façon répétée – c’est le sens du verbe à l’imparfait – mais sans réussir, à le dompter. Pourquoi tenter de le lier si souvent mais toujours sans succès? Le verset 4 explique leurs échecs répétés: à cause du fait que souvent lui par des entraves et par des chaînes avoir été lié, et avoir été mises en pièces par lui les chaînes et les entraves avoir été brisées, et personne n’avait la force de le maîtriser19. Encore ici des gens de la région sont impliqués indirectement par les verbes au passif. Même si l’homme vit dans les tombeaux, ses concitoyens ont fait des efforts répétés pour le lier. Mais pourquoi le lier? Le verset 5 en donne la raison: Du fait que toute la nuit et tout le jour dans les tombeaux et dans les montagnes il était criant et se blessant avec des pierres20. Non seulement l’homme possédé habite-t-il dans les tombeaux, il erre aussi à travers la région dans les montagnes avec une violence à la fois vocale (il crie nuit et jour) et corporelle (il se blesse avec des pierres). Il est donc bien connu des gens du pays. Ils avaient toutes les raisons d’essayer de le subjuguer – instaurer un peu de paix dans la région, et protéger l’homme contre son auto-torture21. La possession terrorise non seulement l’homme, mais à travers l’homme, même les tombeaux et les montagnes sont atteints22. Pourquoi l’analepse? Cette information sur l’homme possédé aurait pu être relatée au tout début de l’épisode avant même l’arrivée de Jésus. L’analepse crée un délai dans le déroulement de l’action, frustrant ainsi temporairement le désir du lecteur de savoir ce qui va se passer. Le même phénomène apparaît à plusieurs reprises dans la suite du récit. Au v. 11 le narrateur révèle qu’il y avait là près de la montagne un grand troupeau de porcs paissant. Comme dans les instances précédentes, cette donnée, puisqu’elle existait avant l’arrivée de Jésus, constitue un élément 19. Il est assez curieux de voir autant de verbes à la voix passive: avoir été lié, avoir été mises en pièces, avoir été brisées. L’homme subit l’action de se faire ligoter et lier, mais il est tellement fort que les entraves et les chaînes elles-mêmes subissent l’action de se faire briser. Voir à ce propos M, Mark 1-8 (n. 1), p. 343: «e use of the passive voice here is odd and striking; the thought could have been expressed more smoothly by the active, ‘he had shattered the chains and smashed the fetters’. Mark perhaps chooses the passive because the man is not in control of his life but the victim of external forces. We might almost speak of ‘demonic passives’ here, the mirror image of the divine passives employed elsewhere in the Gospel». 20. Vincent T, The Gospel According to Mark: The Greek Text with Introduction, Notes, and Indexes, 2nd edition, London, Macmillan, 1966, p. 279. 21. Augustine S, The Method and Message of Mark, Wilmington, DE, Glazier, 1989, p. 166; M, Mark 1-8, p. 350. 22. On note aussi que le temps passé représenté dans l’analepse est beaucoup plus long que le temps de l’action présente de la rencontre de l’homme avec Jésus.

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de la mise en scène qui aurait pu être relatée au tout début de l’épisode. Et comme auparavant le lecteur se trouve contraint à re-préciser son tableau imaginaire du lieu. En rétrospection, la présence des porcs renchérie sur le taux d’impuretés du lieu. En prospection, information inattendue et insolite, elle pose question et donc suscite le suspense. Encore un peu plus loin, d’une façon aussi abrupte qu’au v. 11, le narrateur informe le lecteur qu’il y avait des gardiens de porcs23. Dans les deux cas, les nouveaux éléments apparaissent dans le texte sans indices préalables. Mais une fois ces informations révélées, le lecteur doit rebrousser chemin jusqu’au début de l’épisode pour ré-imaginer le lieu où se déroule l’événement. Par contre, il est tout à fait possible, sinon probable, que Jésus et ses disciples savaient déjà qu’il y avait, dans la montagne pas loin, des porcs et leurs gardiens24. Chaque ajout d’information supplémentaire à la mise en scène illumine en rétrospection et relance en prospection l’enchaînement des événements dans une direction imprévisible, déstabilisant donc le lecteur, suscitant ainsi du suspense. 3.2. Écart d’information chez les agents narratifs Étroitement lié à la révélation stratégique des données de mise en scène tout au long du récit se trouve l’écart d’information entre le lecteur et le ou les personnages de l’histoire. Par exemple, pour reprendre les mêmes instances discutées dans la section précédente, il faut croire que les personnages en scène – Jésus, ses disciples, l’homme possédé, les gardiens de porcs – savaient tous qu’il y avait des tombeaux et un troupeau de porcs dans la région. Par contre, ces données sont inconnues du lecteur au point de départ, mais révélées par le narrateur au fur et à mesure qu’elles lui servent à faire avancer l’intrigue du récit. Dans ce sens, c’est seulement au v.  14 que le lecteur apprend que les gardiens de porcs avaient témoigné de tout ce qui s’était passé entre Jésus et l’homme possédé, y compris la perte de leur troupeau: «Ceux qui les gardaient prirent fuite et rapportèrent la chose dans la ville et dans le hameaux». Le lecteur constate qu’il n’était pas le seul témoin, et par conséquent pas le seul à 23. Voir Camille F, L’évangile selon Marc (CbNT, 2), Paris, Cerf, 2004, p. 199: «[...] leurs gardiens [qui ont] surgis tout à coup de nulle part». 24. S, «Telling in Time (II)» (n. 2), p. 510: «One may get the impression that for surprise to erupt and overtake the reader in the plot as actually communicated, it must be enacted in the world itself by way of an abrupt change of fortune (peripety) and/ or awareness (discovery) that befalls the dramatis personae themselves. But why need the discourse run parallel to the action, the art gear itself to the (or a) life? e condition is gratuitous, for we may equally experience surprise about what the characters have long known, expected, or undergone (just as their peripety/discovery may be our irony)[ ... ]».

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s’étonner devant l’exorcisme spectaculaire. Maintenant que la nouvelle s’est répandue, quel sera son impact? Ces écarts de connaissances, surtout la constatation que d’autres en savent plus que lui, déstabilisent le lecteur: pourquoi ces divulgations à ce moment-ci du texte, et où cela va-t-il mener? Par contre, Jésus en sait moins que le lecteur, et probablement moins que les gardiens de porcs et les villageois aussi, car la condition désemparée de l’homme possédé et les efforts de ses concitoyens révélés par le narrateur dans les v. 3 à 5, lui sont inconnus. Cet écart d’information sert à rehausser les enjeux qu’affronte Jésus: pourra-t-il réussir là où d’autres ont échoué? Il serait assez vraisemblable qu’on ait informé Jésus de l’histoire mouvementée de l’homme possédé et des efforts pour le dompter lors de l’arrivée des gens d’alentour venus pour voir les effets de l’exorcisme (v.  15-16), mais le texte ne le précise pas. Quoi qu’il en soit, les différences de qui sait quoi, quand, et comment exploitées par le texte déstabilisent le lecteur, produisant et soutenant une tension qui ne se délattera qu’à la fin de l’épisode. 3.3. L’imprévisibilité du contenu dans le parler des personnages La troisième stratégie de la mise en intrigue relève de la gestion des personnages, en particulier là où le narrateur leur donne la parole. Sans reprendre les analyses plus complètes que nous avons déjà présentées ailleurs, suffit ici de résumer deux observations, l’une de D. McCracken et l’autre de W. Martin. Selon le premier, les personnages bibliques, surtout quand ils rencontrent la parole de Dieu, se trouvent dans un moment décisif qui les incite à répondre d’une façon imprévisible et surprenante25. Martin pour sa part fait valoir que «le langage d’un personnage est le personnage, tout comme les mots que les paroles que nous disons sont, aux yeux des autres, nous-mêmes»26. Par conséquent, le dialogue des

25. David MC, «Character in the Boundary: Bakhtin’s Interindividuality in Biblical Narratives», in Semeia 63 (1993) 29-42, p. 32; Normand B, «Suspense in Mark 5:21-43: A Narrative Study of Two Healing Stories», in Theoforum 36 (2005) 131154, p. 149-153 (voir chapitre 4 dans ce volume). 26. Wallace M, Recent Theories of Narrative, Ithaca, NY – London, UK, Cornell University Press, 1986, p. 50: «e language of the character is the character, just as the words you and I speak are ourselves, in the eyes of others»; Normand B, «e Illusion of Immediacy: An Exploration of the Bible’s Predilection for Direct Discourse», in Theoforum 31 (2000) 131-151, p. 148 (voir chapitre 1 dans ce volume); José S – Gisela R, «Perspective and the Representation of Speech and ought in Narrative Discourse», in Gilles F – Eve S (eds.), Spaces, Worlds, and Grammar, Chicago, IL, University of Chicago Press, 1996, 290-317, p. 297.

       ,-

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personnages dans Mc 5,1-20, surtout les propos de l’esprit impur qui parle par la bouche de l’homme possédé, mérite qu’on s’y attarde. Il importe de souligner quelques aspects concernant le temps. Le discours direct cité dans un récit indique le temps présent pour les personnages de l’histoire. Si dans l’analepse des v. 3-5 la durée du temps passé est comprimée en quelques phrases seulement – le temps représenté est beaucoup plus long que le temps représentant – , le dialogue entre les personnages est censé se dérouler dans une temps équivalent – la durée du temps représenté est parallèle au temps représentant. De plus, le lecteur a l’impression d’être présent sur la scène afin de pouvoir «entendre» ce que disent les personnages. Cette présence du lecteur au moment présent des personnages lorsqu’ils parlent crée une proximité qui le contraint à «rencontrer» directement les personnages sans le filtre entreposé du narrateur27. Finalement, le narrateur, le lecteur, et les autres personnages de l’histoire apprennent tous en même temps les propos du personnage qui parle. Ce qui sera dit, donc, parce qu’imprévisible et inattendu, contribue à l’effet de suspense28. En effet, les paroles de l’esprit impur ne déçoivent pas quant à leur capacité d’étonner. Criant d’une voix forte, il accuse: τί ἐμοὶ καὶ σοι, cherchant, tout en s’approchant, à se distancier de Jésus. Il connaît non seulement le nom de Jésus mais qui il est: Ἰησοῦ υἱὲ τοῦ θεοῦ τοῦ ὑψίστου. Voici un esprit impur dans un milieu païen empruntant un langage de la diaspora juive29. Sans doute y a-t-il de l’ironie dans son plaidoyer ὁρκίζω σε τὸν θεόν, μή με βασανίσῃς: l’esprit impur qui ne cesse de tourmenter l’homme – les images de l’analepse, v. 3-5 sont toujours présentes à l’esprit du lecteur – prie Jésus de ne pas le tourmenter! De plus, l’esprit impur, dans un renversement inattendu, utilise la formule normalement attribuée à l’exorciste, invoquant le Dieu de Jésus contre Jésus. Ses paroles, qui expliquent ses comportements à la fois d’affrontement (accourir) et de

27. Corina C-G, «Quand la naissance du récit se raconte. Évangile de Marc (5,1-20)», in Emmanuelle S – Yvan Bourquin (eds.), Raconter, interpréter, annoncer. Parcours de Nouveau Testament. Mélanges offerts à Daniel Marguerat pour son 60ème anniversaire, Genève, Labor et Fides, 2003, 105-114, p. 110. 28. L’emploi du verbe dit au présent – un «présent historique» – souligne l’actualité de ce qui se passe, impliquant davantage le lecteur: le présent de la narration qui actualise le temps représentant recoupe le présent dans l’histoire du temps représenté. Voir à ce propos B, «e Illusion of Immediacy» (n. 26), p. 131-151; Jacques B, La narrativité, Louvain-la-Neuve, Duculot, 1994, p. 141. 29. Joachim G, Das Evangelium nach Markus (EKKNT, 2), Zürich, Benziger, 1978, p. 204.

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soumission (se prosterner), démontrent qu’il ne peut s’empêcher de se précipiter vers sa propre défaite. Jésus est plus fort que lui30. Le nom de l’esprit impur, par contre, est inconnu de Jésus et du lecteur. La réponse «Mon nom est Légion, car nous somme nombreux» explique l’impossibilité de ses concitoyens de dompter l’homme (v.  3-5) tout en faisant allusion à l’occupation romaine, forme d’occupation maléfique autant de la région que de l’homme. Ceci est confirmé dans le verset suivant où le narrateur reprend la parole pour informer le lecteur que l’esprit impur suppliait Jésus de ne pas les envoyer hors du pays. Toutes ces informations relevant du dialogue entre Jésus et l’esprit impur contribuent au suspense car, dans ce dialogue crié à haute voix et exprimant des propos inattendus, surtout de la part de l’esprit impur, l’enjeu pour Jésus dépasse le simple exorcisme d’un homme possédé, mais implique toute une région dominée par une légion d’esprits impurs. Que se passera-t-il? Après la mention par le narrateur de la présence du troupeau de porcs, les esprits impurs (maintenant au pluriel) reprennent la parole au v. 14 avec une supplication insolite adressée à Jésus. Mais au lieu de pouvoir se réfugier dans les porcs comme ils l’avaient imploré, voici que les porcs se précipitent dans la mer, libérant d’une manière imprévisible non seulement l’homme mais aussi le pays de l’occupation oppressante de «Légion»31. L’introduction abrupte des gardiens du troupeau dans le v. 14, discuté ci-haut, ajoute un nouvel élément à la mise en scène avec un regard rétrospectif d’une part et de questionnement prospectif d’autre part. Puisque Mc les fait apparaître sur scène, ils auront un rôle à jouer. L’épisode n’est pas terminé, il y a une suite. Dans les versets suivants, le narrateur se contente de rapporter lui-même les instances de prise de parole: les gardiens de porcs fuient à la ville et dans les hameaux et annoncent (ἀπήγγειλαν, v. 14) la chose; et encore plus loin, le narrateur explique de nouveau que ceux qui avaient vu racontèrent (διηγήσαντο) ce qui était arrivé au démoniaque et à propos des porcs (v. 16). Avec les villageois qui accourent vers Jésus, le lecteur aperçoit enfin l’homme libéré dans un état de calme qui peint un contraste de manière assez étonnante avec la violence de son passé et de l’exorcisme. La manifestation de la puissance de Jésus ne réussit pas à les convaincre car, au lieu de l’accueillir et de rendre grâce à Dieu, ils l’implorent – chose surprenante et inattendue – de s’éloigner de leur territoire. Si Jésus a réussi à exorciser l’homme possédé, 30. M, Mark 1–8 (n. 1), p. 350 parle de «fatal attraction»; G, Das Evangelium nach Markus (n. 29), p. 204: «wie von einem Magneten angezogen». 31. Robert G, Mark 1–8,26 (WBC, 34A), Dallas, TX, Word Books, 1989, p. 283.

       ,-

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il n’a pas pour autant réussi à libérer les Gérasénéens de leur crainte face à son incursion chez eux. La fin de l’épisode se déroule une dernière fois principalement autour de paroles soit rapportées par le narrateur ou prononcées directement par Jésus. Refusant à l’homme sa prière d’être avec lui, Jésus l’enjoint d’aller chez lui annoncer (ἀπάγγειλον) ce qui était arrivé, comme l’avaient fait les gardiens de porc au v.  14, mais avec la précision tout ce que le Seigneur a fait pour toi dans sa miséricorde32. Finalement Jésus s’éloigne (ἀπελθεῖν) selon les implorations des gens du pays, et l’homme aussi s’éloigne (ἀπῆλθεν) mais dans le sens inverse, vers l’étendue de la Décapole. Ainsi, après être accouru vers Jésus quand il était possédé, maintenant il s’éloigne de Jésus comme son interposé, annonçant (κηρύσσειν) la bonne nouvelle. Conclusion C’est dans le temps du déroulement du texte que se joue la tension entre le temps représentant du discours et le temps représenté de l’histoire, une tension productrice de l’effet de suspense chez le lecteur. Le délai de communication des informations de la mise en scène par leur insertion calculée dans l’agencement du discours sert à relancer l’intrigue. L’écart du qui sait quoi, quand et comment entre le lecteur et les personnages crée une tension qui elle aussi attise le suspense. Enfin, les propos imprévus et inattendus dans le parler des personnages produisent des surprises que le lecteur cherche à comprendre et à assimiler. Tout au long de l’épisode, l’auteur implicite, à travers le narrateur, déstabilise et perturbe le lecteur, le gardant sans relâche aux aguets jusqu’à la conclusion de l’épisode. La façon remarquablement mouvementée qu’a cette péricope d’entraîner le lecteur semble programmée non seulement pour miroiter et mais aussi pour lui faire ressentir la violente résistance des forces du mal lors de cette première incursion de la bonne nouvelle du règne de Dieu dans un milieu païen. Loin d’être un auteur maladroit, comme la tradition exégétique l’a souvent dépeint, Marc se révèle être un raconteur fort habile.

32. L, L’évangile de Marc (n. 17), p. 330-333.

C 6

NARRATIVE AND ITS THEOLOGICAL IMPORT IN I THESSALONIANS 1. Introduction Over the last several decades, rhetorical studies have identified narrative passages in Paul’s letters. e structure of ancient letters, whether judicial, epideictic, or deliberative (or a combination of these), oen includes an element of narratio.1 Of the seven letters widely accepted as authentically pauline, Galatians and I essalonians are particularly obvious cases in point.2 Moreover, the narratio sections in these letters have the added feature of being predominantly autobiographical where Paul relates strategically placed and carefully composed salient moments of his life and of his apostolic activity.3 Nonetheless, while these passages exhibit the key elements of narrative – story/discourse, plot, time, characterization, setting, point of view – there have been few if any attempts

1. “Cicero in Inv. 1.27 defines the narratio in this way: ‘e narrative is an exposition of events that have occurred or are supposed to have occurred,’” Karl Paul D, “e Epistolary and Rhetorical Context of 1 ess. 2:1-12,” in Paul, Thessalonica, and Early Christianity, Grand Rapids, MI, Eerdmans, 2002, chapter 8, 163-194, p. 173, note 36. 2. For Galatians, see for example Hans Dieter B, “e Literary Composition and Function of Paul’s Letter to the Galatians,” in NTS 21 (1975) 353-379; also, his Galatians: A Commentary on Paul’s Letter to the Churches in Galatia (Hermeneia), Philadelphia, PA, Fortress, 1979. See also Robert G. H, “e Rhetorical Outline for Galatians: A Reconsideration,” in JBL 106 (1987) 277-287; Joop S, “e Letter of Paul to the Galatians: A Deliberative Speech,” in NTS 35 (1989) 1-16; James D. H, “e Rhetorical Structure of Galatians 1:11–2:14,” in JBL 103 (1984) 223-233. According to D, “e Epistolary and Rhetorical Context,” in Paul, Thessalonica, and Early Christianity (n. 1), p. 173, the narratio in I ess. comprises 2:1–3:10 with the following subdivisions: “A. Introduction to narratio (address) (2:1); B. A description of Paul’s first visit to the essalonians (2:1-16); C. Paul’s desire for a second visit (2:17–3:10).” See also Bruce C. J, To All the Brethren: A Text-Linguistic and Rhetorical Approach to 1 Thessalonians, Stockholm, Almqvist & Wiksell, 1987, p. 44-46; Daniel M, “L’apôtre, mère et père de la communauté (1 2,1-12),” in ÉTR 75 (2000) 373-389, esp. p. 378. 3. Paul E. K, “Rhetorical Identification in Paul’s Autobiographical Narrative: Galatians 1:13–2:14,” in Mark D. N (ed.), The Galatians Debate: Contemporary Issues in Rhetorical and Historical Interpretation, Peabody, MA, Hendrickson, 2002, p. 157-168; James T. S, “Paul’s ‘Autobiographical’ Statements in Galatians 1–2,” in JBL 85 (1966) 335-343.

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to subject these passages to literary narrative analysis. What can be learned from such an exploration? e following reflections examine aspects of I essalonians 1–3 in view of better determining the theological role that narrative segments play in the letter. 2. Narrative Among Literary Genres Although it is a relatively simple matter to delineate narrative segments in Paul, the fact that they appear within the larger context of the literary genre of letter requires some elucidation. Seymour Chatman’s taxonomy of what he calls “text-types” provides a helpful frame of reference. Narrative, he suggests, can be distinguished from other “text-types” such as Argument and Description, for unlike the latter which are essentially static and timeless,4 Narrative deals with two levels of time, the time of narration and story time: in Narrative, something happens.5 ese “text-types” can appear mixed in various combinations. On the one hand, shorter descriptive or argumentative sections, during which story time is essentially on hold, can serve the overarching intent a narrative. On the other hand, short narratives, as in a courtroom defense, can be employed as a rhetorical strategy serving the purposes of an overarching argument.6 ere are examples of such mixed “text-types” in the New Testament itself: the long narrative entitled Acts of the Apostles includes dozens of arguments – the “speeches” placed in the mouths of its main characters – that serve the overarching story; the extended argument called I essalonians is bolstered by the incorporation of narrative segments. Chatman’s general taxonomic mapping provides the frame within which the narrative (or narratio) in I essalonians 1–3 can be examined so as to help determine the role it plays in the overall letter. e following reflections briefly examine four narrative-critical aspects – (1) the ratio of present tense to past tense verbs, (2) narrative levels and narrative agents, (3) chronology, (4) characterization – in an attempt to further discern the theological import of these opening chapters in the letter. 4. Seymour C, Coming to Terms: The Rhetoric of Narrative in Fiction and Film, Ithaca, NY, Cornell University Press, 1990, p. 9, 30-31. 5. Ibid., p. 9: “As has been established in recent narratology, what makes Narrative unique among the text-types is its ‘chrono-logic,’ its doubly temporal logic. Narrative entails movement through time not only ‘externally’ (the duration of the presentation of the novel, film, play) but also ‘internally’ (the duration of the sequence of events that constitute the plot). e first operates in that dimension of narrative called Discourse (or récit or syuzhet), the second in that called Story (histoire or fabula).” 6. Ibid., p. 6-21.

       

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3. Ratio of Present Tense and Past Tense Via the conventions of the letter genre, that is, a communication deferred in time and space through the medium of writing, Paul directly addresses the believers in essalonica in a present-time communication. e use of the present tense verbs, of imperatives, and of the rhetorical device of direct address over the entire length of the letter keeps the “I-we”/ “you” communication primary and explicit.7 Only the narrative segments, which in the letter are restricted to chapters 1–3, feature past tense verbs, the tense par excellence of narrative,8 for narrative is always about an ailleurs, an “else-” both temporal (“else-when”) and spatial (else-where).9 In short, narrative presents in a “here-and-now” communication events that took place “then-and-there.” So dominant is the present-tense and present-time communication that even the past-tense and past-time narrative sections are continually interrupted by present tense verbs and direct address, as illustrated in the following reproduction of I essalonians 1–3 where the

7. George L, Pauline Autobiography: Toward a New Understanding (SBL DS, 73), Atlanta, GA, Scholars Press, 1985, p. 179-180: “In some instances the ‘we’ may include Paul’s co-worker Silvanus, perhaps Timothy (see 1:1; 3:2,6), other unidentified apostles (see 2:7), and/or other Jewish-Christians (see 2:15-16), or a more inclusive group, comprising also the essalonians and/or all Christians (see 1:3,10; 2:19; 3:13; 4:14; 5:5,6,810,23,28). ere are sound reasons for concluding, however, that in most instances the primary, if not the exclusive reference, of the first person plural is to Paul alone as the actual author of the letter. us, in those instances in which ‘we’ is the subject, the references may be appropriately labeled ‘autobiographical.’” 8. “[N]arration is always in the past tense,” Wallace M, Recent Theories of Narrative, Ithaca, NY, Cornell University Press, 1986, p. 132; “[...] the preterite is the tense par excellence of the narrative genre of speech [...],” Tullio M, “e Force of Reportive Narratives,” in Papers in Linguistics 17 (1984) 235-265, p. 249. 9. In an analogous sense, Paul R, Temps et récit II, Paris, Éditions du Seuil, 1984, p.  101-102, distinguishes between recounting (raconter) and commenting (commenter), pointing out that the former is characterized “par la détente ou le détachement,” the latter “par la tension ou l’engagement.” He further explains: “Sont représentatifs du monde commenté: le dialogue dramatique, le mémorandum politique, l’éditorial, le testament, le rapport scientifique, le traité juridique et toutes les formes de discours rituel, codifié et performatif. Ce groupe relève d’une attitude de tension, en ceci que les interlocuteurs y sont concernés, engagés; ils sont aux prises avec le contenu rapporté. […] Sont représentatifs du monde raconté: le conte, la légende, la nouvelle, le roman, le récit historique. Ici, les interlocuteurs ne sont pas impliqués; il ne s’agit pas d’eux; ils n’entrent pas en scène. […] Si la typologie des situations de communication en fonction de la tension ou de la détente est accessible en principe à l’expérience commune, elle est marquée au plan linguistique par la distribution des signaux syntaxiques que sont les temps. Aux deux situations de locution correspondent deux groupes distincts de temps verbaux: à savoir, en français, pour le monde commenté, le présent, le passé composé et le futur; pour le monde raconté, le passé simple, l’imparfait, le plus-que-parfait, le conditionnel” [emphasis in original].

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present-tense communication appears in regular print while the past-tense narrative segments are in boldface type: (RSV*) 1:1 Paul, Silvanus, and Timothy, To the church of the essalonians in God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ: Grace to you and peace. 2 We give thanks to God always for you all, constantly mentioning you in our prayers, 3 remembering before our God and Father your work of faith and labor of love and steadfastness of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ. 4 For we know, brethren beloved by God, that he has chosen you; 5 for our gospel came to you not only in word, but also in power and in the Holy Spirit and with full conviction. You know what kind of men we proved to be among you for your sake. 6 And you became imitators of us and of the Lord, for you received the word in much affliction, with joy inspired by the Holy Spirit; 7 so that you became an example to all the believers in Macedonia and in Achaia. 8 For not only has the word of the Lord sounded forth from you in Macedonia and Achaia, but your faith in God has gone forth everywhere, so that we need not say anything. 9 For they themselves report concerning us what a welcome we had among you, and how you turned to God from idols, to serve a living and true God, 10 and to wait for his Son from heaven, whom he raised from the dead, Jesus who delivers us from the wrath to come. 2:1 For you yourselves know, brethren, that our visit to you was not in vain; but though we had already suffered and been shamefully treated at Philippi, as you know, we had courage in our God to declare to you the gospel of God in the face of great opposition. 3 For our appeal does not spring from error or uncleanness, nor is it made with guile; 4 but just as we have been approved by God to be entrusted with the gospel, so we speak, not to please men, but to please God who tests our hearts. 5 For we never used either words of flattery, as you know, or a cloak for greed, as God is witness; 6 nor did we seek glory from men, whether from you or from others, though we might have made demands as apostles of Christ. 7 But we were gentle among you, like a nurse taking care of her children. 8 So, being affectionately desirous of you, we were ready to share with you not only the gospel of God but also our own selves, because you had become very dear to us. 9 For you remember our labor and toil, brethren; we worked night and day, that we might not burden any of you, while we preached to you the gospel of God. 10 You are witnesses, and God also, how holy and righteous and blameless was our behavior to you believers; 11 for you know how, like a father with his children, we exhorted each one of you and encouraged you and charged you 12 to lead a life worthy of God, who calls you into his own kingdom and glory. 13 And we also thank God constantly for this, that when you received the word of God which you heard from us, you accepted it not as the word of men but as what it really is, the word of God, which is at work in you believers. 14 For you, brethren, became imitators of the churches of God in Christ Jesus which are in Judea; for you suffered the same things from your own countrymen as they did from the Jews, 15 who killed both the Lord Jesus and the prophets, and drove us out, and displease God and oppose all men 16 by hindering us from speaking to the Gentiles that they may be saved – so as always to fill up the measure of their sins. But God’s 2

       

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wrath has come upon them at last! 17 But since we were bereft of you, brethren, for a short time, in person not in heart, we endeavored the more eagerly and with great desire to see you face to face; 18 because we wanted to come to you – I, Paul, again and again – but Satan hindered us. 19 For what is our hope or joy or crown of boasting before our Lord Jesus at his coming? Is it not you? 20 For you are our glory and joy. 3:1 Therefore when we could bear it no longer, we were willing to be left behind at Athens alone, 2 and we sent Timothy, our brother and God’s servant in the gospel of Christ, to establish you in your faith and to exhort you, 3 that no one be moved by these afflictions. You yourselves know that this is to be our lot. 4 For when we were with you, we told you beforehand that we were to suffer affliction; just as it has come to pass, and as you know. 5 For this reason, when I could bear it no longer, I sent that I might know your faith, for fear that somehow the tempter had tempted you and that our labor would be in vain. 6 But now that Timothy has come to us from you, and has brought us the good news of your faith and love and reported that you always remember us kindly and long to see us, as we long to see you B 7 for this reason, brethren, in all our distress and affliction we have been comforted about you through your faith; 8 for now we live, if you stand fast in the Lord. 9 For what thanksgiving can we render to God for you, for all the joy which we feel for your sake before our God, 10 praying earnestly night and day that we may see you face to face and supply what is lacking in your faith? 11 Now may our God and Father himself, and our Lord Jesus, direct our way to you; 12 and may the Lord make you increase and abound in love to one another and to all men, as we do to you, 13 so that he may establish your hearts unblamable in holiness before our God and Father, at the coming of our Lord Jesus with all his saints. * For the play of past and present, the RSV, while gendered, is closer to the Greek than the NRSV.

As much as he wishes to recount what happened in the past, Paul is always careful to keep secure moorings to the primarily present-tense communication of his actual letter-writing “now.” e there-and-then of the past is totally subservient to the here-and-now of the letter, or, in “texttype” categories, Narrative serves the needs of the overarching Argument.10 4. Narrative Levels and Narrative Agents e introduction of narrative levels and narrative agents brings to light several features resulting from this ratio of present-tense to past-tense 10. Ibid, p. 129: To Chatman’s obervations, however, Ricœur adds the important note that this distinction provides a way of relative measuring: “La prépondérance d’un groupe de temps dans un type de texte et d’un autre groupe de temps dans un autre type peut ainsi être mesurée,” which I have applied in the long citation from Paul above.

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verbs in I essalonians 1–3. More thorough narratologies posit three narrative levels commonly tagged story, discourse, and narration: story is what happens, discourse are the words used to express what happens, and narration is the “activating” (telling, reading) of the discourse so that the hearer/reader imagines the story. e introduction of the fundamental communication model “sender-message-receiver” in these narratological levels leads to the positing of narrative agents.11 e distribution of the several narrative agents in their proper narrative levels can be schematized as follows, the square brackets indicating the agents encoded within the text:12 real author - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - text - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - real reader [implied author - - - - - - - (discourse level) - - - - - - - - implied reader] [narrator - - - - - - - - - (narration level) - - - - - - - - - - narratee] [characters - - - - - - -(story level) - - - - - - - - characters]

Of particular importance is the distinction between real author and implied author. Since it is impossible fully to access the author’s intention and the various stages of the creative process behind the production of a text, there is a need to account, within the text itself, for the narrative 11. Jacques B, La narrativité, Louvain-la-Neuve, Duculot, 1994, p.  73, observes that the shi toward the inclusion of communication models in narrative studies came from the human sciences such as psychology, sociology, and sociolinguistics that study narratives in living settings rather than merely abstractly. 12. Adapted from Shlomith R-K, Narrative Fiction: Contemporary Poetics, London, UK, Routledge, 1983, p. 86; Patrick O’N, Fictions of Discourse: Reading Narrative Theory, Toronto, University of Toronto Press, 1994, p. 114; Mark Allan P, What Is Narrative Criticism? (GBS), Minneapolis, MN, Fortress, 1990, p. 27. Correlating narrative levels and narrative agents together in one formula, O’Neill proposes the following: “Story is to text [discourse] is to narration as what is to how is to who,” Patrick O’N, The Comedy of Entropy: Humour, Narrative, Reading, Toronto, University of Toronto Press, 1990, p. 87, as cited in O’N, The Fictions of Discourse (n. 12), p. 23. As the last six narrative agents of communication are properties of the text, narrative criticism is thus fundamentally a text-oriented approach. See Monika F, The Fictions of Language and the Languages of Fiction: The Linguistic Representation of Speech and Consciousness, London, UK – New York, NY, Routledge, 1993, p.  441-442. e communication model, therefore, is applied to and within the text itself, such that the text “contains all three components (sender, message, and receiver) and so is complete in itself,” P, What Is Narrative Criticism? p. 20. On the value of staying within the text, see Seymour C, “What Can We Learn from Contextualist Narratology?” in Poetics Today 11 (1990) 309-328. Also, R-K, Narrative Fiction, p. 3-4: “In the empirical world, the author is the agent responsible for the production of the narrative and for its communication. e empirical process of communication, however, is less relevant to the poetics of narrative fiction than its counterpart within the text. Within the text, communication involves a fictional narrator transmitting a narrative to a fictional narratee.”

       

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invention that holds the text together. is is the implied author, a narrative agent that “emerges only from our overall reading of the positions, values, and opinions espoused by the narrative text as a whole, reconstructed by that reading as the semiotically necessary authorial stance demanded by this particular text.”13 e implied author is responsible for the arrangement of such essential narrative aspects as (a) chronologization, or the arrangement of time, transforming action into plot; (b) localization, or the arrangement of space, transforming place into setting; (c) characterization, or the arrangement of personality traits, transforming actors into characters; (d) focalization, or the arrangement of narrative perspective; (e) verbalization, or the arrangement of words on the page, making all of the implied author’s arrangements known to the reader – and duly received by the reader as the ‘voice’ of the narrator; and (f)  validation of the narrator’s degree of reliability.14

In short, the implied author determines the discourse, those written words in and through which the story is given form. Finally, the narrative voice that performs or presents the implied author’s discourse is the narrator.15 On the receiving end of narrative communication, and corresponding to the sending agents on each narrative level respectively, are the real reader, the implied reader, and the narratee. Of course, these narrative levels and agents come into play only when narrative is present. In the case of I essalonians, therefore, narrative analysis is pertinent only where Paul recounts past events, that is, where he uses past tense verbs as illustrated earlier. e peculiar thing to note in this instance, however, is that in the narrative portions of the letter Paul is at once real author, implied author, and narrator – he is the one (real author) who tells/writes (the narrator) the arranged and configured discourse (product of the implied author) imbedded in the letter. As the initiator of the primary communication in the present time and present tense of the letter to his congregation, Paul (“I/we”) is the real author and the essalonians (“you”) are the real readers. e moment he turns to recall the past, Paul takes on the role of the implied author as well, that is, he is the arranger of time, plot, characterization, etc., of past events. Correspondingly, in the narrative segments, the real readers, the essalonians, function as the implied readers. Finally, Paul is also the narrator, for the 13. O’N, The Fictions of Discourse (n. 12), p. 66. For a clear discussion on the need and usefulness of the heuristic concept of implied or inferred author, see Seymour C, “In Defense of the Implied Author,” in his Coming to Terms (n. 4), 74-89. 14. O’N, The Fictions of Discourse (n. 12), p. 68. 15. See Seymour C, “e Literary Narrator,” in his Coming to Terms (n. 4), 109-123.

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voice of present-tense communication of the letter itself is also the voice activating the narrative accounts in past tense, accounts addressed to the narratees, that is, “you” the essalonians. Yet more precision can be added here. As a creation of the implied author, the narrator Paul in the narrative sections of the letter can be further qualified as intradiegetic (a character in the story), homodiegetic (a participant in the story), and at times autodiegetic (speaking about himself).16 And just as Paul is the narrator of the narrative portion of the letter, so also are the essalonians intradiegetic, homodiegetic narratees: the ones being addressed in the letter appear as characters involved in the story recounted in the narrative segments. 4.1. Time: forward and backward chronology Just as the narrator is the product of the implied author, so also is chronologization, the configuring and ordering of events on the discourse level from which can be reconstructed the story time.17 Indications in the narrative segments of I essalonians yield the following reconstruction of the story time: 1. Before Paul’s Visit to essalonica a. “Jews [...] killed the prophets” (2:15) b. “Jews [...] killed the Lord Jesus” (2:15) c. “Churches of God in Christ Jesus which are in Judea [...] suffered [...] from the Jews” (2:14) d. Paul’s calling: “[...] we have been approved by God to be entrusted with the gospel [...]” (2:4a) 16. “To tell one’s own story is to distance oneself from oneself, to double oneself, to make of oneself an other. It is not by chance that narratology must deal with ‘the anomalous coincidence of author, narrator, and character,’ which is typical of the autobiographical work. ere is, in autobiography, the strange pretense of a self that makes himself an other in order to be able to tell his own story; or, rather, of a self which, using his memory as a separated mirror in which he inseparably consists, appears to himself as an other – he externalizes his intimate self-reflection. e other, therefore, is here the fantasmatic product of a doubling, the supplement of an absence, the parody of a relation,” Adriana C, Relating Narratives: Storytelling and Selfhood (Warwick Studies in European Philosophy), trans. with an Introduction by Paul A. K, London, UK, Routledge, 2000, p. 84 [here citing Andrea B, Lo Specchio di Dedalo: Autobiografia e Biografia, Bologna, Il Mulino, 1990, p. 129]. See also R, Temps et récit II (n. 9), p. 132 note 3: “Dans la fiction à la première personne, le narrateur et le personnage principal sont le même; dans l’autobiographie seulement l’auteur, le narrateur et le personnage principal sont le même.” 17. On the reconstructing of the chronology of the story through the discourse, see Emma K, “Not (Yet) Knowing: Epistemological Effects of Deferred and Suppressed Information in Narrative,” in David H (ed.), Narratologies: New Perspectives on Narrative Analysis, Columbus, OH, Ohio State University Press, 1999, 33-65.

       

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e. “but though we had already suffered and been shamefully treated at Philippi [...]” (2:2a) 2. e Visit: Substantially 1:5–2:16; 3,4 3. Paul’s Departure from essalonica: “[...] by hindering us from speaking to the Gentiles [...]” (2:16) “[...] and drove us out [...]” (2:15) 4. Between Paul’s Departure from essalonica and His Sending Timothy: “But since we were bere of you, brethren, for a short time, in person not in heart, we endeavored the more eagerly and with great desire to see you face to face; because we wanted to come to you – I, Paul, again and again – but Satan hindered us” (2:17-18) 5. Timothy’s Visit to essalonica: Substantially 3:1-5 6. Timothy’s Return with Good News: “But now that Timothy has come to us from you, and has brought us the good news of your faith and love and reported that you always remember us kindly and long to see us, as we long to see you – for this reason, brethren, in all our distress and affliction we have been comforted about you through your faith [...]” (3:6-7).

Except for events Paul alludes to that occurred before he arrived in essalonica, the chronological sequence is for the most part linear from past to present. Aer establishing the present-tense communication between himself and his readers in the opening verses of the letter, Paul recalls the events that step by step lead to the moment following Timothy’s return in 3:6. From this play of present time to past time and then back to present time, it becomes clear that the “now” of Paul’s writing the letter is situated aer Timothy’s return. As a result, everything Paul writes about the past basks in the glow of the news, relayed to him by Timothy, that so thoroughly dispels his anxiety.18 Only because it is good news can Paul write as he does – had the news not been good, surely Paul would have described the past events in quite different terms. Moreover, the glow of the present-time good news permeates each stage of the sequence of past events in reverse order: since the news is positive, Paul realizes in retrospect that it was indeed a good decision to send Timothy in an attempt to allay his anxiety, a psychological state that, in further retrospect, was caused, quite understandably, by his having had to leave essalonica in haste. And finally, in still further retrospect, Paul can wax eloquent about the foundation visit because he now knows it had not 18. F, The Fictions of Language (n.  12), p.  444: “[ ...] unlike the heterodiegetic narrator, the homo-diegetic narrator is writing at a desk in a specified room at a specified time, and – due to these existential constraints – cannot go beyond this point of writing either temporally or in terms of cognition and knowledge” [emphasis in original]; George S, After Babel: Aspects of Language and Translation, London, Oxford University Press, 1975, p. 134: “Whatever the tense used, all utterance is a present act. Remembrance is always now.”

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been in vain. As narrative features under the control of the implied author, the sequencing and describing of the past are never neutral. e past is never recovered in itself, but rather is always constructed and configured in light of the present.19 4.2. Characterization e mise en récit of past events in I essalonians 1–3 has three consequences for yet another aspect of the implied author’s arrangement, that of characterization. First, in recounting the past Paul becomes the implied author transforming the “I/we” and “you” of the present-time address of the letter into characters of the narrated past-time events. Second, this characterization is entirely influenced, as is chronologization, by the aura of good news permeating the present moment of Paul’s writing. If the report from Timothy’s visit had been negative, Paul would surely not have depicted the essalonians or himself in such favorable light.20 Finally, the implied author’s characterizations are sketched not only in positive terms; they are configured and constructed in expressions

19. C, “In Defense of the Implied Author” (n. 13), p. 81: “Invention, originally an activity in the real author’s mind, becomes, upon publication, a principle recorded in the text. at principle is the residue of the real author’s labor. It is now a textual artifact. e text itself is the implied author [...]. Upon publication, the implied author supersedes the real author.” Paul R, Temps et récit I, Paris, Seuil, 1983, p.  251, elaborates as follows: “Premier acquis: les narrativistes démontrent avec succès que raconter, c’est déjà expliquer. Le ‘di’allèla – le ‘l’un par l’autre’ qui, selon Aristote, fait la connexion logique de l’intrigue – est désormais le point de départ obligé de toute discussion sur la narration historique. Cette thèse de base a de nombreux corollaires. Si tout récit met en œuvre, en vertu même de l’opération de mise in intrigue, une connexion causale, cette construction est déjà une victoire sur la simple chronologie et rend possible la distinction entre l’histoire et la chronique. En outre, si la construction de l’intrigue est œuvre de jugement, elle lie la narration à un narrateur, et donc permet au ‘point de vue’ de ce dernier de se dissocier de la compréhension que les agents ou les personnages de l’histoire peuvent avoir eu de leur contribution à la progression de l’intrigue; contrairement à l’objection classique, le récit n’est aucunement lié à la perspective confuse et bornée des agents et des témoins immédiats des événements; au contraire, la mise à distance, constitutive du ‘point de vue’, rend possible le passage du narrateur à l’historien […]. Enfin, si la mise en intrigue intègre dans une unité signifiante des composantes aussi hétérogènes que les circonstances, les calculs, les actions, les aides et les obstacles, les résultats enfin, alors il est également possible que l’histoire prenne en compte les résultats non voulus de l’action, et produise des descriptions de l’action distinctes de sa description en termes simplement intentionnels (Danto)” [empahsis in original]. 20. Abraham J. M, The Letters to the Thessalonians: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary (Anchor Bible, 23B), New York, NY, Doubleday, 2000, p. 206: “e way in which he describes Timothy’s report and his reaction to it explains the warm tone of 1 essalonians, which was written in response to Timothy’s news from essalonica.”

       

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and images that Paul would not have used while he and the essalonians were actually living the events themselves. For example, it is not likely that Paul would have portrayed himself as a father or as a nursemaid solicitous for each believer while actually behaving thus during the foundational visit. Narrative characterization is a re-flection, a re-presentation, a naming and thematizing aer the fact. As Ricœur concludes, “Raconter, c’est déjà expliquer.”21 In this regard, Raymond Collins points out a feature peculiar to Paul’s characterization in the narrative segments of I essalonians that is of signal importance, a feature that applies to biography as well as to autobiography.22 In his autobiographical portrait, Paul identifies himself so closely with the gospel message that he describes his behavior as essentially indistinguishable from it: his speaking boldly, his fatherly solicitude, his motherly tenderness, his anxiety on the state of the essalonian believers’ faith, his rejoicing in their steadfastness – all these qualities incarnate, give shape and form and texture to, the good news.23 e same can be said regarding Paul’s biographical portrait of the essalonians: their openness to the power of the gospel, their open-hearted hospitality to the missionary team, their eager conversion, the renown of their faith – these are all manifestations of the effect of God’s transforming power in their lives. By thus weaving gospel threads into the fabric of characterization, the implied author Paul points out to his readers that the locus of the experience of the good news lies in their very lives.

21. R, Temps et récit I (n. 19), p. 251 [emphasis in original]. 22. Raymond C, “Paul as Seen rough His Own Eyes: A Reflection on the First Letter to the essalonians,” in Studies on the First Letter to the Thessalonians (BETL, 66), Leuven, University Press – Peeters, 1984, 175-208. See also M, The Letters to the Thessalonians (n. 20), p. 78, 85. 23. C, Relating Narratives (n. 16), p. 36: “In the autobiographical story that the memory episodically – and oen unintentionally – recounts, the narratable self is therefore always found to be reified. She becomes, through the story, that which she already was. e self is thus also able to recuperate the constitutive worldly and relational identity from which the story itself resulted. In other words, the identity of the self, crystallized in the story, is totally constituted by the relations of her appearance to others in the world, because, even in autobiography, ‘the story told through the convention of the first-person narrative is always a story which both discovers and creates the relation of self with the world in which it can appear to others, knowing itself only in that appearance or display,’” [here citing Janet Varner G, Autobiography: Towards a Poetics of Experience, Philadelphia, PA, University of Pennsylvania Press, 1982, p. 141; emphasis in original]. See also George G, Auto-bio-graphie, Paris, Éditions Odile Jacob, 1991, p. 264: “L’écriture du moi n’est jamais transcription du moi, empreinte scripturaire du vécu; elle implique une intervention, consciente ou non, de l’initiative personnelle pour la mise en forme du vécu en termes de récit.”

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5. Conclusion e above soundings suggest the following observations on the effect and import of Paul’s use of narrative in I essalonians: 5.1. Identifying the present time of Paul’s letter-writing in light of the narrative past sharpens the distinction between Paul the real author and Paul the implied author. Paul the implied author’s relating of past events stands out clearly as re-construction and re-configuration. Until it is told, lived experience remains inchoate, shapeless, and essentially lost. rough his re-configuration of the past in I essalonians, Paul transforms the “I/we” and “you” of the letter’s present communication (the real author and the real readers) into characters in a story, a story he invites his readers to relive in imagination. His story is not neutral, however, for it is his version of the past – he selects the incidents, he sets the sequence of events, he portrays the characters to create a narrative fully influenced by the present good report he received from Timothy. 5.2. In addition, Paul the implied author’s re-configuration and re-construction of the past is permeated with the gospel. Both his behavior and the behavior of the essalonians manifest, or better still, incarnate the power of God revealed in Jesus Christ. In thus naming and thematizing the past via the medium of narrative, Paul not only transforms the raw materials of their lived experience into story, he also incorporates their story into the greater story of salvation that continues to be created through the power of the Gospel. 5.3. By narrating his and their past, by thematizing it in gospel terms, Paul implicitly models for his hearers how they, too, can transform the raw material of their lived experience into the story of salvation. He provides them with the language – the images, the metaphors, the figures – with which to interpret what happens as events fraught with the saving power of God in Christ Jesus. 5.4. Rehearsing the past in story form assures, even if only subliminally, that the raw material of every present and of every future event, once past, is susceptible of the same meaningful shaping and interpreting. e future behavior of the essalonians resulting from Paul’s exhortations and encouragements in the rest of the letter will constitute the raw materials later to be transformed into story and into the story of salvation. Indeed, even Paul’s present moment of letter-writing itself will, once it is past, become part of the story – an outcome magnified by the letter’s eventual incorporation in the canon of the New Testament. No present or future moment, therefore, need remain an orphan

       

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bere of theological identity and belonging. If the overarching intent of I essalonians is comfort and exhortation, what greater comfort, what greater exhortation could the essalonians receive than the assurance that all lived experience can, through narrative, be transformed into episodes in the on-going story of salvation? Narrative in I essalonians 1–3 shapes the past in light of the present as a promise for the future, a future that, according to Paul, will come to fulfillment “at the coming of our Lord Jesus with all his saints” (3:13).

C 7

THE NARRATIVE DYNAMISM OF GENESIS 15 IN ROMANS 4 1. Introduction While the phenomenon of intertextuality in Romans 4 has been noted throughout the history of interpretation, the fact that the source text which constitutes the object of Paul’s commentary is a narrative has received less emphasis. Analyses of Romans 4 mentioning the narrative nature of the Genesis account of Abraham that lies behind Romans 4 generally focus on whether Paul has been faithful to the original story or, if not, to what degree his interpretation diverges from those of his Jewish contemporaries.1 However, can narrative features of the source text shed light on the interpretation of Romans 4? More importantly, what new insights can these narrative features yield, since the activity itself of fashioning narrative creates meaning?2 What effect can they have on the hearers/readers both of Genesis 15 and of Romans 4?3 Before turning to Paul’s intertextual source text, it is necessary first to determine the kind and extent of intertextuality in, as well as the literary form of, Romans 4. is will be followed with a study of three narrative features gleaned from Genesis 15 – (1) the present time of the story, (2) the narrator’s evaluative hindsight, and (3) the reader’s double viewpoint incorporating the story level and the narrator’s assessment – in order finally to propose how these features foster interpretative depth of meaning in Paul’s discussion of the Abraham story. 2. Romans 4: Intertextuality and Literary Form Romans 4 is replete with intertextuality. By naming Abraham in his opening verse, Paul evokes the patriarch’s story recounted in Genesis 12:1–25:11. 1. Bruce W. L (ed.), Narrative Dynamics in Paul: A Critical Assessment, Louisville, KY – London, UK, Westminster John Knox, 2002. 2. is is the basic thesis of Arthur C. D’s Narration and Knowledge, New York, NY, Columbia University Press, 2007 [1985]. 3. For a thorough and extensive exposé on the effect biblical narrative can produce on the reader, see Meir S, The Poetics of Biblical Narrative: Ideological Literature and the Drama of Reading, Bloomington, IN, Indiana University Press, 1985.

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is initially unspecified intertextual intent is then explicitated through Paul’s formula-introduced citations from Genesis: Gen 15:6 in v. 3, Gen 17:5 in v. 17, Gen 15:5 in v. 18, and (less directly) Gen 15:6b in v. 22.4 e Gen 15:6 citation provides three key words that, from v. 3 on, are woven throughout Romans 4: the verb “reckon” in various forms appears in vv. 4, 5, 6, 8, 9, 10, 11, 23 and 24; “righteousness” and cognates in vv. 2, 5, 6, 9, 11(2 ×), 13, 22, and 15; and “faith/believe” and cognates in vv. 5(2 ×), 9, 11(2 ×), 12, 13, 14, 16(2 ×), 17, 18, 19, 20(2 ×) and 24.5 e other direct citation, found in vv. 7 and 8, is drawn not from Genesis but rather from Psalm 31:1-2 [LXX]. Attributed to David in the introductory formula of the preceding verse, it is nonetheless linked to Gen 15:6 through the verb “reckon.” Finally, beyond the explicit citations and the nearly pervasive presence of the three key words from Gen 15:6, Paul also includes other Abraham-related Genesis terms and images such as circumcision, father, promise, seed, inherit, and nations.6 Paul’s particular use of quotations, allusions, and word-tallying has led scholars to suggest that here he is engaging in a form of midrashtype exposition.7 e citing of Gen 15:6 followed by the repeated reference to and exposition of the key words of this Scriptural verse, plus the link with Psalm 31:1-2 via the rabbinical exegetical technique of verbal analogy (gezerah shawah) of the verb “reckon,”8 constitute the most obvious indicators of midrashic procedure. According to Peder Borgen, these combined elements constitute a midrashic homily: an opening citation from the Torah, the link of another scriptural citation from outside the Torah through word analogy, the conclusion returning to the opening Torah citation with pastoral application to the audience

4. Christopher D. S, Paul and the Language of Scripture: Citation Technique in the Pauline Epistles and Contemporary Literature (SNTS MS, 69), Cambridge, UK, Cambridge University Press, 1992, p. 99-102. Paul’s citations in Romans 4 are nearly in full agreement with the LXX. 5. Benjamin Sß, Abraham’s Faith in Romans 4: Paul’s Concept of Faith in Light of the History of Reception of Genesis 15:6 (WUNT, 2. Reihe, 224), Tübingen, Mohr Siebeck, 2007, p.  310, who lists the overall tally as follows: πιστ-stem words 16 times, δικ-stem words 10 times. “Reckon” appears 11 times in all. On Gen 15:6 as the key citation of Romans 4, p. 312. 6. Ibid., p. 365. 7. Halvor M, Theology in Conflict: Studies in Paul’s Understanding of God in Romans (NovTSup, 53), Leiden, Brill, 1980, p. 42, 108-109; Ulrich W, Der Brief an die Römer. 1. Teilband, Röm 1–5 (EKKNT, 6,1), Zürich – Neukirchen-Vluyn, Benziger, 1978, p. 258. 8. For a thorough discussion of the link between Paul’s citation of Ps 31:1-2 and Gen 15:6, see Jean-Noël A, “Romains 4 et Genèse 17. Quelle énigme et quelle solution?” in Biblica 84 (2003) 305-325.

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being addressed.9 is expository form underscores the key role of Gen 15:6 cited in Rom 4:3. e use of midrashic procedures, even possibly of some type of midrashic homily, however, does not in itself provide a sufficient interpretative grid for understanding Romans 4. e expository midrashic techniques are made to serve a dialogical, discursive purpose, as evidenced by the many rhetorical indicators of polemics.10 Paul is not simply explaining, he is arguing.11 Commentators have pointed out the diatribe style in the first half of Romans 4, substantiated through the series of (rhetorical) questions in v. 1, 3, 9, 10(2 ×) that are intended to respond to the queries raised in 3:27-31.12 In addition, Halvor Moxnes observes that in Romans 4 “the style is characterized by a use of antitheses which have a function similar to the dialogues,”13 as for example in 4:4,9,13, which themselves echo the antithetical questions in 3:27, 29 and 31. Paul’s use of Greek particles provides yet another sign of a dialogical intent: οὗν in v. 1, 9, 10;14 γάρ in v. 2, 3, 9, 13, 14, 15; δὶα τοῦτο in v. 16; διό in v. 22. Together these features show that Paul is presenting an argument with premises and conclusions.15 Interestingly, the dialogical style in Romans appears most intensely where there is a density of Scriptural citations, as is the case here in Romans 4 where intertextuality and the rhetoric of argumentation go hand in hand.16 As a result of this mix of midrashic 9. Simon L, L’épître de Paul aux Romains (LDC, 10), Paris, Cerf, 2002, p. 286; Peder B, Bread from Heaven: An Exegetical Study of the Concept of Manna in the Gospel of John and the Writings of Philo (NovTSup, 10), Leiden, Brill, 1965, p. 46-51. Yet see the caution in Sß, Abraham’s Faith in Romans 4 (n. 5), p. 318; in response to this caution, see A, “Romains 4 et Genèse 17” (n.  8), p.  306-313; also, Jean-Noël A, Israël et la loi dans la lettre aux Romains (LD, 173), Paris, Cerf, 1998, p. 90-96. 10. Sß, Abraham’s Faith in Romans 4 (n. 5), p. 395: “e life-historical subjectivity of Romans 4 is associated with the predominantly ‘midrashic’-narrative style, which however serves the argumentative goal to present God’s dealing with Abraham as typical for all believers.” omas H. T, Paul’s Rhetoric in Its Context: The Argument of Romans, Peabody, Hendrickson, MA, 2004, p. 93 for a list of such diatribal features. 11. T, Paul’s Rhetoric (n. 10), p. 84-85, 88. 12. Ben W III, Paul’s Letter to the Romans: A Socio-Rhetorical Commentary, Grand Rapids, MI – Cambridge, UK, Eerdmans, 2004, p.  116, 120; M, Theology in Conflict (n. 7), p. 41-42; T, Paul’s Rhetoric in Its Context (n. 10), p. 144. 13. M, Theology in Conflict (n. 7), p. 41. 14. Herbert Weir S, Greek Grammar (rev. by Gordon M. Messing), Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press, 1984, § 2962 and § 2964. See also L, L’épître de Paul aux Romains (n. 9), p. 288, 302-303, 309-310. 15. It is worth noting that none of these particles appears in v. 17-21, which suggests a shi in style and tone. See below. 16. Christopher D. S, Arguing with Scripture: The Rhetoric of Quotations in the Letters of Paul, New York, NY – London, UK, T. &. T. Clark, 2004; also, Axel  D, Glaube als Teilhabe: Historische und semantische Grundlagen der paulinisher Theologie und Ekklesiologie des Glaubens (WUNT, 2. Reihe, 22), Tübingen, Mohr Siebeck,

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commentary and rhetorical argumentation, Romans 4 is dominated more by proposition-type statements than narrative, with the intertextual links to Genesis, particularly Gen 15:6, providing the grist for Paul’s argument.17 What role, then, does the narrative nature of the Genesis account play in Romans 4? 3. Narrative Features of Genesis 15:6 3.1. Inside the Story (looking ahead) e Genesis story of Abraham ranges over slightly more than a dozen chapters (12:1 to 25:11).18 e occasion for this saga arises from the preceding narrative recounting the impasse that bedevils humanity: sin vitiates humankind’s original relationship with God, while death precludes a future (the Fall of Adam and Eve). Moreover, God’s attempts to rectify the situation, to reinstate the life-filled (overcoming sin) and life-fulfilling (overcoming death) relationship that had obtained at the beginning of creation, have failed (the Flood and the Tower of Babel).19 God’s new initiative in calling Abraham, along with Abraham’s response, provides the breakthrough. While the Abraham story opens in Genesis 12, the most theologically explicit articulation of the plot occurs in Genesis 15.20 e dialogue between the only two characters to appear in this chapter, God and Abram, dominates the story and is the main carrier of events, with the

1987, p. 138, points out the cyclical structure of the argument, which also is a feature of a midrashic homily. 17. I. Howard M, “Response to A. T. Lincoln: e Stories and Inheritors in Galatians and Romans,” in L, Narrative Dynamics in Paul (n. 1), p. 241, who opines that while it is not an either/or matter, Paul’s approach is for the most part “something much more akin to proposition than to narrative.” 18. Jean Louis S, “Essai sur la nature et la signification du cycle d’Abraham (Gn  11:27–25:11),” in André W (ed.), Studies in the Book of Genesis: Literature, Redaction and History (BETL, 155), Leuven – Paris – Sterling, VA, Leuven University Press – Peeters, 2001, 153-177; in the same volume, omas Christian R, “Recherches actuelles sur le cycle d’Abraham,” 179-211. 19. e story of Abraham must be placed within the larger context of Gen 1–11, which, according to André W, “Abraham: élection et salut. Réflexions exégétiques et théologiques sur Genèse 12 dans son contexte narratif,” in RTL 27 (1996) 3-24, p. 5, “dessine l’arrière-plan théologique et anthropologique en évoquant sous forme narrative la situation de mort qui pousse Dieu à inventer l’élection comme stratégie de salut.” 20. On centrality of Genesis 15 in the Abraham sage, see Sß, Abraham’s Faith in Romans 4 (n. 5), p. 150.

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narrator mostly supplying necessary descriptions and “stage directions.”21 e chapter divides into two sections, vv.  1-6 and vv.  7-21. In the first section God promises that Abram’s reward shall be great, to which Abram objects that he has no offspring. e Lord responds by taking Abram outside to contemplate the heavens filled with countless stars, promising “thus shall your seed be.” Closing this episode, the narrator comments: “Abram believed God and it was counted to him as righteousness.” e longer second section deals with the promise of the land. Here also God takes the initiative (v. 7), followed by a question from Abram, to which God then commands him to prepare a covenant sacrifice (vv. 8-11). A trance falls upon Abram, during which God again speaks, this time promising to give the land not to him but rather to his descendants, and only aer a four-hundred-year sojourn in a foreign land (vv. 12-16). A flame descends and passes between the separated halves of the sacrificial animals, with the narrator concluding that “in that day, the Lord made a covenant with Abram, saying, ‘To your seed I will give this land [...]’” (vv. 18-20). Gen 15:6 addresses the very impasse besetting the human predicament in the plot of the larger narrative context of Genesis 3–11. By being reckoned righteous, Abram is no longer situated in sinful humanity, for his relationship with God has been put to right.22 At one and the same time, Abram’s faith not only results in his being reckoned as righteous, but, since it is faith in the promise of progeny – expressed in the immediately preceding verse (“[...] so shall your seed be”) – it also assures him a future.23 is breakthrough in the human impasse comes about through 21. Walter V, Abraham et sa légende: Genèse 12:1–25:11 (Lire la Bible, 110), Montréal, Médiaspaul – Paris, Cerf, 1996, p. 170; Sß, Abraham’s Faith in Romans 4 (n. 5), p. 81. 22. See, for example, W, Der Brief an die Römer (n. 7), p. 263: “Abraham war zuvor faktisch Sünder”; Leander E. K, Romans (ANTC), Nashville, TN, Abingdon, 2005, p. 121; N. omas W, “e Letter to the Romans,” in Leander E. K (ed.), The New Interpreter’s Bible, Vol. 10, Nashville, TN, Abingdon, 2002, 393-770, p.  492; Anthony Tyrell H, “Abraham the Justified Sinner,” in Studies in Paul’s Technique and Theology, Grand Rapids, MI, Eerdmans, 1974, 52-66; Brendan B, Romans (SP, 6), Collegeville, MN, Liturgical Press, 1996, p. 146; Charles E.B. C, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on The Epistle to the Romans, Vol. 1 (ICC), Edinburgh, Clark, 1975, p. 232. 23. K, Romans (n. 22), p. 124: “By making the relation to God right, justification/ rectification frees for the future”;  D, Glaube als Teilhabe (n.  16), p.  139: “[...] der Abrahamsglaube ist Verheißungs- (Offenbarungs-) glaube und als solcher wird er dem Erzvater zur Gerechtigkeit angerechnet”; Joseph A. F, Romans: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary (AB, 33), New York, NY, Doubleday, 1992, p. 373: “Abraham believed in Yahweh’s promise of a numerous progeny, and this faith was ‘booked to his credit’ as uprightness [...]”; S, “Essai” (n. 18), p. 162-164.

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the close interaction between the two protagonists, who, as speaking characters, are unpredictable.24 As the story unfolds, no one could foresee God’s promises to Abram, coming as they do freely and unconditioned. In turn, no one could predict Abram’s response – he could have demurred. While it is true that the roles are unequal, for only God can promise and only God has the power to realize the promises, without Abram’s response in faith the story ends.25 If there is no future for Abram without God’s initiative, there is also no future for God’s plan of salvation without Abram’s response. e possibility of a future requires from both a “complicity of willingness.”26 In following the story’s suspense as it unfolds, the reader enters the time and space of the two protagonists as they together look toward the yet-to-be-realized future.27 3.2. The Narrator’s Elevated View (looking back) Making this chapter so theologically pivotal, according to Schließer, is Gen 15:6, which presents the following narrative features: (1) spoken by the narrator, it interrupts the flow of dialogue between God and Abram; (2) it presents the first occurrences of two key theological terms, “believe” and “righteousness,” in the Scriptures; and (3) it offers the narrator’s assessment of what precedes in the form of inside views of the

24. Meir S, “Proteus in Quotation-Land: Mimesis and the Forms of Reported Discourse,” in Poetics Today 3 (1982) 107-156, p. 108-109; David MC, “Character in the Boundary: Bakhtin’s Interindividuality in Biblical Narratives,” in Semeia 63 (1993) 29-42, p. 32. 25. Stanley K. S, A Rereading of Romans: Justice, Jews, and Gentiles, New Haven, CT – New York, NY, Yale University Press, 1994, p.  229, puts this graphically: “God provided the miracle of restoring the life principle to Abraham’s seed and the nurturing capacity to Sarah’s womb, but Abraham in faithfulness planted his seed. If Abraham had not acted as if he would have offspring and planted his seed, trusting that God would somehow bring about his promise of offspring, there would have been no Isaac, no Moses, no Israel, and no Jesus Christ.” 26. Sß, Abraham’s Faith in Romans 4 (n. 5), p. 151; W, Abraham: élection et salut (n. 19), p. 6, 11, 13, 14, 15, 24; Françoise M, La représentation du divin dans les récits du Pentateuque. Médiations syntaxiques et narratives (VTSup, 123), Leiden – Boston, MA, Brill, 2009, p. 86-88; F, Romans (n. 23), p. 373, uses the word “willingness” to describes Abraham’s response in faith; Jean-Louis R-M, La conception paulienne de la foi en Romains 4 (Cerf Patrimoines), Paris, Cerf, 2016, p. 138-139: “Ce n’est pas seulement la promesse de Dieu, en dépit de son caractère fondamental et nécessaire, mais aussi la réponse de foi d’Abraham qui permet d’entrer dans le projet de Dieu”; R. Walter L. M, “Abraham’s Righteousness (Genesis XV,6),” in John Adney E (ed.), Studies in the Pentateuch (VTSup, 41), Leiden – New York, NY –København – Köln, Brill, 1990, 103-130, p. 126, 127. 27. K, Romans (n. 22), p. 126; W, “e Letter to the Romans” (n. 22), p. 495.

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protagonists vis-à-vis each other.28 e verse has two distinguishable parts. e first half presents Abram as the subject of the verb “believed” with God as object. e second half is a bit more complex. e subject of the passive verb is an unexpressed “it” which in the LXX version refers to Abram’s believing God’s promise in Gen 15:5, thus adding by implication a third key term, “promise.”29 e agent of the action expressed in the passive form verb “was reckoned” is God, while the pronoun “him” refers to Abram, the one to whom God reckons righteousness.30 As a result, in Gen 15:6 the narrator is not merely describing past events:31 in changing narrative levels, he is offering a concise, epigrammatic assessment – and does so to this degree only here in the entire Abraham saga – of the intimate relationship between God and the patriarch.32 Such an evaluative comment requires not merely a distance in time between the narrator and the events he relates, but also a distance in elevation vis-à-vis the Abraham story as a whole, from which such a distillation of its theological essence can be made.33 Only a later, relevant event can provide an in-depth understanding of the meaning of the earlier 28. Sß, Abraham’s Faith in Romans 4 (n.  5), p.  117. Similarly, Jean-Louis R, “Paul: Exégète et théologien dans Romans 4,1-12,” in RSR 80 (2006) 83-97, p. 88; R-M, La conception paulienne (n. 25), p. 133; Michel L, “Modèle et père des croyants: Gn 12,1-41; 15,5-12.17-18; 22,2.9a.10-13.15-18,” in AsSeign 15 (2e série), Paris, Cerf, 1973, 6-22, p.  14: “[…] les promesses sont précédées d’un plainte d’Abraham (v. 2-3) et suivies d’une sorte de commentaire du narrateur (v. 6), qui ne se préoccupe pas du contenu des promesses, mais de l’attitude prise par Abraham envers celui qui promet”; M, “Abraham’s Righteousness” (n. 26), p. 104, 123. 29. James D.G. D, Romans 1-8 (WBC, 38a), Dallas, Word Books, TX, 1988, p. 237-238; W, Der Brief an die Römer (n. 7), p. 269. 30. F, Romans (n.  23), p.  373. e MT has an active, not a passive, verb in Gen  15:6. e subject of this verb (“he”) in the MT is le ambiguous. See Sß, Abraham’s Faith in Romans 4 (n. 5), p. 215-219, for evidence of the passive being found in Hebrew textual traditions, at variance with the MT, that might have served as a Vorlage for some biblical readings. Also, M, La représentation du divin (n. 26), p. 348-350. 31. R-M, La conception paulienne (n. 26), p. 138. 32. Sß, Abraham’s Faith in Romans 4 (n. 5), p. 93-94; M, “Abraham’s Righteousness” (n. 26), p. 104. 33. On the “elevated perspective” afforded by historical narrative, see Frank R. A, Narrative Logic: A Semantic Analysis of the Historian’s Language (MNPL 7), e Hague – Boston – London, Nijhoff, 1983, p. 223-224: “e ‘point of view’ of a narratio is comparable to a belvedere: the scope of the ‘point of view’ we get access to aer having climbed all the steps leading to the top is far wider than just the staircase of the belvedere: from the top we look out over a whole landscape. e statements of a narratio may be seen as instrumental in our attaining a ‘point of view’ like the steps of the staircase of a belvedere, but what we ultimately see comprises much more of reality than what the statements themselves express.” M, “Abraham’s Righteousness” (n. 26), p. 126-129, maintains that Gen 15:6 was added to the earlier text of Gen 15:1-14,19 during the time of the exile, thus providing a later and retrospective “theological basis for Israel’s future” (p. 128).

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event, for without a meaningful follow-through the original event would have had no significance. By the time the narrator speaks, the original event is past and therefore has produced a track record demonstrating that God is trustworthy and that Abram was right in believing God. Indeed, the narrator and his hearers/readers are themselves the fruit of the divine promise for which Abraham’s believing had opened a future. With the narrator, the readers stand at the apex of accumulated generations of progeny from where they can look back to assess the result of Abraham’s faith and God’s promise.34 is narrative strategy of Gen 15:6 offers a fascinating instance of what Arthur C. Danto calls “narrative sentences”: characters cannot know the significance of events as they are living them, for only relevant later events can give the earlier events meaning: “To be alive to the historical significance of events as they happen, one has to know to which later events these will be related, in narrative sentences, by historians of the future.”35 If the narrator and the readers are the realization of the promises once made to Abraham, who at that time did not know their outcome, then this God is indeed worthy of trust.36 Distance in time and space from the original events makes possible the kind of succinct, proposition-type statement as found in Gen 15:6 with its dense concentration of the three weighty theological terms of faith, righteousness, and (implied) promise.37 is capacity to produce evaluative distillations is 34. S, “Essai sur la nature” (n. 18), p. 163: “Le cycle d’Abraham est donc un récit qui renvoie massivement au-delà de ses propres limites, vers un temps qui est celui du lecteur et même plus loin encore, vers un temps indéfini (‘pour toujours’).” 35. D, Narration and Knowledge (n.  2), p.  169; also p.  350: “[…] in order that stories be told, things and events must be perceived and described only as they can be described historically, which is to say: from the perspective that events which are future to them but past to the historians, afford. e historian not only has knowledge they lack: it is knowledge they cannot have because the determinate parts of the future are logically concealed”; p. 356: “is entails then the really interesting cognitive asymmetries which go with narrative structures, namely that the narrator has to know things his characters, who may be chroniclers to the same events, do not know: he knows how things came out. ere is nothing superhuman about this knowledge, and it may seem as though since he possesses it at the end, it should be possible to possess it beforehand. But my claim is that if the knowledge of the narrator were made available to the characters, the structure of narration would be destroyed. e knowledge available to him is logically outside the order of events he describes.” 36. Sß, Abraham’s Faith in Romans 4 (n. 5), p. 117: “Also, the function of 15:6 both as central element of the entire chapter and as theological recapitulation, suggests that even and especially this verse follows the dialogic structure of the narrative and therefore provides insights into the heart of both parties, mentioning Abraham’s faith and Yahweh’s reaction.” 37. D, Narration and Knowledge (n. 2), p. 11: “To ask for the significance of an event, in the historical sense of the term, is to ask a question which can be answered only

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endemic to narrative, for a narrative “explains in addition to reporting precisely what happened. [...] A narrative describes and explains at once.”38 3.3. The Privilege of Inside and Outside rough the narrator’s shuttling between the story level (looking ahead) and the discourse level (looking back from above), readers benefit simultaneously from two points of view: along with the characters, they experience the events with their yet-to-unfold future, while at the same time they enjoy the narrator’s elevated assessment of those past events.39 In this way, readers have an advantage over the characters in the story, for the second, elevated viewpoint was not possible for the latter. As a result, the readers are encouraged to believe as Abraham did in order not only to become part of the on-going track record of Abraham’s progeny, but also to be assured that, precisely because of that very track record, they too will see their own future come to pass. 4. Narrative Features of Gen 15 in Romans 4 Even if Paul is not retelling of the Abraham story in Romans 4, the narrative features described above and, more importantly, the dynamic, time-based insights they yield, are very much at work in the chapter where Gen 15:6 constitutes the interpretative armature of Paul’s argument. ey are, however, given new depth of meaning through the death and resurrection of Christ. 4.1. Inside the Story e first narrative feature noted above, the mutual interaction and characterization of the two protagonists in the story of Genesis 15, their “complicity of willingness,” permeates Romans 4. ere is hardly a verse in the chapter where both God and Abraham are not mentioned, alluded to, or implied – more oen than not together.40 e reproduction of in the context of a story. e identical event will have a different significance in accordance with the story in which it is located, or, in other words, in accordance with what different sets of later events it may be connected” [emphasis in original]. 38. Ibid., p. 141 [emphasis in original]. 39. Ibid., p. 169, 356. 40. Robert L. B, “Multivocality in Romans 4,” in SBL 1997 Seminar Papers, Atlanta, GA, Scholars Press, 1997, 285-305, p. 298.

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Romans 4 below points this out, with key words and phrases pertaining to Abraham underlined and those concerning God in bold italics. e square brackets articulate what is implied by the grammar and syntax (especially the so-called theological passives, TP):41 RSV (1) What then shall we say about Abraham, our forefather according to the flesh? (2) For if Abraham was justified [by God – TP], he has something to boast about, but not before God. (3) For what does the scripture say? ‘Abraham believed God, and it was reckoned [by God – TP42] to him as righteousness.’ (4) Now to one who works, wages are not reckoned as a gi but as somthing due. (5) And to one who does not work but trusts [i.e., Abraham] him who justifies the ungodly [God], his [Abraham’s] faith is reckoned as righteousness [by God – TP].43 (6) So also David pronounces a blessing upon the man to whom [Abraham is implied] God reckons righteousness apart from works: (7) ‘Blessed are those whose iniquities [Abraham implied] are forgiven [by God – TP], and whose sins [Abraham implied] are covered [by God – TP]; (8) blessed is the man against whom [Abraham implied] the Lord will not reckon his sins [Abraham implied].’ (9) Is this blessing [only God can bless] only upon the circumcised, or also the uncircumcised [Abraham implied]? We say that faith was reckoned [by God – TP] to Abraham as righteousness. (10) How then was it reckoned [by God – TP]? When he was in circumcision or in uncircumcision? Not in circumcision but in uncircumcision. (11) He received [from God] circumcision as a sign or seal of the righteousness of faith while in uncircumcision, so that he might be the father of all who believe without being circumcised and who thus have righteousness reckoned to them, (12) and likewise the father of the circumcised who are not merely circumcised but also follow the in the footsteps of the faith of our father Abraham while in uncircumcision. (13) e promise [from God] to Abraham and his descendants, that they should inherit the world, did not come through the law but through the righteousness of faith [which comes from God]. (14) If it is the adherents of the law who are to be the heirs, faith [Abraham believed] is null and the promise [which comes from God] is void. (15) For the law brings wrath, but where there is no law there is no transgression. (16) at is why it depends on faith, in order that the promise may rest on grace and be guaranteed to all his descendants – not only to those of the law but also to those who share the faith of Abraham, for he is the father of us all, (17) as it is written, ‘I have made you the father of many nations’ – in the presence of God in whom he believed, who gives life to the dead and calls into existence the things that do not exist. (18) In hope he believed against hope, that he should become the father of many nations; as he had been told [by God],

41. A, Israël et la loi (n. 9), p. 84, footnote 2. 42. B, “Multivocality in Romans 4” (n. 40), p. 302. 43. A, Israël et la loi (n. 9), p. 93: the object of the description in v. 5 is Abraham, as can be deduced from the midrashic link (by gezerah shawah) of the following vv. 6-8 with Gen 15:6.

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‘So shall your descendants be.’ (19) He did not weaken in faith when he considered his own body, which was as good as dead because he was about a hundred years old, or when he considered the barrenness of Sarah’s womb. (20) No distrust made him waver concerning the promise of God, but he was made strong44 in faith as he gave glory to God. (21) fully convinced that the one who promised was able to do it. (22) at is why it was reckoned [by God – TP] to him as righteousness. (23) But it was not written about him alone that it was reckoned [by God – TP] to him (24) but for ours also. It will be reckoned [by God – TP] to us who believe in him who raised from the dead Jesus our Lord, (25) who was put to death for our trespasses and raised for our justification.

e message is fundamentally the same for Paul as for the narrator of Gen 15:6: just as God’s initiative and Abraham’s faith response were determinative of the future – his sinfulness was not reckoned, thus assuring both Abraham’s future and the future of God’s plan for humankind – so also the same kind of faith in the same God is determinative for the future for Paul’s readers through the forgiveness of sins.45 For Paul, however, the death and resurrection of Christ adds an unforeseen dimension to the overarching plot of Genesis 15. e impasse of sin and death finds its definitive resolution for all humankind, both Jews and Gentiles, in the Christ event. As they look toward their own yet-to-be-realized future, Paul’s readers are made aware that they need the same “complicity of willingness,” the same faith in God’s promise, without which their story cannot go forward beyond death to resurrection. In short, they too must “follow in the footsteps of the faith of our father Abraham” (v. 12). 4.2. Elevated Hindsight e elevated assessment of the Abraham narrative offered in Gen 15:6 appears as well in Romans 4. e citation of this Genesis verse in Rom 4:3 also functions as a succinct theological distillation of Paul’s own mini-narrative on God and Abraham in vv. 17-22. In these verses, Paul shis to the past tense to offer an extensive characterization of Abra44. On the passive voice interpretation of this verb, see, for example, K, Romans (n. 22), p. 129. 45. L, L’épître de Paul aux Romains (n.  9), p.  291: “Car si la justification, d’après d’autres passages de Paul, relève d’une pure initiative de Dieu qui exclut toute démarche antérieure de l’homme, celui-ci étant lui-même dans l’incapacité radicale de l’effectuer (Rm 7:15-23), la foi du patriarche est acte humain et c’est en réponse à cet acte et comme sa récompense que Dieu justifie. [...] Paul, tout en s’écartant de l’idée juive de mérite, ne conçoit pas que Dieu puisse intervenir dans l’homme par contrainte et effraction. Il lui demande simplement de faire taire en lui toute réserve ou objection face à l’engagement divin, ce qui est une façon de lui accorder toute confiance.”

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ham’s faith and of the God in whom he believed. e mini-narrative is not merely illustrative of what precedes in the chapter but serves as its climax.46 It describes the experience that underlies the more epigrammatic distillation articulated in the propositional statement of Gen 15:6: the faith that was reckoned as righteousness was precisely the kind of faith in the promise described in vv. 17-22, and the God who reckoned this faith is the very God who not only promises but has the power to make the promises come to pass. A similar relationship between narrated events and narrative assessment can be surmised in vv. 10-14. e proposition-type statement “faith is null and the promise is void” (v.  14b), with the abstract entities “faith” and “promise” appearing as subjects of verbs, provide an elevated assessment of the events recounted in Genesis 15–17 that Paul summarizes in Rom 4:10-11.47 Paul, therefore, is not commenting on principles; his principles comment on events. But the distance and elevation from which Paul argues in Romans 4 is suffused with the Christ event. As a later, relevant event, it gives new meaning not only to the original Abraham narrative, but also to its narrator’s assessment in Gen 15:6: for Paul, this proposition-type statement is not only about Abraham, but about believers in Christ (Rom 4:24-25). us, Paul and his readers, since they are all part of the Abraham story through faith, stand at the apex not only of accumulated generations of patriarch’s progeny, but also at the much higher, eschatological vantage point offered in Christ’s death and resurrection from which they can assess the new result of Abraham’s faith and of God’s promise in light of Christ: the creation of a renewed humanity uniting Jews and Gentiles. 4.3. Double Viewpoint of the Reader: Inside and Outside e double perspective created by the narrator’s shuttling between the present time of the recounted events that took place in the past and the narrator’s later elevated assessment emerges in the interplay between Paul’s citation of Gen 15:6 in v. 3 and his own mini-narrative in Romans 4:17-22. rough Paul’s elaborate characterization of Abraham’s faith in these latter verses, the reader enters into Abraham’s experience vis-à-vis the promise when its future outcome seemed humanly impossible. At the same time, because of Paul’s earlier proposition-like statement in v. 3, the reader’s stance lies not only aer the realization of the promise of prog46. W, “e Letter to the Romans” (n.  22), p.  497; S, A Rereading of Romans (n. 23), p. 246-247. 47. D, Narration and Knowledge (n. 2), p. 11.

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eny to Abraham, but also aer the death and resurrection of Christ. In this way, Paul’s readers are aware not only of God’s track record in assuring Abraham’s numerous progeny but also of God’s track record in raising Jesus from the dead (vv. 24-25). at is why Paul expresses his characterization of the God in whom Abraham placed his faith as one “who gives life to the dead and calls into existence the things that do not exist” (v. 17) in the present tense. It is no longer a matter merely of breaking through the impasse from sinfulness to a future progeny, but of breaking through powers of sinfulness and death to righteousness and new life. e implied message for Paul’s readers is that they can be assured that, even if at the present time they cannot see it because it appears humanly impossible, their own promised future resurrection will come to pass as surely as Abraham’s future came to pass, for the same trustworthy and powerful God lies behind both. e “complicity of willingness” through faith assures them this future.48 5. Conclusion Genesis 15 serves not simply as a quarry where Paul has mined a few key citations, nor simply as a story that hovers as a background for his argument. Rather, the narrative dynamism of Genesis 15 creating multiple perspectives inhabits and pervades Romans 4, perspectives that Paul in turn deepens and extends through the Christ event. e breakthrough in the impasse besetting humankind, launched by God’s promise and Abraham’s faith, Paul now shows to embrace all people, both Jews and Gentiles, who are reckoned righteous by faith, and reaches beyond a future through progeny to new life through resurrection. e vast sweep of this new vista constitutes Paul’s strategy for eliciting in his readers the same transformative, determinative faith of Abraham in a God who reckons righteous and “who gives life to the dead and calls into existence the things that do not exist.”

48. J. Christiaan B, Paul the Apostle: The Triumph of God in Life and Thought, Philadelphia, PA, Fortress, 1980, p. 97.

C 8

READING AND REREADING: BEING TRANSPORTED 1. Introduction Of the many fascinating and complex facets of rereading, surely one of the most intriguing is the capacity of narrative to engage the reader even when the characters, plot, setting, etc., are already known. Moreover, attempts during rereadings to “freeze” a narrative or parts of a narrative for the purposes of analysis never fully succeed, for the reader nevertheless still gets caught up in the time and space of the story.1 e phenomenon is all the more pronounced in repeated oral performances of a narrative where the flow cannot be paused or otherwise interrupted. How can one account for the capacity of narrative to involve the reader’s or hearer’s imagination in any activation of the text? In what follows, I propose to explore this peculiar capacity of narrative through a series of linked, sequential reflections, moving from observations regarding texts in general to considerations that apply more specifically to narrative. e first step investigates Gadamer’s “the world of the text,” a concept that arises from his phenomenological analysis of play as a way to approach the experience of the work of art. e next step examines narrative texts in their added ability to create not merely a “world of the text” but more specifically a “narrative world” or a “storyworld.” ird, an analysis of the unique features of narrative, its way of dealing with time and space, will lead to the key concepts of “present” in (time) and of “being present to” (space) the storyworld. It is these features in particular that can account narratologically for the capacity of narrative to engage the reader through any activation of the text, be it reading or rereading. Finally, in order to illustrate this narrative capacity at work, I will compare oral performance and private reading of a short excerpt from the Passion according to John.

1. For a discussion of the impossibility ultimately to “freeze” a narrative text, see Matei C, “Temporal Flow or Spatial Form?” in Rereading, New Haven, CT, Yale, 1993, chapter  2, 17-30, p.  19: “In fact, however, a purely spatial rereading that would ‘freeze’ the inherently temporal perception of a text is an utter impossibility.” While one can slow the pace in a rereading, timelessness remains beyond reach.

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2. Play beyond Subject and Object: The World of the Text In his quest to establish a rational foundation for the kind of knowledge produced by the humanities in contradistinction to the usual tendencies to pattern this knowledge on the physical sciences, Gadamer proposes what he calls the ontology of the work of art.2 He argues that the Romantic view which reduces the experience of the work of art to aesthetics, in the sense of a merely subjective experience, fails to do justice to the way the work of art contributes to understanding. Offering a new point of departure, Gadamer turns to the concept of play as the key to grasping the experience of a work of art, which for him will also include literature. e features of play that Gadamer discusses in his analysis can be summarized – albeit only too briefly here – in the following five observations. First, play involves interaction with an “other,” “something with which or against which one plays.”3 is back-and-forth movement is such that “[i]n order for there to be a game, there always has to be, not necessarily literally another player, but something else with which the player plays and which automatically responds to his [or her] move with a countermove.”4 Second, the to-and-fro movement between self and other points out that play “takes places,” that “[i]t happens, as it were, by itself.”5 Paul Ricœur expresses Gadamer’s observation in a slightly different way: the aesthetic experience, which takes the form of play, is not “the player himself, but rather what ‘takes place’ in the play.”6 us, the “taking place” or “happening” implies a present time, a “now.” ird, play draws the player into its own orbit, into itself; it immerses the player in the game. It is the game that is played: “[...] play does not have its being in the player’s consciousness or attitude, but on the contrary draws him [or her] into its dominion and fills him [or her] with its spirit. e player experiences the game as a reality that surpasses him [or her].”7 In play, the player transcends self. What

2. Hans-Georg G, Truth and Method. Second, revised edition. Translation revised by Joel W – Donald G. M, London, UK – New York, NY, Continuum, 1989 [1975]. 3. ese words are from Paul R, who bases his reflections of what he calls appropriation on Gadamer’s idea of play: “Appropriation,” in Hermeneutics and the Human Sciences: Essays on Language, Action and Interpretation, edited, translated, and introduced by John B. T, Cambridge, UK, Cambridge University Press – Paris, Éditions de la Maison des Sciences de l’Homme, 1981, chapter 7, 182-193, p. 186. 4. G, Truth and Method (n. 2), p. 106. 5. Ibid., p. 105. 6. R, “Appropriation” (n. 3), p. 186. 7. G, Truth and Method (n. 2), p. 109. Jean G, Introduction à HansGeorg Gadamer (La nuit surveillée), Paris, Cerf, 1999, p. 64, succinctly summarizes Gadamer’s reflections on play when he writes: “jouer c’est se laisser prendre à un jeu.”

  :  

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exists is no longer the players, continues Gadamer, “but only what they are playing.”8 Fourth, as a result, play creates a new reality, another world, the world of the playing, the world of the game: “[w]hat no longer exists is the world in which we live as our own [...]; the play takes place in another, closed world.”9 Finally, Gadamer considers that play implies not only present time, but “being present” as well. In order for the to-and-fro movement of play to “take place” and to create another world or reality, the player must be present. “Considered as a subjective accomplishment in human conduct, being present,” writes Gadamer, “has the character of being outside oneself. [...] In fact, being outside oneself is the positive possibility of being wholly with something else. is kind of being present is a self-forgetfulness [...],” and self-forgetfulness “[...] arises from devoting one’s full attention to the matter at hand [...].”10 On the basis of his analysis of play, Gadamer next considers the experience of the work of art. Play, he maintains, “comes to its true consummation in being art.”11 By this he means that all of the features of play described above are found in the experience of the work of art: such an experience engages one in a to-and-fro movement between subject and object; it “happens” or “takes place” in present time; it draws the subject into its own area; it creates another reality, another world; it requires presence, being outside oneself in self-forgetfulness. is other reality or world appears in the form of representation and therefore “leaves behind it everything that is accidental and unessential” in order to reach for the essence.12 As a result, the experience of art is an experience not simply of being, but of a surplus of being.13 Paul Ricœur expresses Gadamer’s 8. G, Truth and Method (n. 2), p. 111. 9. Ibid. 10. Ibid., p. 122. 11. Ibid., p. 110. 12. Ibid., p. 103. 13. G, Introduction à Hans-Georg Gadamer (n. 7), p. 63: “[…] l’expérience de l’art reste, au contraire, une expérience de l’être, et même d’un surcroît d’être, à telle enseigne d’ailleurs que la subjectivité n’y joue même qu’un rôle second. Le premier moment d’une ‘ontologie’ adéquate de l’œuvre d’art consistera dès lors à reconnaître que la subjectivité n’est pas maître de ce qui lui ‘arrive’ dans l’expérience esthétique. Pensons encore ici au Geschehen, au caractère événementiel et non instrumental, de la compréhension selon Gadamer, et dont l’avènement de l’art sera la première révélation” [emphasis in original]. See also Paul R, Temps et récit I, Paris, Seuil, 1983, p. 122. Richard D. MC, Do This: Liturgy as Performance, Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 2008, p. 47, has this to say about play: “us play, as opposed to other activities, is ‘materially unproductive’ and ‘concerned with another reality.’ […. I]n the process of performance something is ‘happening’ in the act itself beyond what the participants may think they are doing and beyond the meaning of whatever words or gestures may be called the ‘script.’ e action is framed in some way so as to differentiate

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idea as follows: the play of the work of art is a “metamorphosis [...], that is, both an imaginary transposition marked by the reign of ‘figures’ (Gebilde), and the transformation of everything into its true being. Everyday reality is abolished and yet everyone becomes [one]self.”14 What has been said above about the experience of art as the perfection of human play applies as well to the form of art called literature. “Literary art can be understood only from the ontology of the work of art, and not from the aesthetic experiences that occur in the course of the reading. Like public reading or performance, being read belongs to literature by its nature.”15 at is to say, the literary work of art must be “played.” Just as the being of the work of art is experienced in play as a to-and-fro beyond subjectivity and objectivity, a “happening” that draws one into its own area thereby creating another world, so also a literary text reaches beyond the writer and the reader to create a “world of the text,” a world that can appear only in the “playing” of the text through reading: “Just as we were able to show that the being of the work of art is play and that it must be perceived by the spectator in order to be actualized (vollendet), so also it is universally true of texts that only in the process of understanding them is the dead trace of meaning transformed back into living meaning.”16 Once again, it is helpful here to turn to Ricœur’s way of articulating Gadamer’s insights. In Temps et récit, Ricœur explains that the “world of the text” is an imaginary projection “in front of the text” [rather than behind the text, which is the realm of the author]: “[...] ce qui est interprété dans un texte, c’est la proposition d’un monde que je pourrais habiter et dans lequel je pourrais projecter mes pouvoirs les plus propres.” For Ricœur as for Gadamer, this world of the text not only is another world but also one with a surplus of meaning: “Comprendre ces textes, c’est interpoler parmi les prédicats de notre situation toutes les significations qui, d’un simple environnement (Umwelt), font un monde (Welt).”17 it from what can be called ‘everyday.’ e performance itself ‘says’ something about the possibility of human action.” 14. R, “Appropriation” (n.  3), p.  187 [emphasis in original]. A very similar analysis of the experience of the work of art can be found in Bernard L, “Art,” in Robert M. D – Frederick E. C (eds.), The Collected Works of Bernard Lonergan. Vol. 10: Topics in Education, Toronto – Buffalo, NY – London, UK, Published for Lonergan Research Institute of Regis College by the University of Toronto Press, 1993, 208-232, p. 215-217. 15. G, Truth and Method (n. 2), p. 154. 16. Ibid., p.  156. R, “Appropriation” (n.  3), p.  186: “[…] the presentation of a world in a work of art, and in general in a work of discourse, is a playful presentation. Worlds are proposed in the mode of play.” See also Paul R, Temps et récit III, Paris, Seuil, 1985, p. 230. 17. R, Temps et récit I (n. 13), p. 122 and 121.

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3. Storyworld (narrative world) e next step requires us to move from texts in general to narrative texts. If literature as an art form creates, through all that was said above regarding play, a world of the text, narrative texts create what David Herman calls a “storyworld.” He uses the term “to suggest something of the world-creating power of narrative, its ability to transport interpreters from the here-and-now of face-to-face interaction, or the space-time coordinates of an encounter with a printed text or a cinematic narrative, to the here-and-now that constitute the deictic center of the world being told about.”18 e storyworld, then, is a particular kind of “world of the text.” While in the reading of non-narrative texts the reader is transported into an “elsewhere” that is essentially static, in the reading of narrative texts the reader is transported into an “else-when” as well, that is, not simply into a world (of the text), but in addition into a storyworld, a world-inmotion where events take place, the place and time of the characters’ hereand-now experiencing of events. Since this deictic shi in time and space is unique to narrative, it is worth exploring how and why this takes place. e deictic shi occurs in narrative texts due to the interplay between two times, as Seymour Chatman explains: “[...] what makes Narrative unique among text-types is its ‘chrono-logic,’ its doubly temporal logic. Narrative entails movement through time not only ‘externally’ (the duration of the presentation of the novel, film, play) but also ‘internally’ (the duration of the sequence of events that constitute the plot). e first operates in that dimension of narrative called Discourse (or récit or syuzhet), the second in that called Story (histoire or fabula).”19 Meir Sternberg identifies this same unique feature of narrative when he writes that “what distinguishes narrative effects as such from all others [discourse types] is less their play over time than their interplay between times. For it is the interplay of the represented and the presented dynamics [...] that sets narrative apart as a discourse with a double time-pattern.”20 is interplay 18. David H, Story Logic: Problems and Possibilities of Narrative, Lincoln, NE, University of Nebraska Press, 2002, p. 14; also p. 5: “[…] storyworlds are mental models of who did what to and with whom, when, where, why, and in what fashion in the world to which recipients relocate – or make a deictic shi.” For an insightful discussion on the relationship between the world of the story and the real world, see Patrick O’N, Fictions of Discourse: Reading Narrative Theory, Toronto – Buffalo, NY – London, UK, University of Toronto Press, 1996, p. 33-41. 19. For a table listing the various terms and terminologies found in recent theories of narrative, see O’N, Fictions of Discourse (n. 18), p. 21. 20. Meir S, “Telling in Time (II): Chronology, Teleology, Narrativity,” in Poetics Today 13 (1992) 463-541, p. 519. On p. 530-531, Sternberg points out that many of the elements found in narrative also occur in other discourse types or discourse in

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results in the reader being transported to the here-and-now deictic centre of the story, the point from which past, present, and future are reckoned in the unfolding of events taking place in the storyworld.21 e “here-andnow” of the reader’s present interplay with the text overlaps with the “here-and-now” of the characters in the storyworld. And while the discourse for the most part uses the past tense to relate events in the story,22 the reader interprets this past (tense discourse) as present time (in the story), as Mendilow points out: “e common run of novels too contain different degrees of pastness. Mostly the past tense in which events are narrated is transposed by the reader into a fictive present, while any expository matter is felt as a past in relation to that present.”23 In narrative, therefore, there is a two-fold “playing”: (1) the play between the reader’s here-and-now reading of the text which creates the world of the text, and (2) the play between the discourse level and the story level which creates the storyworld. e “taking place” of the first interplay makes possible, through the second interplay, the “taking place” of the story’s general (“spatialities, points of view, language, themes, ideology, nontemporal ordering mechanisms, and time of communication itself ” [p.  530]). However, “Intrisically anything but specific, let alone energetic, those elements become so between the lines of movement. For the common denominators themselves lead a different (because a double) life under the law of narrative, which uniquely superimposes development in mimetic time on disclosure in communicative time; thereby everything must go through the process of happening as well as of telling and reading [...]” (p. 531). See also his article “Universals of Narrative and eir Cognitivist Fortunes (I),” in Poetics Today 24 (2003) 297-395, p.  326-327: “[...] narrative uniquely entails the concurrence of two temporal sequences: that in which events happened and that in which they are told, the dynamics of action and of its narration, represented and communicative time. [...] Narrative uniquely lives [...] not just in or over time but between times, and so do we readers, hearers, viewers, throughout our processing of it as such” [emphasis in original]. 21. See Meir S, Expositional Modes and Temporal Ordering in Fiction, Bloomington, IN – Indianapolis, IN, Indiana University Press, 1978, p. 13-14, 21. 22. “[N]arration is always in the past tense,” Wallace M, Recent Theories of Narrative, Ithaca, NY – London, UK, Cornell University Press, 1986, p.  132; “[...] the preterite is the tense par excellence of the narrative genre of speech ...,” Tullio M, “e Force of Reportive Narratives,” in Papers in Linguistics 17 (1984) 235-265, p. 249. 23. Adam A. M, “e Position of the Present in Fiction,” in Philip S (ed.), The Theory of the Novel, New York, NY, Free Press, 1967, 255-280, p.  263; also, p. 266: “e relation of the tenses used in the novel to those felt by the reader, that is, of the chronological past of the action to the fictive present felt by the reader is that of oratio oblique to oratio recte: the past of the narration – he went – is translated in imagination into I am going or I go; the pluperfect – he had gone – into the present perfect – I have gone or the past – I went; and the conditional – he would go – into the future – I  shall go” [emphases in original]. Regarding this past read as present, Peter B, Reading for the Plot: Design and Intention in Narrative, Cambridge, MA – London, Harvard University Press, 1984, p.  23, muses: “If the past is to be read as present, it is a curious present that we know to be past in relation to a future we know already to be in place, already in wait for us to reach it.”

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events. us with narrative there is an imaginative intensification of the experience of spatiotemporal reality through the overlapping of the hereand-now of the reader’s interaction with the text and the here-and-now of the storyworld.24 e double playing of narrative – the overlapping of present times and the overlapping of presences – is what causes the reader to be transported. In Gadamer’s terms, the experience of the specific kind of art called narrative is a form of self-forgetfulness, of the reader being outside him- or herself, a kind of “ecstasy” in the etymological sense of the word, being out of place, being outside (oneself). 4. Reading and Rereading e upshot of the above analysis is that this narrative capacity occurs not only in (a first) reading, but also in (any subsequent) rereading. Because the deictic shi for narrative texts is both spatial (being transported into an “elsewhere”) and temporal (being transported into an “else-when”), the reader can in imagination be only at one place and at one time in the story: the reader cannot at one and the same time be outside the story and inside the story, seeing the story as it were from above in one total (essentially spatial) perspective all the while being immersed at a specific time and place in it. e overlapping of present times and of presences created by the interplay between the reader and the text on the one hand and the interplay between the discourse level and the story level on the other hand simply will not allow it. is common effect of reading and rereading has been observed by Ricœur, an effect which he attributes to the very structure of narrative due to its particular way of playing with time: in either reading or rereading, one must allow the events narrated to have been future, to be seen as future contingencies from the point of view of the here-and-now of the characters in the storyworld.25 If in non-narrative 24. “e brain, it seems, does not make much of a distinction between reading about an experience and encountering it in real life; in each case, the same neurological regions are stimulated,” A. M P, “Your Brain on Fiction,” http://www.nytimes. com/2012/03/18/opinion/sunday/the-neuroscience-of-your-brain-on-fiction.htm, accessed March 20, 2012. 25. R, Temps et récit I (n. 13), p. 90: “On peut rendre compte de la relation entre le réseau conceptuel de l’action et les règles de composition narrative en recourant à la distinction, familière en sémiotique, entre ordre paradigmatique et ordre syntagmatique. En tant que relevant de l’ordre paradigmatique, tous les termes relatifs à l’action sont synchroniques, en ce sens que les relations d’intersignification qui existent entre fins, moyens, agents, circonstances et le reste, sont parfaitement réversibles. En revanche, l’ordre syntagmatique du discours implique le caractère irréductiblement diachronique de toute histoire racontée. Même si cette diachronie n’empêche pas la lecture à rebours du récit, caractéristique comme nous le verrons de l’acte de re-raconter, cette lecture

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texts the only time factor – that which “happens” or “occurs” – is that constituted by the interplay between the reader and the text (the time it takes to read the text), in narrative texts there is the added time factor of what happens and takes place in the story. Both unfold in time, in the interplay of the two times. As far as rereading is concerned, prior knowledge of characters, events, settings, etc., or other extratextual information brought to text, does not inhibit the reader being transported. Meir Sternberg is worth quoting at length in this regard: Far from a special case, then, the importation of extratextual lore into biblical reading – by those possessed of it – falls under the same rule that governs an event no less common than the importation of textual hindsight into a second reading of a novel. It is an odd but widely attested fact that on a second or tenth reading of Crime and Punishment we still find ourselves asking whether Raskolnikov will murder the old woman. On a corresponding perusal of The Brothers Karamazov, we have no doubt that the murder of the old man is only a question of time – or narrative timing – but then this tragic crime has been anticipated by the narrator as early as the opening paragraph. Such acts of self-induced amnesia (or remembrance) testify to our general ability and readiness to suspend whatever is extraneous to the artful release of information from moment to moment, producing those interplays of ignorance and knowledge that make or break gaps and their effects. In our experience of the irreversible sequences of life, once curiosity or suspense or surprise is past, it is gone forever; in story, once interest is conjured up by imitation of life, it is reproducible at will with each return to the beginning.26

remontant de la fin vers le commencement de l’histoire n’abolit pas la diachronie fondamentale du récit. […] Bornons-nous pour l’instant à dire que, comprendre ce qu’est un récit, c’est maîtriser les règles qui gouvernent son ordre syntagmatique. En conséquence, l’intelligence narrative ne se borne pas à présupposer une familiarité avec le réseau conceptuel constitutif de la sémantique de l’action. Elle requiert en outre une familiarité avec les règles de composition qui gouvernent l’ordre diachronique de l’histoire”; also, p. 224: “Je préfère souligner la sorte d’unilatéralité qui résulte de la substitution d’une phénoménologie de la saisie rétrospective à celle de la saisie directe d’une histoire suivie pour la première fois. Mink ne risque-t-il pas d’abolir, au niveau de l’acte de re-raconter, des traits de l’opération narrative que raconter et re-raconter ont en réalité en commun, parce qu’ils relèvent de la structure même du récit: à savoir, la dialectique entre contingence et ordre, entre épisode et concordance? A travers cette dialectique, n’est-ce pas la temporalité spécifique du récit qui risque d’être méconnue? Le fait est que l’on observe dans les analyses de Louis O. Mink une tendance à dépouiller de tout caractère temporel l’acte même de ‘saisir ensemble,’ caractéristique de l’opération configurante. Le refus d’attribuer aux événements racontés d’avoir été futurs laissait déjà prévoir cette orientation. Celle-ci paraît renforcée par l’insistance sur l’acte de re-raconter aux dépens de celui de suivre une histoire pour la première fois” [emphases in original]. 26. Meir S, The Poetics of Biblical Narrative: Ideological Literature and the Drama of Reading, Bloomington, IN, Indiana University Press, 1985, p. 261-262. See also Hans H – Mario  V, “Suspense, Curiosity, and Surprise: How Discourse Structure Influences the Affective and Cognitive Processing of a Story,” in Poetics 27

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us, if in rereading one “perceives” more and differently than from a first or from any previous rereadings, one still perceives in the “here” and at the “now” of the storyworld, that is, at only one place and at only one moment at a time.27 5. Rereading (and) Biblical narrative Perhaps more than any other book, the Bible has been and continues to be the object of constant rereading. Generally speaking, there are two primary kinds of settings for rereading the Bible, worship and study. e first is characterized by oral performance, the second by study, what Calinescu calls reverential reading or intensive reading, the poring over the details of the text to plumb the depths of its meaning.28 e first is public and communal, the second for the most part individual and private. And while these activities might appear at first blush to be different in kind, they are in fact poles on the same spectrum, different not in kind but only in degree (as is the difference between reading and rereading). is is particularly the case with narrative biblical passages. We look first at oral proclamation.29 In oral proclamation of a narrative text, the interaction between the reader/hearers and the text occurs in their “now,” in their present moment. As well, this interplay “takes place” in their presence, in their “here.” is interplay creates the world of the text. But since it is a narrative that is being performed orally, the interplay between the discourse time and the story time creates the storyworld. As a result, the readers/hearers are transported, all the while still being in their here-and-now, into the hereand-now of the storyworld. While the hearers see and hear the one (2000) 277-286, p. 285: “Apart from changes in perspective, changes in time frame can also lead to the construction of mental spaces. Although people nowadays know that Washington became the first president of the United States, it was uncertain for his contemporaries. e description of Washington’s doubts leads to the construction of a mental space in which the outcome is still unknown, and, thus, suspense can arise. [...] us, even though you may know how a story will end, a change in perspective or time frame leads you into a mental space in which the story’s outcome is still unknown. And as a result, suspense is evoked.” Also, Kendall L. W, “Fearing Fictions,” in The Journal of Philosophy 75 (1978) 5-27, p. 26-27. 27. C, Rereading (n. 1), p. 100: reflective rereading seeks “[...] the discovery of possibilities unsuspected the first time around”; also p. 277. 28. Ibid., p. 80. 29. Walter J. O, in his book Orality and Literacy: The Technologizing of the Word, London, UK – New York, NY, Methuen, 1982, p. 75, observes that “[i]n Christianity, for example, the Bible is read aloud at liturgical services. For God is thought of always as ‘speaking’ to human beings, not as writing to them. e orality of the mindset in the Biblical text, even in its epistolary sections, is overwhelming.”

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reading aloud, they at the same time “see” and “hear” in imagination the events unfolding in the story. ey are outside themselves in self-forgetfulness in order to be present (in both temporal and spatial senses) to the story. e time aspect is particularly pronounced here, for it is only through the time of the reading – word aer word, sentence aer sentence – that the events in the story move forward and unfold. e time-based activity necessarily goes in one direction, with no possibility of slowing down or of freezing the text: sound moves forward inexorably and is irreversible.30 As explained above, the readers/hearers therefore can be at only one place and at one time at a time. For example, in Roman Catholic tradition, the Passion according to John is proclaimed every year on Good Friday. In the course of the oral performance, the assembly hears the following passage: When Pilate heard these words, he brought Jesus outside and sat on the judge’s bench at a place called ‘e Stone Pavement,’ in Hebrew ‘Gabbatha.’ Now it was the day of Preparation for the Passover; and it was about noon. Pilate said to the Jews, ‘Here is your King!’ ey cried out, ‘Away with him! Away with him! Crucify him!’ (John 19:13-15a; NRSV).

At this point in the oral/aural flow of the story, the hearers imagine themselves at one place: the judge’s bench at the Stone Pavement, with Jesus, Pilate, and the Jews. It is noon, informs the narrator. And so the hearers imagine this one moment, noon. While they probably have heard the story (many times) before, and while they may very well know and remember what precedes and what is to come, at the moment they are imaginatively in and at this specific here-and-now of the storyworld. e past tense verbs are experienced as present. e effect of the deictic shi to the storyworld with its overlapping of present times and presences is clearly more pronounced in oral proclamation. However, the effect, even if experienced as somewhat attenuated, occurs as well in private study. I may know from studying the text, for example, that the narrator’s mentioning that “it was the day of Preparation for the Passover” evokes the immolation of hundreds upon hundreds of

30. Isabelle R-C, “La lettre et la voix,” in La Maison-Dieu 190 (1992) 25-49, p. 36: “L’oreille reçoit sur le tympan une série d’ondes sonores intelligibles, qui lui sont transmises de façon intermittente, que le cerveau relie de façon cohérente pour la compréhension immédiate du message ainsi livré. Au théâtre ou dans la liturgie, le lieu d’émission et le lieu d’écoute sont organisés, et la parole est émise par des acteurs ou des lecteurs pour une durée déterminée. La relecture y est impossible, et l’oreille seule doit capter dans son déroulement la formulation sonore d’un texte que le lecteur lance dans l’espace. Chaque auditeur reconstitue dans son esprit la pensée contenue instantanément dans la phrase vocalisée, qui lui est livrée de façon fragmentaire et irréversible.”

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Passover lambs at the Temple from noon well on into the evening.31 I may also know that the author of the Fourth Gospel is here implying that it is Jesus on the cross, and no longer the Passover lambs being sacrificed concurrently in the Temple, who is the true Passover sacrifice. I might also have information about Pilate gleaned from sources outside the Bible.32 Be that as it may, when I am considering all of this information, I am ultimately doing so from the here-and-now of Jesus, Pilate, and the crowds at the stone pavement at noon.33 e added information surely deepens my appreciation of the passage, but when I resume (re)reading I am still anchored in the one time and one place in the storyworld, for it is from this one time and one place that my imagination ranges to events and realities found before, aer, and beyond the here-and-now in the storyworld, only to return to the one place and one time of the narrative passage under scrutiny, a moment whose future has yet to unfold.34 us, whether in oral proclamation or in private study, any activation of a narrative text inexorably transports the reader into another time and place, into its storyworld.35

31. For example, Raymond E. B, The Death of the Messiah: From Gethsemane to the Grave, Vol.  1 (ABRL), New York, NY, Doubleday, 1994, p.  847-848; Rudolf S, The Gospel according to St. John, Vol.  3 (HTCNT), New York, NY, Crossroad, 1982, p. 265. 32. For example, Daniel R. S, “Pontius Pilate,” in David N. F (ed.), ABD, Vol. 5, New York, NY, Doubleday, 1992, 395-401. 33. M, “e Position of the Present in Fiction” (n. 23), p. 267: “[…] the reader feels the past of the novel as present, even if he [sic] is familiar with the story or has read it before, because he transfers to himself the absence in the minds of the characters of the sense of familiarity which, as stated above, is one of the elements that give rise to the idea of pastness.” 34. In fact, it is precisely being aware of the relationships and strategies of the text that emerge from following its movement while reading that makes one curious about the world of the story and the world of the writer, as Rowan W points out in his essay “e Discipline of Scripture” in On Christian Theology (CCT), Oxford, UK – Malden, MA, Blackwell, 2000, 44-59, p. 45. 35. In addition to the similarities here described between oral proclamation and private study, O points out that while writing “enlarges the potentiality of language almost beyond measure, written texts all have to be related somehow, directly or indirectly, to the world of sound, the natural habitat of language, to yield their meanings.” Reading a text, he continues, “means converting it to sound, aloud or in the imagination. [...] Writing can never dispense with orality,” Orality and Literacy (n. 29), p. 7-8. In the same vein, G, Truth and Method (n. 2), p. 153: “[…] there is obviously no sharp differentiation between reciting and silent reading. Reading with understanding is always a kind of reproduction, performance, and interpretation. Emphasis, rhythmic ordering, and the like are part of wholly silent reading too. Meaning and understanding of it are so closely connected with the corporeality of language that understanding always involves an inner speaking as well.”

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6. Conclusion e storyworld of the Bible, of course, contains its own particular aspects, for its overarching plot is the relationship between God and humankind. It is a storyworld that recounts the dramatic events of this relationship, a story of creation, fall, unfaithfulness, liberation, exile, return, and, throughout, the yearning for redemption and ultimate salvation. Every here-and-now in this story is an at times explicit, at times implicit, interweaving of divine initiative and human response. e above discussion of the capacity of narrative to transport the reader or rereader has remained within the narrative text – more precisely, within the time and place of the “playing” of the narrative text which results in creating the storyworld. It has not ventured into the appropriation of the text in what Ricœur calls “reconfiguration,” for that has not been the aim of these reflections.36 At one point, however, the reader’s playing of the text ends, and the reader “returns” from the storyworld to his or her real world. And while the two worlds are not the same (imaginary vs. actual), they nonetheless are not for all that unrelated. e journey into the former can, and is intended to, influence future action in the latter. us, the double play of narrative, with its overlap of present times and presences, suggests that both the biblical storyworld and the reader’s own world also overlap, that both concern the relationship between God and humankind.

36. R, “Monde du texte et monde du lecteur,” in Temps et récit III (n.  16), p. 228-263.

C 9

FRAMED TO BREAK THE FRAME The Liturgical Proclamation of John’s Gospel 1. Introduction In concert with the theme – Narrativité, oralité et performance – of the 7  international colloquium of the Réseau de Recherche en Narratologie et Bible (RRENAB) held at the Université de Montréal, June 5-7, 2014, I here explore some of the effects of liturgical (oral) performance of a narrative biblical text and the narrative features and strategies that produce these effects. More specifically, I intend to show how the liturgy sets up a series of successively descending framed insets such that the innermost inset, by breaking through its embedding frames, re-ascends to embrace the gathered assembly in its here-and-now celebration. Aer briefly ascertaining the performative nature of liturgy and its proclamation of scripture, I turn to Isabelle RenaudChamska’s observation that for the most part liturgy is quotation. is opens the way to a narrative study of quotation, particularly of direct reported speech – its form and its function – as a key feature of the liturgical proclamation of scripture, which I then illustrate with a short passage from John’s Last Supper Discourse. In addition to the form and function of direct reported speech, an examination of the referential content of Jesus’ words in the selected passage shows that the inset breaks through its embedding frames to include the members of the celebrating liturgical assembly. is effect of the liturgy’s use of direct reported speech in the proclamation of scripture is rendered all the more palpable through oral performance, which I discuss via the concept of “voice.” Finally, I conclude with some reflections on how such an analysis of what occurs in the liturgical proclamation of narrative – the liturgy’s “point of view” – might enhance its performance. th

2. The Proclamation of Scripture as (Liturgical) Performance e proclamation of biblical narrative exhibits the essential features of performance. According to Richard Bauman, performance is both a “mode of communicative display” and the “event” in which such display takes place. As communicative display, performance features a performer who “assumes

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responsibility to an audience for a display of communicative virtuosity, highlighting the way in which the act of discursive production is accomplished, above and beyond the additional multiple functions the communicative act may serve.”1 e liturgical proclamation of the scriptures has both a performer (a lector) and an audience (the liturgical assembly). is kind of performance requires a certain virtuosity perfected through training, and it employs a more formal and scripted use of language than normally found in everyday life.2 More importantly, the proclamation of scripture exhibits all of the features Bauman assigns to performance as event: “In anthropological usage, those scheduled, bounded, programmed, participatory events in which the symbols and values of a society are embodied and enacted before an audience – such as ritual, festival, spectacle, theater, concert – are oen termed ‘cultural performances.’”3 As part of a ritual celebration, the proclamation of scripture is scheduled according to a liturgical calendar, framed within an encompassing Liturgy of the Word, programmed in the form of selected excerpts organized in a lectionary, and participatory due to the assembly’s attentiveness and to their voiced responses to the formulas opening and closing the reading of each passage.4 In particular, I would like to stress the event nature of this ritualized performance of scripture in liturgy. As event, it can take place only in the here-and-now, that is, in the presence and in the present time of the worshipping assembly.5 Each proclamation of scripture, therefore, since 1. Richard B, “Performance,” in David H – Manfred J – MarieLaure R (eds.), Routledge Encyclopedia of Narrative Theory, London, UK – New York NY, Routledge, 2005, p. 419-420. 2. See paragraph no. 52 of the “Introduction” to the Lectionary for Mass in Lectionary: Sundays and Solemnities, Ottawa, Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops, 2009, p. xxiii. 3. B, “Performance” (n. 1), p. 420. 4. Ibid.: “e collaborative participation of an audience is an integral component of performance as an interactional accomplishment.” See also Aidan K, On Liturgical Theology: The Hale Memorial Lectures of Seabury-Western Theological Seminary 1981, New York, NY, Pueblo Publishing Company, 1984, p.  136-137; Rowan W, “e Discipline of Scripture,” in On Christian Theology (CCT), Oxford, UK – Malden, MA, Blackwell Publishers, 2000, 44-59, esp. 50-51; Albert H, “e Rediscovery of the Liturgy by Sacramental eology (1950-1980),” in Studies in Liturgy 15 (1982-1983) 158-177, p.  158: “Just like music, [liturgy] exists only when it is performed […].” 5. See, for example, Charles S. P, “e Word: Liturgical Act, Liturgical Art,” in Liturgical Ministry 5 (Summer 1996) 121-127; Iréné-Henri D, Principles of the Liturgy (The Church at Prayer: An Introduction to the Liturgy, Vol. 1), trans. Matthew J. O’C, Collegeville, MN, e Liturgical Press, 1987, p. 274; Achille M. T, “‘Célébrer’ la parole de Dieu: Lignes théologico-liturgiques,” in Achille M. T – Alessandro P (eds.), La prédication liturgique et les commentaires de la liturgie. Conférences Saint-Serge, 38e semaine d’études liturgiques, Paris, 25-28 juin 1990 (BELS, 65), Roma, Edizioni liturgiche, 1992, 221-246.

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it is a verbal performance, is a speech-event. And while liturgy as ritual is by nature repetitive, each celebration is unique and unrepeatable: “no performance,” Bauman explains, “can ever be perfectly replicated.”6 Any repetition is a result of decontextualization and recontextualization: the time and place of a performance are never exactly the same as that of any previous or any successive performance. e same biblical passage proclaimed on the same feast each year is never performed or replicated exactly the same way, nor is the same passage preformed the same way in three different churches on any given Sunday.7 ese characteristics of the liturgical proclamation of scripture – ritualized performance of unrepeatable speech-events – will emerge as key features of direct reported speech analyzed below. But first, liturgy as quotation. 3. Liturgy as Quotation Interestingly, in the Roman Catholic Eucharistic liturgy, except for a presider’s few monitions and the homily, all the texts spoken, proclaimed, or sung, whether voiced by the presider(s) or by the assembly, are words handed down by tradition and take the form of reported speech. e Eucharistic Prayers themselves are pastiches of citations, near-citations, allusions, evocations of one or another passage, phrase, or word bequeathed by scripture or liturgical tradition, as Isabelle Renaud-Chamska astutely observes in an article entitled “La liturgie comme citation.”8 While she illustrates this constitutive, speech-event dimension primarily with a number of formulaic expressions used in the Sunday Eucharistic celebration, the phenomenon of liturgy as citation is all the more prominent and explicit in the proclamation of the scriptures, for here the liturgy engages in

6. B, “Performance” (n. 1), p. 420. 7. Bernhard O, Performanzkritik der Paulusbriefe (WUNT, 296), Tübingen, Mohr Siebeck, 2012, p. 61. 8. Isabelle R-C, “La liturgie comme citation,” in Concilium 259 (1995) 119-126; , “Les citations bibliques dans la liturgie chrétienne,” in Carlo B – Alessandro P (eds.), La liturgie, interprète de l’Écriture II. Dans les compositions liturgiques, prières et chants. Conférences Saint-Serges, XLIXe semaine d’études liturgiques, Paris, 24-27 juin 2002 (BELS, 126), Roma, Edizione Liturgiche, 2003, 17-35, esp. 17-19; in the same volume, Yves-Marie B, “Bible et liturgie,” 259-276, p. 265. e ritualized reading of sacred texts is an ancient and widespread practice, as William A. G points out in his monograph, Beyond the Written Word: Oral Aspects of Scripture in the History of Religion, Cambridge, UK, Cambridge University Press, 1987, p. 65: “Recitation or reading aloud of scripture is a common feature of piety in virtually every scriptural tradition […]. In the early synagogue and early Christian church, the reading aloud of scripture in worship was fundamental to communal life, just as it was in pagan cults of the Hellenistic Mediterranean such as that of Isis.”

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direct reported speech, as the introductory formula indicates: “A reading from […].”9 In structural terms, the liturgy serves as embedding or quoting frame, while the scriptural text, for example of John’s Gospel, plays the role of embedded or quoted inset.10 e Gospel of John in turn, since it is a narrative, serves as embedding or quoting frame for the numerous embedded insets of the characters’ words: “Jesus said to his disciples […].” Both frames and both insets are speech-events: as speech-event, the liturgical frame (primary or outer frame) addresses the present assembly, with John’s Gospel serving as (primary) inset embedded in it; John’s Gospel itself serves as a framing speech-event (secondary or inner frame) addressing the reader, with the characters’ words, speech-events in their own right, as (secondary) insets.11 Any study of the performance of biblical texts in liturgy, therefore, must take into consideration the fact that quoting is constitutive of this liturgical action: it is the performance of a speech-event (Jesus’ words) within a speech-event (John’s Gospel) within a speech-event (liturgical proclamation). 4. Frame and Inset: Formal Features of Direct Reported Speech In terms of form, direct reported speech brings together into mimetic representation two or more speech-events: a framing, embedding instance, and a framed, embedded instance. A speech-event by nature is unique, irreplaceable, and non-reproducible. is devolves from its being an event, and hence it is dependent on its specific here-and-now contextual coordinates,12 with its own participants, characters, settings, aims,

9. is introductory statement underlines the fact that the words to be spoken are not those of the lector. See Isabelle R-C, “La lettre et la voix,” in La MaisonDieu 190 (1992) 25-49, p. 40. 10. at the liturgy of the word quotes scripture, see B, “Bible et liturgie” (n.  8), p.  266. On the use of the narratological concepts of frame and inset, see Meir S, “Proteus in Quotation-Land,” in Poetics Today 3 (1982) 107-156, p.  108; , “Point of View and the Indirections of Direct Speech,” in Language and Style 15 (1982) 67-117, p. 69. e term “speech-event” comes from the latter article. Further on “frame,” see Manfred J, “Quotation eory,” in David H – Manfred J – Marie-Laure R (eds.), Routledge Encyclopedia of Narrative Theory, London, UK – New York, NY, Routledge, 2005, p. 479-480. For the use of “frame” as an apt term to describe the proclamation of scripture in a liturgical setting, see Richard B, “Commentary: Foundations in Performance,” in Journal of Sociolinguistics 15 (2011) 707-720, p. 710, 712. 11. To be more specific, the liturgy quotes the author of John, the author quotes the implied author, the implied author quotes the narrator, the narrator quotes the characters. 12. S, “Proteus in Quotation-Land” (n. 10), p. 130: “For the uniqueness of a discourse rests less in its physical make-up as a sequence of sounds or words than in the contextual coordinates that give that sequence its meaning and function as an expressive structure.” Similarly, while using different concepts, Antoine C, La seconde main, ou le travail de la citation, Paris, Éditions du Seuil, 1979, p. 56-57.

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point of view, etc.13 Each speech-event, the framing discourse and the reported discourse, retains its formal autonomy, as the shiing deictics indicate.14 For example, an omniscient narrator will refer to the story’s characters in the third person and in the past tense; the characters in the story, however, in addressing one another, will tend to use first and second person pronouns, speak in the present tense, and refer to objects and events in the world they experience.15 Since a speech-event cannot by nature be reproduced, it therefore requires another speech-event, or framing instance, in which the original speech-event appears, not in its original state, however, but rather as a representation, an image or mimesis, of the original. Moreover, the represented object has the peculiarity of not being a thing, but a discourse. As Meir Sternberg points out, the represented object is a “subject or manifestation of subjective experience: speech, thought, and otherwise expressive behavior; in short, the world of discourse as opposed to the world of things. In this general sense, all reported discourse – from the direct through the free or the plain indirect to the most summary or allusive quotation – is a mimesis of discourse.”16 Wallace Martin concurs: “[…] when a character speaks, the words are not a substitute for, or representation of, something else. e language of the character is the character, just as the words you and I speak are ourselves, in the eyes of others.”17 Citing someone else’s words, that is, speaking once again the discourse of another, is in fact representing that person. Finally, the objects represented in the quoted words are not those of the quoting, framing, or embedding instance, but those of the speaking subject in the quoted, framed, or embedded inset: it is the 13. e frame and the inset bring “together two (or more) speech-events that by nature are removed from each other in time and place and state of affairs, in the identity of the participants, in their characters, outlooks, interpersonal relations, goals, milieus, languages or dialects […],” S, “Point of View,” (n.  10), p.  72; C, La seconde main (n. 12), p. 57. 14. Marie-Laure R, “‘Je’ Is ‘Un Autre’: Fiction, Quotation, and the Performative Analysis,” in Poetics Today 2 (1981) 127-155, esp. p.  134 and 136-147. See also Cynthia L. M, “Discourse Functions of Quotative Frames in Biblical Narrative,” in Walter R. B (ed.), Discourse Analysis of Biblical Literature: What It Is and What It Offers (SBL Semeia Series, 27), Atlanta, GA, Scholars Press, 1995, 155-182, p.  158: “us, the relation between direct quotation and its frame is one of independence. is independence is manifested in two ways. First, the quotation is syntactically independent of the frame. Second, pronominal reference within the quotation is not identical to that of the frame, but is determined with reference to the frame and in accord with the pragmatic context.” 15. R, “‘Je’ Is ‘Un Autre,’” (n. 14), p. 138-139, discusses the inadequacy of the terms “omniscient” or “third-person” narrator, but they are sufficient for our purposes here. 16. S, “Proteus in Quotation-Land” (n. 10), p. 197 17. Wallace M, Recent Theories of Narrative, Ithaca, NY – London, UK, Cornell University Press, 1986, p. 50 [emphasis in original].

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world as perceived and experienced from the point of view of the quoted subject that is represented to the reader. Applied to the several speech-events in the series of embeddings and insets involved in the liturgical proclamation of John’s Gospel, for example (see further below), the following observations can be made, beginning with the innermost inset of Jesus’ words and moving outward to the liturgical speech-event as primary encompassing frame. Jesus’ words in John 15 are presented as once having been an original speech-event, words purportedly spoken to his disciples during the Last Supper celebrated in an upper room in Jerusalem on the night before he died. e words, since they are presented as being spoken by Jesus, are a manifestation and expression of his subjective experience, of his point of view: this is how he sees himself, the disciples, the world, etc. John’s Gospel in turn constitutes the narrative frame embedding Jesus’ words. e inset (Jesus’ words) is separated by more than half a century in time and probably many miles geographically from the speech-event that is John’s Gospel. John’s Gospel, with its own contextual coordinates, is the manifestation of that author’s (subjective) point of view: the Gospel narrative is how John sees the story of Jesus, which he represents in discourse addressed to the Gospel’s readers. Finally, always moving outward from inset to frame, the liturgy constitutes the final embedding speechevent with its own contextual coordinates: the here-and-now of the worshipping assembly, removed in time and place (and language) from both the speech-event of John’s Gospel and the speech-event of Jesus at the Last Supper. It is the manifestation of the liturgy’s point of view, for the liturgy, in proclaiming John’s Gospel, is engaging in discourse: this is how the present celebrating assembly sees and interprets John’s story of Jesus. Moving in the opposite direction from encompassing frames to encompassed insets, the liturgy’s speech-event, then, represents the discourse or speech-event of John’s Gospel which in turn represents the discourse or speech-event of Jesus’ words. Formally, each event is independent and unique due to its particular spatio-temporal contextualisation. 5. Frame and Inset: Functional Features of Direct Reported Speech If the speech-event of the quoting frame and the speech-event of the quoted inset are different, unique, and irreplaceable because they are events and therefore retain formal independence, bringing them together puts them in motion and thereby creates tension. According to Antoine Compagnon, the etymology of the Latin verb citare, from which is derived the English “cite” and “citation,” intimates as much: “Citare […] c’est

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mettre en mouvement, faire passer du repos à l’action […]; [la citation] est un leurre et une force motrice, son sens est dans l’accident ou dans le choc.”18 Sternberg points in the same direction when he writes that “to quote is to mediate and to mediate is to interfere.”19 is is because (1) the embedding, quoting frame is superimposed on the embedded, quoted inset, thus subordinating the latter to the former as part to whole. is necessarily affects point of view, “for the perspectives of the global speaker and his audience are superimposed on those of the original participants.”20 It is not simply a matter of sequential order, frame followed by inset, but rather of frame enveloping and absorbing the inset for its communicative goals and effects. Moreover, (2) the inset is no longer a speech-event, but now becomes an image or representation of the original speech-event. e original speech-event cannot be reconstructed, for it has been ripped out of its context and is now dominated and invaded by the new context of the framing, embedding, quoting speech-event.21 (3) Because it is cut from its original context and now serves the communicative interests and aims of the frame, the two speech-events are in dynamic tension: “Qua representational discourse, therefore, each act of quotation serves two masters. One is the original speech or thought that it represents, pulling in the direction of maximal accuracy [formal aspect]. e other is the frame that encloses and regulates it, pulling in the direction of maximal efficacy [functional aspect]. Reported discourse thus presents a classic case of divided allegiance, between original-oriented representation (with its face to the world) and frame-oriented communication (with its face to the reader).”22 How do these functional aspects actually translate in a particular instance of quoting? Simply put, the quoting instance seeks to create in its hearers/readers as convincing an impression as possible that the then-and-there of the inset’s speech-event is taking place here-and-now, 18. C, La seconde main (n.  12), p.  44-45; R-C, “Les citations bibliques” (n. 8), p. 19. 19. S, “Proteus in Quotation-Land” (n. 10), p. 108; C, La seconde main (n. 12), p. 38. 20. S, “Proteus in Quotation-Land” (n. 10), p. 131. Also, Meir S, “Epilogue: How (Not) to Advance toward the Narrative Mind,” in Geert B – Jeroen V (eds.), Cognitive Poetics: Goals, Gaps and Gains, Berlin, de Gruyter, 2009, 455-532, esp. 487-488. 21. B, “Performance” (n. 1), p. 420: “In one influential conception of performance, developed by Richard Schechner [Between Theater and Anthropology, Philadelphia, PA, University of Pennsylvania Press, 1985], performance means ‘never for the first time,’ which locates its essence in the decontextualisation and recontextualisation of discourse, with special emphasis on the latter. At the same time, no performance can ever be perfectly replicated, ideologies to the contrary notwithstanding.” 22. S, “Proteus in Quotation-Land” (n. 10), p. 152

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and it does so by speaking again (maximal communicative efficacy) the very words of the characters (maximal formal accuracy). It effects the former by doing the latter, creating the impression of dispelling, or at least rendering ambiguous, fluid, and porous the spatio-temporal distance between the two speech-events, the quoting and the quoted. If formally the two speech-events are independent, functionally and dynamically they are inextricably intertwined. Applied to the three speech-events in the liturgical proclamation of Jesus’ words in John’s Gospel, these functional aspects of direct reported speech yield several observations. Beginning as above with the innermost inset and working outward, Jesus’ words cited in John’s Gospel have been incorporated into and invaded by John’s embedding frame. Jesus’ words, therefore, are no longer an actual speech-event, but a representation of the (purportedly) original event, a mimesis of discourse. e new context of John’s frame interferes with the original context for John’s communicative aims. In other words, what John quotes, how he quotes, when he quotes, and why he quotes cannot but color the point of view of the original speech-event. e here-and-now of the framing communication takes precedence over and dominates the (now past) here-and-now communication between Jesus and his disciples: John’s speech-event addressing his readers (maximal communicative efficacy) insists that these are the very words of Jesus (maximal formal accuracy). John’s strategy of quoting Jesus directly is intended to create the impression that it is Jesus himself who is speaking, and if it is Jesus himself speaking, then what is being transmitted is Jesus’ subjective point of view. Next, John’s Gospel itself is an embedded inset of the liturgy’s speechevent of proclamation. As the Gospel’s frame invades and interferes with and colors the inset of Jesus’ words, so in like manner does the liturgical frame vis-à-vis John’s Gospel. e original speech-event of John communicating to his readers now becomes a representation or mimesis of discourse serving the aims of the framing speech-event of the liturgy. What, how, when, and why the liturgy quotes devolves from the liturgy’s interests: the liturgy addressing the assembly (maximal communicative efficacy) underscores that these are the very words of John (maximal formal accuracy). e liturgy’s strategy of quoting John directly is intended to create the impression that it is John’s narrator who is speaking, a narrator who in turn quotes Jesus’ very words. Only through this double embeddedness – quoting an instance that itself quotes – can Jesus’ words be made present to the liturgical assembly. is combination of maximal communicative effect via maximal formal accuracy becomes all the more evident with the content of Jesus’ words, to which I now turn.

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6. Content of Jesus’ Words in John 15:1-11 John’s Gospel manifests a predilection for quoting characters in the story it narrates. Fully 72% (627 of 868) of the verses in John’s Gospel are devoted, in part or in whole, to words attributed in direct reported speech to characters. Of this 72%, nearly two-thirds (421 verses) contain, in part or in whole, words attributed to the character Jesus. ree types of expressions or locutions among the many Jesus speaks merit consideration for the communicative effect they create: (1) instances where Jesus uses a generic subject, that is, a subject that does not specify any person in particular in the audience he is addressing, such as ὁ πιστεύων, ὁ μένων, πᾶς ὁ πιστεύων, ἐάν τις + verb (and similar expressions); (2) instances, at times even in the same verse, where Jesus shis from the locution just mentioned to the second person plural “you” or vice versa; and (3) instances in which Jesus uses future tense verbs, especially when coordinated with one or both of the previously-mentioned locutions. All three can be found concentrated within a short passage from John’s Last Supper Discourse, John 15:111 (New Jerusalem Bible), reproduced here to facilitate reference: John 15:1-11 I am the true vine, and my Father is the vinedresser. 2 Every branch in me that bears no fruit he cuts away, and every branch that does bear fruit he prunes to make it bear even more. 3 You are clean already, by means of the word that I have spoken to you. 4 Remain in me, as I in you. As a branch cannot bear fruit all by itself, unless it remains part of the vine, neither can you unless you remain in me. 5 I am the vine, you are the branches. Whoever remains in me, with me in him, bears fruit in plenty; for cut off from me you can do nothing. 6 Anyone who does not remain in me is thrown away like a branch – and withers; these branches are collected and thrown on the fire and are burnt. 7 If you remain in me and my words remain in you, you may ask for whatever you please and you will get it. 8 It is to the glory of my Father that you should bear much fruit and be my disciples. 9 I have loved you just as the Father has loved me. Remain in my love. 10 If you keep my commandments you will remain in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and remain in his love. 11 I have told you this so that my own joy may be in you and your joy be complete.

(1) e locutions usually translated in English as “whoever,” “anyone who,” “the one who,” “no one who” appear more than five dozen times on the lips of Jesus and are sown pretty much throughout the entire Gospel narrative. Such pervasive usage clearly constitutes a characteristic trait of Jesus’ discourse in John. Because the referential sense remains indefinite and generic, these locutions include not only anyone in the audience Jesus is addressing, but anyone at any time and place. Two instances, for example, occur in John 15:5-6: ὁ μένων ἐν ἐμοὶ κἀγὼ ἐν αὐτῷ οὗτος φέρει καρπὸν πολύν […]. ἐὰν μή τις μένῃ ἐν ἐμοί, ἐβλήθη ἔξω ὡς τὸ κλῆμα καὶ ἐξηράνθη

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καὶ συνάγουσιν αὐτὰ καὶ εἰς τὸ πῦρ βάλλουσιν καὶ καίεται (“Whoever remains in me, with me in him [or her], bears fruit in plenty […]. Anyone who does not remain in me is thrown away like a branch – and withers; these branches are collected and thrown on the fire and are burnt”). e present participle μένων (“remaining”) or the third person singular present subjective phrase ἐὰν μή τις μένῃ (“Anyone who does not remain”), since they are generic and unspecified, apply to anyone, not simply those to whom Jesus addresses these words in the purported original speech-event. As a result, these expressions reach beyond the here-and-now of Jesus’ original speech-event to include the readers addressed in the speech-event of John’s framing narrative (John’s hearers/readers) as well as the assembly addressed in the speech-event of the liturgical proclamation.23 In other words, the meaning of the innermost inset of Jesus’ words referentially breaks through the double embedding frames to reach the here-and-now of the liturgical assembly that is doing the quoting in its own speech-event. As well, since direct reported speech allegedly represents the actual words of Jesus which express his subjective point of view, all three “audiences” – Jesus’ audience in the story, John’s hearers/readers, and the liturgical assembly – are embraced in Jesus’ subjective intention and awareness. e framed “one” (or its equivalent) is indeed the one whom Jesus has in mind. us, the use of direct reported speech first by the liturgy and then by John’s Gospel, now with the content added to the formal and functional aspects discussed earlier, serves well the liturgy’s aim of creating in the assembly the sense of Jesus’ words being present, and of the present assembly already having been present in Jesus’ intention and point of view. rough the embeddings and insets, the liturgy reaches down through John’s thenand-there to Jesus’ then-and-there, to make both rebound upward through the frames to the assembly’s here-and-now so that those who hear may embrace Jesus’ words and live accordingly. (2) At times, the locution discussed above in (1) is paired with second person plural. A case in point is the entire verse only partially cited above. In full it reads: ἐγώ εἰμι ἡ ἄμπελος, ὑμεῖς τὰ κλήματα. ὁ μένων ἐν ἐμοὶ κἀγὼ 23. On a similar locution found in the Bread of Life discourse (Jn 6:54), Jo-Ann A. B, Dialogue and Drama: Elements of Greek Tragedy in the Fourth Gospel, Peabody, MA, Hendrickson, 2004, p. 157, points out that “on the dramatic axis, Jesus’ signifier has no referent. On the theatrical axis, it is possible and even probable that the first audience contained people who had eaten bread and drunk wine blessed with words such as those found in 1 Cor 11:25 and believed that the terms regarding those who ate Jesus’ flesh and drank his blood could or did refer to them […]. Perhaps more important, on the theatrical axis, the disparity between how Jesus’ words are received prior to his resurrection and how they are taken aer that event become clear to the gospel’s audience.” See also Josaphat C. T, Apprehension of Jesus in the Gospel of John (WUNT, 2. Reihe, 399), Tübingen, Mohr Siebeck, 2015, p. 165.

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ἐν αὐτῷ οὗτος φέρει καρπὸν πολύν, ὅτι χωρὶς ἐμοῦ οὐ δύνασθε ποιεῖν οὐδέν (“I am the vine, you are the branches. Whoever remains in me, with me in him [or her], bears fruit in plenty; for cut off from me you can do nothing”). Here Jesus moves from “you are the branches” to “the one who remains in me” to “without me you can do nothing.” While the second person plural “you” refers to the disciples whom Jesus is addressing in his original speechevent, this “you” becomes ambiguous by being paired with the “whoever” locution. As a result, the generic, referentially unspecified “one” bleeds into the contiguous “you” of the last part of the verse “you can do nothing,” thereby including the “you” in the “one.”24 In this way, those addressed as “you” are no longer limited to the here-and-now of the original speechevent, but subtly tends to include the “you” addressed in John’s narrative and the “you” addressed in the liturgical celebration. A similar effect occurs in the next two verses, the first verse with a generic, referentially unspecified subject, the following verse shiing to the second person plural “you”: ἐὰν μή τις μένῃ ἐν ἐμοί, ἐβλήθη ἔξω ὡς τὸ κλῆμα καὶ ἐξηράνθη καὶ συνάγουσιν αὐτὰ καὶ εἰς τὸ πῦρ βάλλουσιν καὶ καίεται. ἐὰν μείνητε ἐν ἐμοὶ καὶ τὰ ῥήματά μου ἐν ὑμῖν μείνῃ, ὃ ἐὰν θέλητε αἰτήσασθε, καὶ γενήσεται ὑμῖν (“Anyone who does not remain in me is thrown away like a branch – and withers; these branches are collected and thrown on the fire and are burnt. If you remain in me and my words remain in you, you may ask for whatever you please and you will get it”). is same shiing from the generic subject “one” or its equivalent to the plural “you” in fact is a feature of all of John 15:1-11. e ambiguity well serves John’s aims and the liturgy’s aims. It creates a sense of contextual indeterminacy and fluidity, with the effect that those who hear experience themselves as being addressed directly by Jesus’ words: across time and space he is speaking to them in their here-and-now. (3) e third content-related feature contributing to frame-breaking insets in John is Jesus’ use of the future tense verbs, particularly in coordination with or juxtaposition to the two previously discussed locutions. Here, the generic, unspecified referentiality of “one,” ambiguating and extending the sense of the contiguous plural “you,” is made to reach beyond and outside the context of the original speech-event by means of a future orientation, as, for example, in verse 7 cited above: ὃ ἐὰν θέλητε αἰτήσασθε, καὶ γενήσεται ὑμῖν (“you may 24. e order of presentation, whether globally or locally, in a time art such as narrative influences the rhetorical impact and significance. See Meir S, The Poetics of Biblical Narrative: Ideological Literature and the Drama of Reading, Bloomington, IN, Indiana University Press, 1985, p. 478-479, 490-491; Emma K, “Not (Yet) Knowing: Epistemological Effects of Deferred and Suppressed Information in Narrative,” in David H (ed.), Narratologies: New Perspectives on Narrative Analysis, Columbus, OH, Ohio State University, 1999, p. 33-65.

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ask for whatever you please and you will get it”). Because the preceding “one” in v. 6 is indefinite, making the referential meaning of the adjoining “you” of vv. 7a and 7b fluid, the use of the future in v. 7c acquires greater extension through cumulative effect. e future can at one and the same time be the future of the disciples of the original inset’s context, the future of John’s hearers/readers, and the future of the worshipping assembly. In all three instances, those being included in the “one” and addressed as “you” are present in Jesus’ subjective intention and point of view because they hear his words. e liturgy’s ritual proclamation of the scriptures, then, employs the performative discourse strategy of quoting to achieve its aim of actualization, of making present for the gathered assembly the Gospel tradition that the church has inherited. e formal, functional, and content-referential features of certain narrative passages from scripture, as illustrated in excerpts from John’s recounting of Jesus’ Last Supper Discourse with its use of the generic, non-specific “one” locutions that in turn render the plural “you” and future verbs referentially fluid and more extensive, are the mechanisms that create and facilitate this outcome, an outcome whose effect is all the more perceptible through (oral) proclamation. 7. The Role of “Voice” in Liturgical Proclamation Having analyzed the phenomenon of direct reported speech as the key feature of liturgical proclamation, particularly in the case of a narrative text, I now to return to the concept of performance presented in my opening section to show how performance enhances and intensifies quotation’s communicative effect. To do so, I will focus on “voice,” or what Patrick O’Neill calls “the ventriloquism effect.”25 O’Neill begins by stating that all narratives “are uttered, whether metaphorically or literally, by the voice of a narrator.”26 By “literally” he has in mind a teller telling a story to someone who is listening. In doing so, the teller speaks the voice of the story’s narrator. By “metaphorically,” on the other hand, he points to the silent reading of a narrative where the reader imaginatively “hears” a voice telling the story, the “voice” of the narrator.27 In both instances, but more obviously in the case of telling, 25. Patrick O’N, The Fictions of Discourse: Reading Narrative Theory, Toronto – Buffalo, NY – London, UK, University of Toronto Press, 1996, p. 58-82. 26. Ibid., p. 60. 27. Even in silent reading, voice and sound are not absent. See Walter J. O, Orality and Literacy: The Technologizing of the Word, London – New York, NY, Methuen, 1982, p.  8 “‘Reading’ a text means converting it to sound, aloud or in the imagination […]. Writing can never dispense with orality.” Also, Hans-Georg G, Truth and Method, 2nd rev. edition.

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the narrator, in quoting a character in the story, voices the quoted words of the character, creating the impression that the hearer is within ear-shot of the character’s voice and hears the character directly. But it is always the voice of the teller the hearer hears, for the teller is in effect enacting or performing the words of the narrator who in turn is performing the words of the character, for both narrator and character are absent.28 Otherwise, there would be no need to quote.29 In the case of John’s Gospel, John’s narrator quotes the words of Jesus, and does so in the narrator’s own “voice,” for Jesus is absent from the narrator’s speech-event addressing the narratee. Liturgical proclamation Trans. rev. by Joel W – Donald G. M, London, UK – New York, NY, Continuum, 2004 [1975]), p. 153: “[…] there is obviously no sharp differentiation between reciting and silent reading. Reading with understanding is always a kind of reproduction, performance, and interpretation. Emphasis, rhythmic ordering, and the like are part of wholly silent reading too. Meaning and understanding of it are so closely connected with the corporeality of language that understanding always involves an inner speaking as well”; and Wolfgang I, The Act of Reading: A Theory of Aesthetic Response, Baltimore, MD – London, UK, Johns Hopkins University Press, 1978, p. 150, and especially p. 125-129: “e Text as Event.” 28. Alla B-C, The Word’s Body: An Incarnational Aesthetic of Interpretation, University, AL, University of Alabama Press, 1979, p. 1. A re-presentation or mimesis is a performance, as Egbert J. B points out in his article “Mimesis as Performance: Rereading Auerbach’s First Chapter,” in Poetics Today 20 (1999) 11-26, p. 16-17: “e discussion of mimesis in connection with performance, in fact, is inevitable insofar as the very word mímēsis in Ancient Greek denotes an action, a performance. e substantive mímēsis is an action noun formed from the verb mimeîsthai (to represent or imitate). Moreover, this verb is in the middle voice, which means that its grammatical subject is necessarily affected by the action denoted: Mimeîsthai is what people do, not what things are. us mímēsis originally does not denote a relation between a text (as in a finished product) and its referent, but between an action (i.e., a process) and its model. is ‘performative’ sense of mímēsis is prominent in the third book of Plato’s Republic (393b-d), where the word seems to be used for the first time as a theoretical term. Mímēsis is used here to denote impersonation, ‘becoming another,’ and is applied to the passages in Homer that we would characterize as ‘direct speech’ or ‘character’s speech.’ In these passages, according to Plato, the poet, Homer, becomes his character, assimilates himself to him or her […]” [emphases in original]. Florian C, “Reported Speech: Some General Issues,” in Florian C (ed.), Direct and Indirect Speech (TLSM, 31), Berlin – New York, NY – Amsterdam, Mouton de Gruyter, 1986, 1-28, p. 2: “In direct speech the reporter lends his voice to the original speaker and says (or writes) what he said, thus adopting his point of view, as it were. Direct speech, in a manner of speaking, is not the reporter’s speech, but remains the reported speaker’s speech whose role is played by the reporter”; Tullio M, “e Force of Reportive Narratives,” in Papers in Linguistics 17 (1984) 235-265, p. 256: “[...] while the narrator reports an event, in using reported speech he also enacts that event [...] [R]eported speech is a performative speech act. e performative character of reported speech contributes to its veracity, to its power to convince. Nevertheless, the truth at stake is not that of the logician (propositional) but rather the felicity or happiness of the conditions. e important thing to bear in mind [is] that while the narrator reports an event, in using reported speech he also enacts that event” [emphasis in original]. 29. See my article “e Illusion of Immediacy: A Narrative-Critical Exploration of the Bible’s Predilection for Direct Discourse,” in Theoforum 31 (2000) 131-151 (reproduced in this volume, chapter 1).

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adds another framing layer to John’s Gospel, as mentioned above. e same “voicing” phenomenon is replicated at this higher level: the lector quotes John’s narrator, who is absent from the liturgical speech-event, and does so in the lector’s own voice, enacting or performing the narrator’s speaking. As a result, the liturgical assembly hears only the lector’s voice, who speaks the words of John’s narrator, who in turn speaks the words of Jesus. e simultaneous and concurrent sound-effect of the one voice speaking John’s narrator and necessarily Jesus’ words devolves from the nature of liturgy as event and from the oral-aural nature of the performance of scripture. For sound is always an event: it is ephemeral; it unfolds temporally in only one direction and cannot be reversed; it is produced only in the here-and-now; it indicates present (in time) and presence (in space).30 All of these aspects of voice conspire to enhance the effect of the liturgical proclamation of the kind of locutions illustrated in the short passage from John’s Last Supper Discourse. e immediacy of the lector’s voice as sound abets the effect of the locutions’ capacity to break through their embedding frames, creating the impression that Jesus is speaking not only to his disciples, not only to John’s narratee, but also, and perhaps all the more expressly, to the liturgical assembly being addressed. Jesus is rendered “present” to the assembly, but this presence comes about only through the voicing of the words of the embedding frames and the embedded insets: Jesus’ words are so framed to break their frames.31 As the primary quoting instance whose point of view dominates, the liturgy quotes John who in turn quotes Jesus so that Jesus’ point of view might be awakened and made present. Due to the character Jesus’ use of the indefinite and generic “one” in his locutions, the liturgical assembly, hearing these “very words of Jesus” voiced by John’s narrator via the liturgy’s lector, experiences itself as included in Jesus’ point of 30. See especially Walter J. O, Chap.  3: “Word as Sound,” in The Presence of the Word: Some Prolegomena for Cultural and Religious History, Minneapolis, MN, University of Minnesota Press, 1981 [1967], 111-175. 31. “Especially Jesus’ farewell discourse in John 14–17 reads as a déjà vu account of how the primitive Church was to experience and propagate the risen Christ: He was to be present among his followers through the Spirit. is presence was manifested in keeping and speaking his words. Our knowledge of the oral tradition suggests that this is the proper context within which to understand this discourse,” J.A. (Bobby) L, Oral and Manuscript Culture in the Bible: Studies on the Media Texture of the New Testament – Explorative Hermeneutics, 2nd edition (BPCS, 7), Eugene, OR, Cascade Books, 2013, p.  166-167. See also Kristina D, “Transmissions from Scripturality to Orality: Hearing the Voice of Jesus in Mark 4:1-34,” in Annette W – Robert B. C (eds.), The Interface of Orality and Writing: Speaking, Seeing, Writing in the Shaping of New Genres, Tübingen, Mohr Siebeck, 2010, 119-129.

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view, in his subjective referential intention. It is for this communicative effect that the scriptures are presented orally in Roman Catholic Eucharistic celebrations. While in the developed world most members of the liturgical assembly are literate, the liturgy would never invite the assembly to read silently the day’s scripture passages in pew bibles or pocket missals. In liturgical celebration, the scriptures are to be performed, for liturgy is an event. Indeed, the scriptures were made to be read aloud.32 For all these reasons, then, liturgy is the true home of scripture.33 8. Reflections on Performance What incidence can the above analysis of the liturgy’s use of direct reported speech in proclaiming biblical narrative have on its performance, a performance that perforce has characteristics peculiar to it? e liturgical proclamation of biblical narrative sets in motion a dynamic tension between facets that, although distinct, are as inseparable as two sides of a coin. According to Alla Bozarth-Campbell, the lector at one and the same time incarnates the text and witnesses to it.34 In voicing the text the lector

32. R-C, “La lettre et la voix” (n.  9), p.  29; Louis-Marie C, “L’archi-oralité des textes liturgiques. L’exemple de la prière eucharistique,” in La Maison-Dieu 226 (2001) 123-138, esp. p. 126-129; William A. G, “Scripture as Spoken Word,” in Miriam L (ed.), Rethinking Scripture: Essays from a Comparative Perspective, Albany, NY, State University of New York Press, 1989, 129-169; Richard W. S, “Taking Place/Taking Up Space,” in Holly E. H – Philip R-J (eds.), The Bible in Ancient and Modern Media: Story and Performance (BPCS, 1), Eugene, OR, Cascade Books, 2009, 129-141; Joanna D, “e Gospel of John in Its OralWritten Media World,” in The Oral Ethos of the Early Church: Speaking, Writing, and the Gospel of Mark (BPCS, 8), Eugene, OR, Cascade Books, 2013, chapter 2, 31-49, p. 32, 34: in antiquity, the word was written for the ear. Also, Dewey maintains that, of all the books in the New Testament, Mark and John are the most orally-oriented (p. 35). In a private communication aer reading a dra of this paper, André Wénin, underscoring the oral aspect of the scriptures, aptly comments: “Chez les Juifs, Écriture (au sens des Écritures) se dit miqra’; proclamation (qara’ renvoie toujours à une émission de sons bien audibles)” [reproduced here with his kind permission]. 33. Rowan W, “e Discipline of Scripture” (n.  4), p.  51: Aer describing what he calls a “dramatic” mode of reading Scripture, i.e, “by following it through in a single time-continuum, reading it as a sequence of changes, a pattern of transformations,” Williams goes on to comment: “If it is correct to see the ‘dramatic’ mode of exegesis as part of what the sensus litteralis in its diachronic character includes, there is clearly a sense in which literal reading involves public performance – a tangible ‘taking of time’ now for the presentation of the time of the text. us the use of a scriptural lectionary bound to the festal cycle (annual, biennial or triennial) is a major mediation of the literal sense. And at certain seasons, above all the paschal celebration, this is intensified in a way very evidently designed to bring our time and the time of the canonical narrative together.” 34. B-C, The Word’s Body (n. 28), p. 65.

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must necessarily interiorize the words and their meaning, yet the words, since they are words of another, remain exterior to him or her.35 e lector as one who incarnates the text invests her or his intelligence, emotions, and public reading skills, etc., so as to re-present well the voices being cited. At the same time, since the words being quoted are those of another, the lector must divest her- or himself of anything that might give the impression of owning the words being voiced: as much as the lector incarnates the words of scripture, he or she is being addressed by them as well. is peculiar characteristic of the liturgical proclamation of biblical narrative emerges most explicitly in the instances discussed above when, for example, the character Jesus in John’s Gospel uses locutions featuring a generic “one” that at times also encompasses the “you” being addressed, and where future verbs further qualify both “one” and “you”: the lector, and not only the worshipping assembly, are included in Jesus’ intention. And while this phenomenon is less obvious when a lector voices John’s narrator, it is nonetheless at work here as well due to the dynamism that devolves from the liturgy’s use direct reported speech. at is why the proclamation of biblical narrative in liturgy remains a reading, as the opening phrase of a liturgical proclamation indicates (“A reading from […]”), and not a recitation nor a dramatization. If the lector seeks to espouse the liturgy’s point of view, then, a careful balance between investing one’s imagination and talents in the words being spoken, along with a certain divesting oneself through restraint and humility before the words being spoken, is to be cultivated.36 9. Conclusion e power of performance enhances and intensifies what is already inherent in the phenomenon of quotation, particularly quotation used as a narrative strategy. Framing the words of another in an inset can create the effect, at times subliminally, at times overtly, of breaking through the very frame doing the framing. And since framing and quoting have to do with speech-events, “voice” plays an integral and essential role. e liturgy’s use of John’s Gospel, with its predilection for placing carefully craed locutions in the mouth of Jesus, exploits the oral performance of framing and quoting to its calculated, palpable advantage. It makes the

35. R-C, “La lettre et la voix” (n. 9), p. 40-41. 36. Ibid., p. 40: “Dans la liturgie, une certaine retenue est de mise […]. La tradition ecclésiastique de son côté vise à modérer et contenir l’activité gestuelle, au nom de la vertu et de la décence.” See also B, “Commentary” (n. 10), p. 712-713.

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past present and the present experienced as the intended future of a past speech-event, all of this in what can only properly be called “liturgical time.” A heightened awareness of what transpires in the liturgy’s proclamation of biblical narrative – its strategy of setting up a series of quoting instances and quoted insets – can further enhance and help guide its performance.

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RECOGNIZING THE RISEN JESUS Narrative Curiosity in John 21:1-14 1. Introduction e New Testament Gospels deal with the risen Christ through the medium of written narratives, some recounting the discovery of the empty tomb, others his appearances to one or more of his followers. Is the narrative nature of these stories merely incidental to their interpretation? Already in 1996, in a short essay entitled “Between the Cherubim: e Empty Tomb and the Empty rone,” Rowan Williams intuited that their being in the form of narratives must somehow be vital to their interpretation. “Is there anything,” he asks, “in the structure, the patterning of the stories, which might bring us to the substance of resurrection belief by a different route?”1 Narrative analysis, while not so much by a route different from historical-critical methods than a complementary one, reveals literary dimensions in these stories that are integral to their interpretation and appropriation. In what follows, I propose to illustrate this capacity of narrative through an analysis of the appearance story in John 21:1-14, the episode of Jesus manifesting himself again to the disciples by the Sea of Tiberias.2 1. Rowan W, “Between the Cherubim: e Empty Tomb and the Empty rone,” in On Christian Theology (CCT), Oxford, UK – Malden, MA, Blackwell, 2000, chapter  12, 183-196, p.  186. On the importance of the literary-narrative nature of the gospels generally, see Frank K, “John,” in Robert A – Frank K (eds.), The Literary Guide to the Bible, Cambridge, MA, e Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1987, 440-466, p. 441-442. For John’s Gospel particularly, Gail O’D, Revelation in the Fourth Gospel: Narrative Mode and Theological Claim, Philadelphia, PA, Fortress, 1986, p. 47: “e mode of revelation is not incidental but essential to the Johannine theology of revelation.” 2. While any study of chapter  21 presupposes the larger context of the preceding twenty chapters, I focus exclusively on its narrative features. For the larger context, see, for example, Patrick E. S, “Narrative Echoes in John 21: Intertextual Interpretation and Intratextual Connection,” in JSNT 75 (1999) 49-68; Larry D. G, Reading the Tapestry: A Literary-Rhetorical Analysis of the Johannine Resurrection Narrative (John 20–21) (Studies in Biblical Literature, 14), New York, NY – Bern, Lang, 2000. For a helpful recent discussion of the many issues regarding John 21 (source, form, redaction, authenticity, unity), see Stanley E. P, “Jesus and the Ending of John’s Gospel,”

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Aer first presenting Meir Sternberg’s functional approach to narrative, I briefly show that John 21:1-14 exhibits the characteristics of curiosity, one of the three universals of narrativity. I then proceed to analyze the selected episode, highlighting three narrative techniques employed by the narrator to guide the reader in retrospectively inferring the links that hold the story together. In conclusion, I submit that a narrative analysis of the episode, with a focus on the reader’s process of engaging in cumulative retrospective inference, furnishes a paradigm for recognizing and recounting experiences of the presence and activity of the risen Christ. 2. Functional Narratology Meir Sternberg’s functional narratology offers a particularly apt methodological means for investigating the narrative nature of John 21:1-14.3 Sternberg’s approach begins by stipulating that (1) narrative, in any medium, is the communicating of an event, a happening, or an action. (2) Time constitutes the key factor, for it generates what is unique to narrative among communicative genres: its narrativity. (3) Narrativity results from the interplay between two times, representing time and represented time, discourse time and story time.4 (4) Due to this interplay between times, Sternberg then distils three universal processual tensions (forces, effects) of narrative: suspense, curiosity, and surprise (prospection, recognition, and retrospection). Each in their own way, these universals embrace the unique double drama characteristic of narrative, the chap. 9 in John, His Gospel, and Jesus: In Pursuit of the Johannine Voice, Grand Rapids, MI – Cambridge, UK, Eerdmans, 2015, 224-245. at vv. 1 and 14 form an inclusio, see, among others, Martin H, “e Significance of the Resurrection Appearance in John 21,” in Craig R. K – Reimund B (eds.), The Resurrection of Jesus in the Gospel of John (WUNT), Tübingen, Mohr Siebeck, 2008, 311-328, p. 312; Raymond E. B, “e Resurrection in John 21 – Missionary and Pastoral Directives,” in Ronald D. W (ed.), Christ in the Gospels of the Liturgical Year, Collegeville, MN, e Liturgical Press, 2008, 255-266, p.  256; Beverly Roberts G, “e Archive of Excess: John 21 and Problem of Narrative Closure,” in R. Alan C – C. Clion B (eds.), Exploring the Gospel of John: In Honor of D. Moody Smith, Louisville, KY, Westminster John Knox, 1996, 243-252, p. 242: “Chapter 21 consists of two scenes narrated in the third person (vv.  1-14 and 15-23)”; Tanja Sss, Das Petrusbild im Johannesevangelium (WUNT, 2. Reihe, 329), Tübingen, Mohr Siebeck, 2012, p.  149. Kasper B. L, in his monograph Recognizing the Stranger: Recognition Scenes in the Gospel of John (BIS, 93), Leiden – Boston, MA, Brill, 2008, p. 211, considers John 21:1-14 to be a clear instance of a recognition story, a type of literary subform or micro-genre (p. 6). 3. For a relatively recent and thorough presentation of his functional narratology, see Meir S, “Narrativity: From Objectivist to Functional Paradigm,” in Poetics Today 31 (2010) 507-659, esp. p. 632-648. 4. Sternberg, “Narrativity” (n. 3), p. 635.

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drama of the characters in the story world as they live the events recounted, and the drama of the reader who struggles to make sense of the timed disclosure of information experienced along the reading process.5 e basic characteristics of each narrative universal can be briefly summarized as follows: Suspense (a) is oriented to the narrative future. It “arises from rival scenarios about the future: from the discrepancy between what the telling lets us readers know about the happening (e.g., a conflict) at any moment and what still lies ahead, ambiguous because yet unresolved in the world.”6 More oen than not, (b) the telling is parallel with what is happening in the story. As a result, (c) the discourse tends to be mostly transparent to the action described. Curiosity, on the other hand, (a) is oriented to the narrative past: “knowing that we do not know, we go forward with our mind on the gapped antecedents, trying to infer (bridge, compose) them in retrospect.”7 Here, (b) the telling tends to be more discontinuous with what is happening in the story, and as a result (c) the discourse is less transparent to the action taking place. Finally, surprise is also (a) past-oriented: “the narrative first unobtrusively gaps or twists its chronology, then unexpectedly discloses to us our misreading and enforces a corrective rereading […].”8 If the discourse appeared at first to be continuous with the action in the story, the unexpected disclosure shows that it had been (b) manipulated and twisted all along, and therefore (c) turns out to have been less transparent to the action than at first assumed.

5. Meir S, “Universals of Narrative and eir Cognitivist Fortunes (I),” in Poetics Today 24 (2003) 297-395, p. 362: “ey all [suspense, curiosity, surprise] entail, among them exhaust, hence signal to the reader, gaps (‘questions’) opened by the narrative, felt discontinuities in the given sequence. Together, they accordingly not only explain what but perforce determine where (to a large extent, also which, how, etc.) inferential counterwork will be brought to bear on the narrative. Where we experience trouble with coherence, there we seek an inferential remedy applicable to it: and the bigger the trouble, the more urgent the search.” See also his Expositional Modes and Temporal Ordering in Fiction, Bloomington, IN, Indiana University Press, 1978, p.  65, and “Narrativity” (n. 3), p. 640, for similar discussions. For a yet more extensive presentation of these three narrative universals with examples drawn from the Hebrew Scriptures, see Meir S, The Poetics of Biblical Narrative: Ideological Literature and the Drama of Reading, Bloomington, IN, Indiana University Press, 1985, chapter 8, 264-320. 6. Meir S, “How Narrativity Makes a Difference,” in Narrative 9 (2001) 115-122, p.  117. Quoted by S in his later article “Universals of Narrative (I)” (n. 5), p. 327. 7. S, “How Narrativity” (n. 6), p. 117. 8. Ibid.; S, Expositional Modes (n. 5), p. 244.

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3. John 21:1-14: An Instance of Narrative Curiosity In light of the above description of the three universal processual forces, John 21:1-14 exhibits the characteristics of narrative curiosity. From the very outset, the narrator discloses the outcome: Jesus appeared to the disciples by the Sea of Tiberias. What the reader does not know and therefore will be “curious” to learn – the gap to be filled, the coherence sought – is how this event happened. Indeed, this is explicitly promised by the narrator in v. 1b: Jesus “revealed [himself] in this way.” As a result, the reader attempts to understand the pertinence and relevance of each new disclosure of information to previous disclosures, ultimately reaching all the way back to the opening event. Succinctly put, in a curiosity-based narrative the reader engages in cumulative retrospective inference, always seeking to fill in as satisfyingly as possible the knowledge gaps as they occur along the process of reading.9 As expected in a text designed to elicit the narrative tension of curiosity, the discourse tends to be more opaque, that is, less transparent to the action in the story than is generally the case, for example, with suspense.10 It is more artificial, more incomplete, or, in Sternberg’s term, more “gappy.” By drawing attention to itself, the discourse creates in the reader a certain sense of distance from what is taking place in the story world. is feature of curiosity can to a great degree be observed in the role of the narrator, whose interventions in the form of select narrative techniques and strategies makes its voice more perceptible to the reader.11 In the appearance story recounted in John 21:1-14, this narratorial presence is particularly discernible through three techniques and strategies aimed at inciting and guiding the reader’s cumulative retrospective inference: the use of the inferential connective particle οὖν, the use of explanatory asides, and the use of direct reported speech followed by a summary description of ensuing action.

9. S, “Universals of Narrative (I)” (n.  5), p.  382. For a more elaborated description of this inferential process, see , “Mimesis and Motivation: e Two Faces of Fictional Coherence,” in Poetics Today 33 (2012) 329-483, p. 438-439. 10. Raphaël B, La tension narrative: Suspense, curiosité et surprise, Paris, Seuil, 2007, p.  258: “Dans ce genre de configuration, le discours narratif fait l’objet d’une attention particulière: il n’est plus seulement le véhicule «transparent» d’une figuration imaginaire, mais il devient ‘opaque,’ il expose son artificialité en se montrant incomplet.” 11. To maintain focus on the play of curiosity-dynamized narrativity, I will refer only to the narrator and the reader. e narrator, of course, is a creation of the implied author, the voice that “speaks” the discourse. For my purposes, and for the sake of convenience, the term reader will include the narratee, the implied reader, and the real reader.

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e conjunction οὖν is connective particle is a favorite of John’s Gospel. More oen than not it is used as a conjunction implying a “quasi-causal relationship” with what precedes.12 e narrator uses it six times in John 21:1-14 to underscore, not merely that the story resumes aer a hiatus or a change of scene, but more importantly that there is a crucial link between events that at first blush might appear to have been only tangentially related. Explanatory asides Tom atcher, in his article entitled “A New Look at Asides in the Fourth Gospel,” defines an aside as “a direct statement that tells the reader something. Asides are never observable events, but are interpretive commentary on observable events, commentary that reveals information ‘below the surface’ of the action.” […] “Because they are not events,” he further explains, “asides do not advance the plot. Rather, the author uses them to guide the reader’s interpretation of and response 12. Jn 197 × in 868 vv.; Mt 57 × in 1061 vv.; Mk 6 × in 666 vv.; Lk 33× in 1149 vv. For the inferential meaning of the particle, see Herbert Weir S, Greek Grammar (revised by Gordon M. M), Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press, 1984 [1920], § 2965, p. 665: “Inferential οὖν therefore, accordingly (igitur, ergo), usually classed as a conjunction, signifies that something follows from what precedes. Inferential οὖν marks a transition to a new thought and continues a narrative (oen aer ἐπεί, ἐπειδή, ὅτε), resumes an interrupted narration, and in general states a conclusion or inference” [emphases in original]. Vern S. P, “e Use of the Intersentence Conjunctions De, Oun, Kai and Asyndeton in the Gospel of John,” in NovT 26 (1984) 312-340, p. 329-330: “I maintain that, at least in a general way, oun is used by John to suggest or intimate that there is a quasicausal relationship involved. Oun occurs at just those points in the narrative where, without such a suggestion, the narrative would be in some danger of falling into pieces. For example, the end of a parenthesis, or the end of a piece of text giving background information, oen constitutes a point where there occurs a wide shi of topic. e presence of oun can assure the reader. Of course, oun does not assure him that what follows is directly related to what immediately precedes. But it assures him that it is directly related to something preceding, whether immediate or further back. In such a way, it might be seen as appropriate at the close of a parenthesis. It says, as it were, ‘Now we take up again on the same narrative, not an independent one.’ e same reasoning can at least begin to account for the patterns with respect to the occurrence of oun with a shi of agent. Any shi of agent is at least a mild break in the narrative, a break over which a bridging word might be useful. But in certain cases, like answers to questions, responses to commands, and in the occurrence of an anaphoric pronoun, the connection is already strong enough without oun. Hence oun is omitted” [emphases in original]. K, “John” (n. 2), p. 452-453, 462-464; Eugen R, Die literarische Einheit des Johannesevangeliums: Der gegenwärtige Stand der einschlägigen Forschungen (NTOA, 5), Göttingen, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1987, p. 292-293; Richard B. H, “Reading Scripture in Light of the Resurrection,” in Ellen F. D – Richard B. H (eds.), The Art of Reading Scripture, Grand Rapids, MI – Cambridge, UK, Eerdmans, 2003, 216-238, p. 231.

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to the events. Asides thus have a rhetorical function.”13 Aimed at the reader, asides also make the narrator more perceptible, providing important “below the surface” information that in retrospect as well as in prospect colors the unfolding of the story.14 Direct reported speech followed by the narrator’s summary description of ensuing action Five instances of direct reported speech occur in John 21:1-14. In these cases, the narrator steps aside, as it were, to let characters in the story speak. e characters’ words serve to set in motion subsequent action, but it is the narrator who resumes the relating of the action in a summary description. If direct reported speech tends to marginalize the narrator’s presence in the mind of the reader, the summary description of action, which in the story world would have taken a significant amount of time to unfold, makes the narrator and the discourse more perceptible again. e analysis below identifies where these narrator-assigned strategies occur and briefly shows how they induce in the reader a process of cumulative retrospective inference, the hallmark of a curiosity-dynamized narrative. 3.1. Vv. 1-4 Introduction and Setting v. 1 Μετὰ ταῦτα ἐφανέρωσεν ἑαυτὸν πάλιν ὁ Ἰησοῦς τοῖς μαθηταῖς ἐπὶ τῆς θαλάσσης τῆς Τιβεριάδος· ἐφανέρωσεν δὲ οὕτως (Aer these things Jesus showed himself again to the disciples by the Sea of Tiberias; and he showed [himself] this way).15

An instance of curiosity: By disclosing the outcome of the story in the opening statement, the narrator indicates that what follows will be an instance of narrative curiosity. e event in question involves three constitutive elements: (a) Jesus manifesting himself (b) to the disciples (c) by the Sea of Tiberias. 13. Tom T, “A New Look at Asides in the Fourth Gospel,”  in BibSac 151 (1994) 428-439, p. 430 [emphasis in original]; John J. O’R, “Asides in the Gospel of John,” in NovT 21 (1979) 210-219. 14. T, “A New Look” (n. 13), p. 433, points out “that 61 asides (32 percent) occur in the last four chapters to influence the reader’s perception of Jesus’ death and resurrection.” According to his assessment, there are seven asides in John 21:1-14, vv. 2 (2 ×), 4, 7, 8, 12, and 14. 15. e English version is based on the NRSV, but with a number of my own adaptations.

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It is not a question of what happened, but rather of how what already happened took place, as the narrator explicitly promises to relate (v. 1b). e reader’s quest, therefore, will be to piece together the narrator’s future disclosures in order to reconstruct retrospectively a plausible mental image of event. v.  2 Ἦσαν ὁμοῦ Σίμων Πέτρος καὶ Θωμᾶς ὁ λεγόμενος Δίδυμος καὶ Ναθαναὴλ ὁ ἀπὸ Κανὰ τῆς Γαλιλαίας καὶ οἱ τοῦ Ζεβεδαίου καὶ ἄλλοι ἐκ τῶν μαθητῶν αὐτοῦ δύο (Gathered there together were Simon Peter, omas called the Twin, Nathanael of Cana in Galilee, those [the sons] of Zebedee, and two others of his disciples).

Expositional material: As a first step in unfolding the initiating statement of v. 1a, the narrator in v. 2 presents the disciples: five are specifically identified by name and label, two remain anonymous. is information explicates only one of the three items presented in v. 1, the disciples; as yet there is no mention of Jesus or of the Sea of Tiberias, two gaps that will require further disclosures to be filled. v. 3 λέγει αὐτοῖς Σίμων Πέτρος· ὑπάγω ἁλιεύειν. λέγουσιν αὐτῷ· ἐρχόμεθα καὶ ἡμεῖς σὺν σοί. ἐξῆλθον καὶ ἐνέβησαν εἰς τὸ πλοῖον, καὶ ἐν ἐκείνῃ τῇ νυκτὶ ἐπίασαν οὐδέν (Simon Peter says to them, “I am going fishing.” ey say to him, “We are coming with you.” ey went out and got into the boat, but that night they caught nothing).16

First instance of direct reported speech followed by the narrator’s descriptive summary of ensuing action: Aer introducing the episode in v. 1 and providing expositional information in v.  2, the narrator “steps aside” to let characters in the story speak. Simon Peter, in saying to the others “I am going fishing,” initiates the action in the story. Although Peter does not explicitly invite the others, they decide to join him. As the story moves forward, the reader ret16. John uses the historic present more oen than the other three canonical Gospels. is usage appears ten times in Jn 21:1-14, mostly with forms of λέγω (vv. 3[2 ×], 5, 7, 10, 12, elsewhere with βλέπω [v. 9], ἔρχομαι, λαμβάνω, δίδωμι [v. 13]). All of these instances appear in the narrator’s discourse, suggesting yet another narrative technique used to mark the narrator’s presence and role in the text. e historic present serves to introduce the first appearance of characters (vv. 3, 5), thus pointing out the protagonists. In vv. 9 and 13, the verbs underscore actions signaling the presence of the risen Jesus, perhaps hinting that only in “the present” can his “presence” be experienced. For a helpful discussion of this narrative technique in John, see Mavis M. L, “e Narrative Function and Verbal Aspect of the Historic Present in the Fourth Gospel,” in JETS 51 (2008) 703-730.

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rospectively seeks to grasp the pertinence of new disclosures to the “how” of Jesus’ appearance. “Going fishing,” for example, begins to explain the significance of “by the Sea of Tiberias” in v.  1. It also intimates that the disciples had been gathered in the vicinity of the sea, for going fishing was a possibility near at hand. However, “going fishing” raises new questions: What will this activity entail, and what relevance will it have to Jesus manifesting himself to them again? In the second half of the verse, the narrator “takes the stage” again to describe in very few words activities that would have taken a significant amount of time to unfold, thus distancing the reader from the story world. e mention of going out and getting into the boat is to be expected if the disciples are going fishing. But the narrator’s focus lies in the second half of the verse: “and that night they caught nothing.” In light of the disclosure in v. 1, what does having gone fishing on the Sea of Tiberias and having caught nothing to do with the self-manifestation of Jesus, who has yet to make an “appearance” in the unfolding story? Where are these successive disclosures, which seem increasingly tangential to the “how” of the appearance, leading? e narrator, whose presence is highly perceptible in these summary descriptive statements, situates and times his disclosures to evoke yet further retrospective puzzles in the reader’s mind, puzzles that will require further disclosures to solve. v. 4a Πρωΐας δὲ ἤδη γενομένης ἔστη Ἰησοῦς εἰς τὸν αἰγιαλόν (Now early morning having already come, Jesus stood on the beach).

More expositional material: e use of the connective particle δὲ signals a change of scene, from nighttime to breaking dawn, from the disciples to Jesus, and from the boat on the sea to the stranger on the shore.17 ese new disclosures of information induce retrospective inference in the reader: the precision that dawn was breaking suggests that the disciples had been toiling not simply at night but throughout the night; the mention that “Jesus stood” introduces the final of the three key elements related in v.  1; “on the shore” points to the continuing relevance of the Sea of Tiberias that has been featured in vv. 3 and 1. Since Jesus is not only the protagonist but the reason for the event in the story to have occurred and for the episode to be recounted in the discourse, his coming on the scene at this juncture of the unfolding narrative leads to several retrospective inferences in his 17. Vern S. P, “Testing for Johannine Authorship by Examining the Use of Conjunctions,” in WTJ 46 (1984) 350-369, p. 363.

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regard. First, whatever form Jesus’ appearance took was such that he could be perceived in early morning light. Second, without the narrator offering any “inside view” of Jesus’ thoughts or intention, Jesus knew where and when to find the disciples, which in turn implies that he could see them.18 His appearing intimates that he is the subject and source of this initiative.19 ird, his standing on the shore suggests that he was in their vicinity. Prospectively, new gaps open: Did the disciples see him? If so, how is his standing on the shore at daybreak pertinent to the disciples in the boat having fished all night and having caught nothing? How is all that has occurred thus far relevant to his self-manifestation to them? v. 4b οὐ μέντοι ᾔδεισαν οἱ μαθηταὶ ὅτι Ἰησοῦς ἐστιν (but the disciples had not known it was [is] Jesus).

Narratorial aside: With this aside, the story action stops while the narrator strategically discloses new and startling information, information that will prompt in the reader a new round of cumulative retrospective inference. Although all the key elements constituting the self-manifestation introduced in v. 1 are finally in place – Jesus, the disciples, the Sea of Tiberias – the narrator reveals that the disciples did not know it was Jesus. As a result of this information, the reader infers retrospectively that the disciples must have seen Jesus, for otherwise there would have been no need to point out that they did not know it was him. Moreover, and again inferring retrospectively, the reader comes to realize that Jesus simply being on the scene does not suffice: he must be recognized as the one who is present.20 Prospectively, this realization opens new gaps: if recognition is necessary, how will this take place? How will all that has preceded – getting into the boat, fishing all night, catching nothing – be relevant to recognition? With the disclosure that the disciples did not know it was Jesus, the likelihood that the unfolding events will lead to Jesus manifesting himself seems increasingly puzzling.

18. Anthony J. K, The Resurrection Effect: Transforming Christian Life and Thought, Maryknoll, NY, Orbis, 2008, p. 40. 19. W, “Between the Cherubim” (n. 1), p. 193: “Jesus remains the subject of his history”; H, “Reading Scripture” (n. 12), p. 236. 20. Gerald O’C, Jesus Risen: An Historical, Fundamental and Systematic Examination of Christ’s Resurrection, New York, NY – Mahwah, NJ, Paulist Press, 1987, p.  93; G, “e Archive of Excess” (n.  2), p.  243, 245, 247; Mark W.G. S, John’s Gospel (New Testament Readings), London, Routledge, 1994, p. 30.

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3.2. Vv. 5-8 Recognition at Sea: The Great Catch of Fish v.  5 λέγει οὖν αὐτοῖς [ὁ] Ἰησοῦς· παιδία, μή τι προσφάγιον ἔχετε; ἀπεκρίθησαν αὐτῷ· οὔ ([And so] Jesus says to them, “Lads, you have no fish, have you?” ey answered him, “No”).

Instance of οὖν; instance of direct reported speech: e connective particle οὖν signals that the narrator, aer the expositional material and the aside of v.  4, resumes the narrative of the story’s action. In retrospect, Jesus speaking to the disciples suggests that he was within earshot of the boat. As well, again in retrospect, the conjunction intimates that there is a causal link with what precedes: because of, as a result of all that has taken place thus far and of all the information disclosed by the narrator, “Jesus says to them […].” at is to say, the disciples having gone fishing and having caught nothing through their night of toil – these are precisely the events that led Jesus to appear on the lakeshore and to speak to them.21 What he will say to them, therefore, will somehow, the reader presumes, lead to recognition. Jesus’ words in v. 5b, however, are craed and strategically placed so as to delay recognition. His first word, with which he addresses the disciples, is, perplexingly, παιδία. It is an unusual usage in John’s Gospel, and therefore hints at a special meaning, plausibly in this context akin to “My boys” or “Lads.”22 Had Jesus used a more obvious or familiar term for hailing them, they most probably would have recognized him immediately; instead, Jesus’ query comes to them as from a stranger. Moreover, the question he asks is so formulated as to expect a negative answer: “you haven’t caught anything to eat, have you?”23 In retrospect, this formulation suggests not only that Jesus knew they had been fishing all night, but also that they had caught nothing. Prospectively, the reader suspects that recognition will probably have something to do with the activity of fishing: fishing and having caught nothing are pertinent to Jesus manifesting himself to the disciples, although recognition has not yet occurred. Jesus’ address and question

21. Οὖν not being necessary aer a sentence opening with a historic present suggests that the narrator is underscoring the causal link with what precedes, P, “Testing” (n. 17), p. 363. 22. Raymond E. B, The Gospel According to John XIII-XXI (AB, 29A), London, Geoffrey Chapman, 1972 [1966], p. 1070. 23. Ibid., p.  1066; Hartwig T, Das Johannesevangelium (HNT, 6), Tübingen, Mohr Siebeck, 2005, p. 782.

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are calculated to lead the disciples step by step toward recognition, but as yet they are not aware of this. v. 6 ὁ δὲ εἶπεν αὐτοῖς· βάλετε εἰς τὰ δεξιὰ μέρη τοῦ πλοίου τὸ δίκτυον, καὶ εὑρήσετε. ἔβαλον οὖν, καὶ οὐκέτι αὐτὸ ἑλκύσαι ἴσχυον ἀπὸ τοῦ πλήθους τῶν ἰχθύων ([But] he said to them, “Cast the net on the right side of the boat, and you will find [some].” And so they cast it, and now they were not able to haul it in because there were so many fish).

Direct reported speech continues, followed by the narrator’s descriptive summary of ensuing action: Except for “stage directions” (“He said to them…”), the narrator continues to step aside to allow the characters in the story to speak. If the disciples have toiled in vain through the night, now at daybreak the stranger’s directive aims at reversing the situation: if they cast the net once more, they will find (some). In retrospect, then, the reader begins to suspect that there will indeed be a link between fishing and catching nothing on the one hand and Jesus’ self-manifestation to them on the other, although the connection is not yet entirely clear. Once the direct reported speech is over, the narrator steps forward to resume the narration, again with a descriptive summary of subsequent action.24 e disciples do as the stranger tells them, with the result that they are unable to haul in the net due to the quantity of fish. e intentionally understated “you will find (some)” turns out to be a superabundance. Use of οὖν: With the conjunction οὖν, the narrator links the disciples’ action to Jesus’ command. In doing so, the narrator’s discourse ensures that the reader will engage yet again in cumulative retrospective inference: While the disciples are as yet unaware of this, the reader infers that, because of, as a result of Jesus appearing on the shore, of his knowing where they were and that they had caught nothing, of his knowing that there was a great number of fish on the right side of the boat, there is an increasing likelihood of causal links to all that the disciples have experienced thus far in the story. v.  7 λέγει οὖν ὁ μαθητὴς ἐκεῖνος ὃν ἠγάπα ὁ Ἰησοῦς τῷ Πέτρῳ· ὁ κύριός ἐστιν. Σίμων οὖν Πέτρος ἀκούσας ὅτι ὁ κύριός ἐστιν τὸν ἐπενδύτην διεζώσατο, ἦν γὰρ γυμνός, καὶ ἔβαλεν ἑαυτὸν εἰς τὴν θάλασσαν (And so the 24. H, “e Significance of the Resurrection Appearances” (n. 2), p. 315.

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  disciple whom Jesus loved says to Peter, “It is the Lord!” And so Simon, hearing that it is the Lord, put on some clothes, for he was naked, and cast himself into the sea).

Two uses of οὖν; direct reported speech followed by the narrator’s descriptive summary of ensuing action; use of another aside: e use of all three narratorial strategies suggests that this verse reaches a sort of climax. e conjunction οὖν, linking the words of the disciple whom Jesus loved with what immediately precedes, and then linking Simon Peter’s casting himself into the sea upon hearing the Beloved Disciple’s words of recognition, underscores the causal force of the connection. e Beloved Disciple has inferred, cumulatively and retrospectively from all that has taken place in the story, that the stranger on the shore is in fact “the Lord.”25 As well, Peter, by jumping into the sea, shows that he infers as much from the Beloved Disciple’s words. If the sequence of all that has happened up to this point in the story appeared fortuitous and tangential, the prodigious catch of fish triggers recognition. e connections that the reader has been inferring all along, trying to comprehend the relevance of going fishing, catching nothing, Jesus appearing incognito, the command to cast the net again, the large catch of fish, have been confirmed by characters in the story. As in vv. 3 and 6, the use of direct reported speech once again has the narrator step aside, and, as before, the words spoken by the characters lead to action. e narrator resumes the narrative with a descriptive summary recounting Peter first putting on his clothes and then casting himself into the sea, presumably rushing to reach Jesus on the shore. e narrator’s aside forestalls the reader’s unnecessary distraction by explaining that Peter was naked (“stripped for work” RSV). v. 8 οἱ δὲ ἄλλοι μαθηταὶ τῷ πλοιαρίῳ ἦλθον, οὐ γὰρ ἦσαν μακρὰν ἀπὸ τῆς γῆς ἀλλ᾽ ὡς ἀπὸ πηχῶν διακοσίων, σύροντες τὸ δίκτυον τῶν ἰχθύων (But the other disciples came in the boat, for they were not far from the land, about a hundred yards off, dragging the net of fish).

Narrator’s descriptive summary; narrator’s aside: e narrator continues the summary description begun in the previous verse, then adds an aside to explain further the action just recounted. Both parts of this verse induce retrospective inferences in the reader. If the others “come (to shore) in the boat,” this assumes that Peter had 25. T, Das Johannesevangelium (n. 23), p. 783.

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already reached land. Since the boat was not very far from land, Jesus must have been visible and within earshot when he first appeared standing on the shore. As well, the boat also was not very far from shore, probably within wading distance. If, once again, the new information fills prior gaps, it opens new ones, these regarding the other disciples. Besides the Beloved Disciple and Peter, did the other five still in the boat recognize that it was Jesus? Did they not overhear the Beloved Disciple’s words to Peter? If Peter jumped into the sea upon realizing that the stranger on the shore was Jesus, why did at least some the other six disciples in the boat not do so as well? (Of course, if all had done as Peter did, there would have been no one le to bring the boat with its net full of fish to shore.) 3.3. Vv. 9-13 Recognition on Land: Breakfast v.  9 Ὡς οὖν ἀπέβησαν εἰς τὴν γῆν βλέπουσιν ἀνθρακιὰν κειμένην καὶ ὀψάριον ἐπικείμενον καὶ ἄρτον (And so when they had got out on the land they see a charcoal fire [lying] there, with fish [lying] on it, and bread).

Use of οὖν; summary description of ensuing action: Here the use of οὖν, placed as it is aer the temporal conjunction ὡς (when, aer), functions to indicate that the narrator resumes the narration aer the immediately preceding aside. But, as is typical in John’s Gospel, οὖν also carries a sense of implied causality: because, as a result of getting down on land, “they see a charcoal fire there, with fish lying on it, and bread.” e implication is that while they were yet in the boat, before stepping down on land, they were unable to see the charcoal fire with the fish and bread.26 In retrospective inference, the reader assumes that Peter and Jesus are already there. Since it was Jesus who asked back in v. 5 if they had anything to eat aer their night of fishing, presumably he is the one who has prepared the meal. How is the series of events – the disciples having gone fishing, catching nothing, catching a net full of fish, hauling the net to shore, getting out onto the shore, and now seeing a charcoal fire with fish and bread – relevant to Jesus’ self-manifestation to the other disciples? If the Beloved Disciples and Peter have already come to recognition, why do they not speak?

26. Rudolf S, The Gospel According to John, Vol. 3 (HTCNT), trans. David S – G.A. K, New York, NY, Crossroad, 1982, p. 357.

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  v.  10 λέγει αὐτοῖς ὁ Ἰησοῦς· ἐνέγκατε ἀπὸ τῶν ὀψαρίων ὧν ἐπιάσατε νῦν (Jesus says to them, “Bring some of the fish you have caught now”).

Direct reported speech (to be followed with the narrator’s descriptive summary of ensuing action in the next verse): e narrator once again steps aside to let a character in the story speak. Jesus’ directive to bring some of the fish they have just caught refers back to the large catch of fish (v. 6) which the disciples have brought with them in the boat (v.  8). It also most probably refers back to v.  9, intimating that the fish from the recent catch will be added to those already on the charcoal fire in order to feed everyone. More importantly, further retrospective inferring suggests that if the catch of fish led the Beloved Disciple and Peter to recognize Jesus, should not this added reference to it have the same result on the other five disciples?27 But before this new query is answered, the narrator resumes the narrative with an unexpected summary description of ensuing action. v. 11 ἀνέβη οὖν Σίμων Πέτρος καὶ εἵλκυσεν τὸ δίκτυον εἰς τὴν γῆν μεστὸν ἰχθύων μεγάλων ἑκατὸν πεντήκοντα τριῶν· καὶ τοσούτων ὄντων οὐκ ἐσχίσθη τὸ δίκτυον (And so Simon Peter went up and dragged the net onto the land, full of big fish, a hundred and fiy-three; and though there were so many, the net was not torn).

Last use of οὖν; narrator’s summary description of action following direct reported speech; explanatory aside: is verse displays all three narratorial strategies, which, taken together, have strong retrospective inferential force. Although the Lord’s directive is addressed to all the disciples, Peter alone responds spontaneously, just as he had upon hearing “it is the Lord” in v. 7. As in the earlier instance of οὖν in v. 7, so now Peter’s actions speak louder than words: he has recognized Jesus. e narrator’s summary description of Peter’s action retrospectively refers to the boat and its net full of fish that the other disciples had brought to shore (v. 8). e narrator’s aside, which stops the action in the story, focuses the reader’s attention yet more on the net and the catch of fish first mentioned in v. 6 – despite containing 153 large fish, the net was not torn. Here again, in referring back so obviously and emphatically to the events that triggered recognition of Jesus by the Beloved Disciple and

27. B, “e Resurrection in John 21” (n. 2), p. 259: “Jesus, to them still a stranger […].”

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Peter in the first place, should not the narrator’s new disclosures provoke recognition in the other five disciples? v.  12 Λέγει αὐτοῖς ὁ Ἰησοῦς· δεῦτε ἀριστήσατε. οὐδεὶς δὲ ἐτόλμα τῶν μαθητῶν ἐξετάσαι αὐτόν· σὺ τίς εἶ; εἰδότες ὅτι ὁ κύριός ἐστιν (Jesus says to them, “Come and have breakfast.” Now none of the disciples dared ask him, “Who are you?” ey knew it is [was] the Lord).

Direct reported speech (the narrator’s summary description of ensuing action is in v. 13); narrator’s aside: Jesus inviting the disciples to breakfast induces in the reader more cumulative retrospective inferences. e fish that Peter brought from the boat (v. 11) have been made ready, most probably added to the charcoal fire with fish on it (v. 9). e invitation to “breakfast” links back to the narrator’s mention in v. 4a that Jesus was standing on the shore “just as day was breaking.” us, the new disclosure fills in earlier gaps. Will this new disclosure result in the other disciples’ recognition? Before proceeding further, however, the narrator pauses the action in the story to address yet another aside to the reader. “Now none of the disciples dared ask him, ‘Who are you?’ ey knew it was the Lord.” eir “knowing it was the Lord” reaches back and reverses the narrator’s first aside in v. 4 that they “did not know that it was Jesus.” e intervening events have led the seven disciples to recognize that the stranger who appeared on the lake shore and first spoke to them is indeed the Lord. ey have re-cognized him, come to know him again, to experience again the presence of the absent one.28 But this “knowing” is a curious one: why would the disciples repress the urge to interrogate or cross-examine him?29 In cumulative retrospective inference, the reader wonders, If “none of the disciples dared to ask him,” why include the Beloved Disciple and Simon Peter whose words and actions in v.  7 (respectively) gave every indication of recognition? And what of the accumulated “signs” – the big catch of fish,30 the words of the Beloved Disciple, Peter jumping into the water, the charcoal fire already prepared, Peter hauling the net to get some of the just-caught 28. Jean Z, Miettes exégétiques (MDB, 25), Genève, Labor et Fides, 1991, p. 247. 29. N. omas W, The Resurrection of the Son of God, Vol.  3 of Christian Origins and the Question of God, Minneapolis, MN, Fortress, 2003, p. 678-679: “[…] the rare word exetazo […] means more than just ‘ask’: rather, we should hear something like ‘scrutinize, examine, enquire.’” B, John XIII–XXI (n. 22), p. 1077: “sometimes ‘to cross-examine.’” 30. H, “e Significance of the Resurrection Appearance” (n.  2), p.  315: “[…] the miraculous catch […] can be understood as a ‘sign’ […].”

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fish, the net not being torn, the invitation to breakfast – which intimate that the stranger in their midst is Jesus? Should not these have led to an unambiguous and indisputable recognition? What sort of “presence” is this self-manifestation of Jesus to the disciples, a presence that seeing and hearing fail to constitute a fully convincing and unhesitating recognition? It would seem, then, that this kind of self-manifestation can be recognized not primarily through seeing and hearing, but first and foremost through cumulative retrospective inference of the indications or “signs” placed along the way.31 In fact, no recognition is tantamount to no manifestation: It is only when the disciples correctly infer retrospectively from the cumulative signs that Jesus has placed sequentially before them, only when they recognize him as the author of these signs, that he becomes manifest to them. e “how” of this manifestation, promised by the narrator in v. 1b, therefore, rests on the strength of this inferential process. v.  13 ἔρχεται Ἰησοῦς καὶ λαμβάνει τὸν ἄρτον καὶ δίδωσιν αὐτοῖς, καὶ τὸ ὀψάριον ὁμοίως (Jesus comes and takes the bread and gives it to them, and so also the fish).

After direct reported speech (v. 12a) and an aside (v. 12b), the narrator resumes the narration of the action: e description provided in v. 13 unfolds the meaning of “breakfast” in the preceding verse: the action entails Jesus coming, taking the bread and giving it to the disciples, and similarly with the fish. Until now, Jesus has only spoken to the disciples (v. 5, 10, 12). In addition to hearing and seeing him, the disciples now see him acting. In cumulative retrospect, the disciples can infer and confirm that everything that has happened – Jesus appearing on the lake shore, his question to them, his directive to cast the net on the right side of the boat, the large catch of fish, the charcoal fire, his request for some of the newly-caught fish, his invitation to breakfast – was his “doing,” the result of his initiative and planning and setting up. Nothing was in fact le to chance, no step along the way was fortuitous. e meal, which has been Jesus’ intention from the outset, is the climax of the episode, the moment when recognition – all the while enigmatic and elusive – takes place. 31. In this regard, see Christian W, Erzählte Zeichen: die Wundergeschichten des Johannesevangeliums literarisch untersucht. Mit einem Ausblick auf Joh 21 (WUNT, 2. Reihe, 69), Tübingen, J.C.B. Mohr, 1994, p. 337-338, who points out that, unlike the two prior appearances of the risen Jesus to the assembled disciples in chapter 20 where his bodily presence is underlined, in 21:1-14 Jesus is recognized through the miraculous catch of fish.

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3.4. V. 14 Narrator’s Conclusion τοῦτο ἤδη τρίτον ἐφανερώθη Ἰησοῦς τοῖς μαθηταῖς ἐγερθεὶς ἐκ νεκρῶν (is was now the third time that Jesus showed [himself] to the disciples, [he] having been raised from the dead).

With v.  14, the narrator, having related the “how” of Jesus’ selfmanifestation to the disciples by the Sea of Tiberias, closes the gap opened in v. 1. e mention of “the third time” functions as an aside to the reader to link the episode with the events related in the previous chapter. Jesus “having been raised from the dead” comes as a coda implicitly explaining why the recounted events took place and why they occurred as they did (on which more below). But first, as John 21:1-14 is a narrative, and as the narrativity (or drama) of narrative plays between representing time and represented time, what, then, were the reader’s drama on the one hand and the disciples’ drama on the other? For the reader, the narrator’s discourse stimulated a process of cumulative retrospective inference aimed at piecing together how the risen Jesus manifested himself again to the disciples by the Sea of Tiberias, the gap opened by the narrator at the very outset of the episode. If in prospection every new disclosure seemed increasingly less likely to fill that gap (what did fishing, not catching anything through the night, the appearance of the stranger on the shore, catching a huge amount upon his directive, etc., have to do with Jesus’ self-manifestation?), it turned out in a final retrospective inference that in fact nothing was fortuitous: every successive disclosure was calculated to lead the reader to piece together how the disciples came to recognize Jesus’ self-manifestation. is process was incited and guided by the narrator’s use of select narrative techniques and strategies characteristic of a curiosity-dynamized narrative: the connective particle οὖν underscored a causal link where such a link might have escaped the reader’s notice; the asides both delayed the action in the story and rendered the discourse “gappy,” either by explaining or further ambiguating prior disclosures; the descriptive elaborations of actions following instances of direct reported speech highlighted the “signs” placed along the way.32 is prominent role of the narrator implicitly underscored the relatively opaque, reticent, and economical texture of the discourse, which exacted significant intellectual and emotional investment on the part of the reader. 32. Jean Z, L’apprentissage de la foi. À la découverte de l’Évangile de Jean et de ses lecteurs, Aubonne, Suisse, Éditions du Moulin, 1993, p. 63: “[…] le lecteur n’est pas laissé à lui-même. De façon indirecte, l’évangéliste a disposé des signaux dans son récit qui permettent au lecteur de ne pas se perdre, de ne pas se tromper […]”; also, S, The Gospel according to John (n. 26), p. 312.

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For the characters in the story, the drama consisted primarily in the disciples’ experience of a series of puzzling and unexpected events that eventually led to their recognizing Jesus present and acting in their midst. As the story progressively unfolded, the disciples themselves engaged in cumulative retrospective inference. In doing so, they were able to reconstruct what had happened, realizing that it was Jesus who had planned and placed the series of events along their way in view of leading them to recognizing him.33 Tellingly, the actional drama in the story mimics the communicative drama in the discourse: both the disciples in the story and the reader through the discourse were induced to engage in a process of cumulative retrospective inference.34 e interplay between the narrator and the reader in the discourse mirrors the interplay between Jesus and the disciples in the story.35 As disclosed by the narrator’s aside in v.  12, however, recognition appears to be less than fully confident: “none of the disciples dared to ask him, ‘Who are you?’ because they knew it was the Lord.” eir “knowing” is perplexingly and curiously “questionable.” A final cumulative retrospective inference, then, leads to the realization that this strange state of affairs can only be the result of Jesus’ transformed existence, of his having been raised from the dead.36 In the end, the experience of the presence of the risen Jesus remains haunting and elusive. Although his appearance seems to be direct and immediate, it is mediated through 33. Jean-Luc M, Étant donné: Essai d’une phénoménologie de la donation, 2e  édition corrigée (Épiméthée; Essais philosophiques), Paris, PUF, 1998, p.  15: “Ce passage [de démontrer à montrer] doit donc se compléter d’un deuxième: passer de montrer à laisser se montrer, de la manifestation à la manifestation de soi à partir de soi de ce qui, alors, se montre. Mais laisser l’apparition se montrer dans l’apparence et l’apparaître comme sa propre manifestation – cela ne va pas de soi. Pour une raison de fond: c’est parce que la connaissance vient toujours de moi, que la manifestation ne va jamais de soi.” 34. L, Recognizing the Stranger (n. 2), p. 214: “[…] as a religious narrative, the Gospel thematizes the reader’s participation in the recognition process. […] e reader is not only a spectator, watching the cognitive struggles of story-world actors, but is from the beginning invited into the game of recognition.” 35. is observation was inspired by Wayne A. M, “e Man from Heaven in Johannine Sectarianism,” in JBL 91 (1972) 44-72, p. 69, who writes regarding John’s Gospel: “The book functions for its readers in precisely the same way that the epiphany of its hero functions within its narratives and dialogues” [emphasis in original]. 36. Leander K, Who Is Jesus? History in the Perfect Tense (Studies on Personalities of the New Testament), Edinburgh, T. & T. Clark, 2001: “Although it was Jesus whom God vivified and vindicated by resurrection, and not only his teachings or ‘cause,’ the resurrected Jesus is not simply Jesus resumed, as if his death/resurrection had been a mere interruption. (e strange stories of his appearances can be understood as narrative precipitates of the conviction that the same Jesus is now fundamentally ‘different’)” [emphasis and parentheses in original].

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signs that require recognition, recognition that rests on inferring cumulatively and retrospectively the meaning of these signs. For the reader in turn, the story’s presence is mediated through same process, but here applied to the words of the discourse. 4. Conclusion Rowan Williams’ intuition that the literary nature of the resurrection stories in the New Testament gospels “might bring us to the substance of resurrection belief” was perceptive – their narrative form is essential to interpretation. e above analysis of John 21:1-14 as an instance of a curiosity-dynamized narrative bears this out, for the very process of cumulative retrospective inference that the discourse induces in the reader and that the events in the story prompt in the disciples is indeed how one comes to recognize an experience of the presence and activity of the risen Jesus. It is through, with, and in this process that one is led to the substance of resurrection belief. Since Jesus is not portrayed as disappearing from the scene, there is every reason to suspect (by inference yet again…) that the same process continues today.37 An experience of the presence and activity of the risen Jesus in one’s life would be recognized, as it was by the disciples, through cumulative retrospective inference of the “signs” placed along the way. In turn, recounting such an experience to others would most probably assume the form of a curiosity-dynamized narrative, thereby provoking hearers/readers to engage in a similar inferential process.38 Narrative is vital, not merely incidental, in bringing one, both then and now, to belief in the resurrection.

37. L, Recognizing the Stranger (n. 2), p. 223: “Since Jesus is no longer directly accessible, a genre-modulation takes place, occasioned by the circumstance that potential recognizers ‘at second hand’ cannot go see for themselves. And it becomes clear that the proper way for believers to perform ‘the move of attendant reactions’ is to participate in the dissemination of the rumor of Christ. is is not only the case in the story-world, but the Gospel itself embodies this principle on the discourse level.” Benoît S, “Raconter la résurrection. Un paradoxe narratif,” in Reimund B – Veronica K – Bianca L (eds.), Resurrection in the New Testament. Festschrift J. Lambrecht (BETL, CLXV), Leuven, University Press – Peeters, 2002, 73-91, p. 74: “[…] le récit de la résurrection n’a pas de clôture. Il débouche nécessairement sur un présent qui n’a pas de fin. […]. Le ‘récit’ devient ‘discours.’” 38. Rowan W, “e Discipline of Scripture,” in On Christian Theology (n. 1), 44-59, p. 50: “e movements, transactions and transformations of the text are not different in kind from the movement of my own experience, from how I tell my own story.”

C 11

DIRECT REPORTED SPEECH AND THE RISEN JESUS IN JOHN 1. Introduction e colloquium aims to explore the contribution of direct reported speech to characterization in biblical narrative.1 Direct reported speech is well attested in the Bible, not least in the New Testament Gospels.2 All four present high percentages of verses devoted either entirely or in part to this narrative device. Of these verses, nearly three-quarters are attributed to the character Jesus.3 Regarding the Fourth Gospel in particular, most of the instances occur during Jesus’ public ministry, up to and including his last words on the cross (chapters 1–19). However, a significant number appear in the mouth of the risen Jesus (21 of the 56 verses in chapters 20–21). What role does the speaking of Jesus in these two ultimate chapters play toward his characterization, particularly in portraying him in his risen state? Does the speaking of Jesus differ aer his resurrection from his speaking prior to this event? If so, what can be surmised about this difference for the overall plotting of John’s narrative and for its possible effect on the reader? Before discussing the attribution of direct reported speech to the risen Jesus in John, it is worth underscoring the relevance of the Gospel appearance narratives in shaping Christian belief in the resurrection.4 e New Testament contains various statements attesting to Jesus having been 1. e colloquium in question is the following: La contribution du discours des personnages à leur caractérisation. 9e colloque international du Réseau de Recherche en Narratologie et Bible (RRENAB), Louvain-la-Neuve, 31 mai – 2 juin, 2018. 2. On the preponderance of the narrative genre overall in the bible, see Meir S, “Universals of Narrative and eir Cognitivist Fortunes (I),” in Poetics Today 24 (2003) 297-395, p. 379. 3. Matthew, 806 of 1061 verses (76%) – Jesus, 650 of 806 (65%); Mark, 393 of 666 verses (60%) – Jesus, 276 of 393 (70%); Luke, 779 of 1149 verses (68%) – Jesus, 584 of 779 (75%); John, 627 of 868 verses (72%) – Jesus, 421 of 627 (67%). ese tallies are my own. So as not to encumber unduly the text, I have opted to relegate to the footnotes most of the detailed information such as this, as well as the literature that inspired and supports my discussion of the topic in what follows. 4. See Rowan W, “Between the Cherubim: e Empty Tomb and the Empty rone,” in On Christian Theology (CCT), Oxford, UK, Blackwell, 2000, p. 185-196.

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raised from the dead, statements that predate the composition of the appearance stories.5 ese kerygmatic formulations nonetheless presuppose the events of the appearances themselves,6 for the followers of Jesus could have come to know and proclaim him as risen only if they had first encountered him and experienced him as such. It was incumbent for Christian tradition eventually to engage the mystery of Jesus’ resurrection through narrative because, among literary genres, it alone can represent experiences and encounters, that is, events.7 e narrative nature of the appearance stories, then, constitutes an essential aspect toward their interpretation, making these episodes all the more worth investigating precisely as narratives. More specifically for the present discussion, direct reported speech, one of the major devices employed in producing narrative discourse, entails singular capacities that contribute to characterization. In what 5. e following are among the most explicit: Matt 28:5; Mark 16:6; Luke 24:34; Acts 2:32; 3:15; 4:10; 10:40; 13:30, 34; 17:31; 26:23; Rom 4:24; 8:11; 10:9; Gal 1:1; Eph 1:20; Col 2:12; 1 Cor 15:4.20; 1 ess 1:10; 4:14; 1 Pet 1:3, 21. I assume three stages in the formation of the tradition regarding the resurrection: (1) the disciples’ encounters with the risen Jesus; (2) the formulation of kerygmatic, confessional statements that he is risen; (3) the composing of the narratives recounting the appearances. 6. For this phenomemon generally in narrative, see Jacques B, La narrativité (Champs linguistiques), Louvain-la-Neuve, Duculot, 1994, p. 175: “Le récit éclaire le sujet: bien souvent je ne sais ce que j’ai fait que lorsque je le raconte. En catalan, plutôt que contar ou narrar, raconter se dit explicar. Plus praxématiquement: les productions de sens opérées par l’agir tendent à s’impliciter sous des praxèmes nominaux qui les condensent en représentations d’objet. Cet agir est très difficilement accessible, voire indéchiffrable comme tel pour le sujet. Le récit permet de dénouer les programmes de sens condensés en être, de les remettre dans la tension du faire où ils ont été produits.” See also S, “Universals of Narrative (I)” (n. 2), p. 321; , “Universals of Narrative and eir Cognitivist Fortunes (II),” in Poetics Today 24 (2003) 517-638, p. 599: “For better or for worse, we always reason back from experienced effect to textual and further back to pretextual cause: from artistic teleology to, inter alia, the mimetic choices, primary and secondary, agent-teleological or otherwise eventful or just world-making that (ill) serve it.” Regarding more specifically the resurrection of Jesus in the New Testament, see Gilles G, “Les apparitions du Christ ressuscité d’après saint Luc,” in Troisième dimanche de Pâques. Assemblées du Seigneur 24, Paris, Cerf, 1969, 38-56, p. 44: “Les témoignages rendus à la résurrection du Christ sont basés principalement sur les apparitions.” In John 20:18, for example, only aer her experience with the risen Jesus is Mary Magdalene then able to announce to the gathered disciples: “I have seen the Lord.” What follows in v. 18b goes on to report that she related the words Jesus commanded her to say, implying that she most probably recounted what happened as well. 7. S, “Universals of Narrative (I)” (n. 2), p. 301: “[…] narrative [… is an] eventrepresenting discourse”; p. 383: “Among all genres, narrative alone makes things happen to characters inhabiting and traversing some represented spacetime”; , Expositional Modes and Temporal Ordering in Fiction, Bloomington, IN – Indianapolis, IN, Indiana University Press, 1978, p. 163-164; , “Universals of Narrative (II)” (n. 6), p. 523: what is represented in narrative is a “world-in-action”; , “Mimesis and Motivation: e Two Faces of Fictional Coherence,” in Poetics Today 33 (2012) 329-483, p. 413-414.

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follows, I first briefly sketch some of the key features of direct reported speech, particularly implications devolving from its being speech and being speech that is reported directly (part 2). I then apply these more theoretical considerations to the bodily presence of Jesus as it is represented in John’s narrative, both before and aer his resurrection (part 3), followed by a discussion (part 4) of the role direct reported speech plays in Jesus’ characterization, focused specifically on his self-revelation, one of the central threads of John’s Gospel narrative (part 5). Reflections on how direct reported speech contributes toward interpreting the Gospel as a whole are brought to bear on their effects on the reader (part 6), leading to a few concluding remarks (part 7). 2. Theoretical Foundations of Direct Reported Speech Direct reported speech is the narrative device wherein the narrator steps aside to let a character in the story speak. Purportedly, the character’s speaking is reported word for word, without any intrusion from the narrator, that is, “directly.”8 Because direct reported speech has to do with the speaking that is attributed to narrative characters, it is incumbent first to explore what speaking implies: the production and reception of sound, sound expressed in meaningful language, language which in turn involves interlocution. is is followed by a brief discussion of how direct reported speech is described and located in narrative theory. Together, these steps provide the basis for examining the role that direct reported speech plays in characterizing Jesus in the Fourth Gospel. 2.1. Speaking: A Brief Phenomenology Sound implies presence in present time: At its most basic, speaking entails emitting sound. Sound assumes presence in present time, as Ong explains: “sound is more real or existential than other sense objects, despite the fact that it is also more evanescent. Sound itself,” continues Ong, “is related to present actuality rather than to past or future. It must emanate from a source here and now discernably

8. Among the most extensive and thorough discussions of direct reported speech are the following two articles by Meir S, “Proteus in Quotation-Land: Mimesis and the Forms of Reported Discourse,” in Poetics Today 3 (1982) 107-156; , “Point of View and the Indirections of Direct Speech,” in Language and Style 15 (1982) 67-117.

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active, with the result that involvement with sound is involvement with the present, with here-and-now existence and activity.”9 Sound implies a physical source of emission: An occurrence of sound requires a physical source of emission. Since speaking emits sounds, it implies a physical, perceptible bodily presence.10 Moreover, for speaking to be perceptible requires that the one speaking and the one hearing must be within earshot of each other, that is, present to each other in present time.11 Speaking implies the use of language; language means interlocution: Speaking is not merely the production of sound with all that this implies, but more specifically the use of language, a meaningful production of words intended for communication, for interlocution. According to Paul Ricœur, “[…] l’énonciation, c’est-à-dire l’acte même de dire, […] désigne réflexivement son locuteur. La pragmatique met ainsi directement 9. Walter J. O, The Presence of the Word: Some Prolegomena for Cultural and Religious History, Minneapolis, MN, University of Minnesota Press, 1967, p. 111-112 [emphasis in original]; p. 130: “[…] sound and hearing have a special relationship to our sense of presence. When we speak of a presence in its fullest sense – the presence which we experience in the case of another human being, which another person exercises on us and which no object or living being less that human can exercise – we speak of something that surrounds us, in which we are situated. ‘I am in his presence,’ we say, not ‘in front of his presence.’ Being in is what we experience in a world of sound.” 10. Michael H, Dialogism: Bakhtin and His World (New Accents), London, UK – New York, NY, Routledge, 1990, p. 165. 11. See Walter J. O, “Maranatha: Death and Life in the Text of the Book,” in Interfaces with the Word: Studies in the Evolution of Consciousness and Culture, Ithaca, NY – London, UK, Cornell University Press, 1977, 230-271, p. 233; H, Dialogism (n.  10), p.  152-153, bases the following phenomenological-type description mainly on Mikhail B, Toward a Philosophy of the Act (Slavic Series, 10). Trans. and notes by Vadim L. Vadim L – Michael H (eds.), Austin, TX, University of Texas Press, 1995 (1993): “But one thing is clear: so long as a human being is, he or she has no choice but to act. As a human being, I have ‘no alibi’ in existence for merely occupying a location in it. On the contrary, I am in a situation, the unique place in the ongoing event of existence that is mine. And since existence is an event, my place in it is best understood not only as a space, but also as a time, as an activity, an act, a deed. Bakhtin was a great reader of Bergson, who shared the assumption (particularly in Matter and Memory, 1896) that in so far as human beings are organisms, they cannot but pay attention to life. Life will not let me be inactive, no matter how dormant I may appear (relatively) to be in the eyes of others. I cannot be passive, even if I choose to be, for passivity will then be the activity of choosing to be passive. My relation to life in all its aspects is one of intense participation, of interested activity; having ‘no alibi’ means I have a stake in everything that comes my way” [emphasis in original]. For a more detailed phenomenological description of the body in relation to language, see Maurice M-P, Phénoménologie de la perception (Collection Tel), Paris, Gallimard, 1945, p. 203-232.

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en scène, à titre d’implication nécessaire de l’acte d’énonciation, le ‘je’ et le ‘tu’ de la situation d’interlocution.”12 us, speaking implies bodyselves present to each other in time and in space.13 2.2. Direct Reported Speech as a Narrative Discourse Device Among the events recounted in a represented story world are the speechevents of the characters. While most of the objects represented (settings, characters, events, etc.) must first be transformed into words (discourse) in order to be communicated, the speech-events of characters in the story already exist in the form of words; they are already discourse. Reported discourse as an object of narrative communication, therefore, represents, as Sternberg observes, a “subject or manifestation of subjective experience: speech, thought, and otherwise expressive behavior; in short, the world of discourse as opposed to the world of things.”14 e direct reported speech

12. Paul R, Soi-même comme un autre, Paris, Seuil, 1990, p. 55; see also p. 59: “L’énonciation qui se réfléchit dans le sens de l’énoncé est ainsi d’emblée un phénomène bipolaire: elle implique simultanément un ‘je’ qui dit et un ‘tu’ à qui le premier s’adresse. ‘J’affirme que’ égal ‘je te déclare que’; ‘je promets que’ égale ‘je te promets que’. Bref, énonciation égale interlocution” [emphasis in original]. B, La narrativité (n. 6), p. 142143: “Nous parlerons d’ascendance allocutive: tu est un futur visé comme terme par je. Je s’adresse à tu: la préposition à signal l’ascendance. Pour dire plus brutalement: ‘On ne télégraphie pas dans le passé.’ L’ouverture du temps par la parole est l’ouverture à l’autre” [emphasis in original]. Hans-Georg G, Truth and Method, 2nd edition. Trans. revised by Joel W – Donald G. M, London, UK – New York, NY, Continuum, 2004 [1989], p.  399: “ere can be no speaking that does not bind the speaker and the person spoken to.” O, Maranatha (n. 11), p. 233: “In oral or oral-aural communication both speaker and hearer must be alive. Without the speaker’s living action, there are no real words. Without a living hearer, the words are ineffective, uneventful, inoperative, a movement toward nothing.” 13. Daphna E-V, Between Philosophy and Literature: Bakhtin and the Question of the Subject, Stanford, CA, Stanford University Press, 2013, p. 151: “Far from a theoretical abstraction or heuristic device, the utterance is not only formed by its singular and concrete context of addressivity; it is also endowed with full bodily and spatial presence”; p. 155: “Personal pronouns, demonstratives (e.g., “here,” “now”) have no material reference in reality and only ‘become “full” as soon as a speaker introduces them into each instance of discourse.’ e role of these deictic signs is to convert language into discourse” [here citing Emile B, Problems in General Linguistics, Trans. E. M, Coral Gables, FL, University of Miami Press, 1971, p. 219-220]. 14. S, “Proteus in Quotation-Land” (n. 8), p. 107: “In quotation, first of all, the two discourse-events enter into representational (‘mimetic’) relations. It should be borne in mind that quoting consists in a representation, one that differs from other acts of representing the world only in the represented object. For its object is itself a subject or manifestation of subjective experience: speech, thought, and otherwise expressive behavior; in short, the world of discourse as opposed to the world of things. In this general sense, all reported discourse – from the direct through the free or the plain indirect to the most summary or allusive quotation – is a mimesis of discourse.”

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of a character is the character.15 On the discourse level, direct reported speech appears as an inset framed by the narrator’s communication to the narratee: during the narrator’s recounting of the story to the narratee (frame), the narrator as it were “steps aside” to let a character in the story speak (inset).16 Because they are located on different narrative levels, these two communicative speech-events are formally independent. From the point of view of the framing instance (the here-and-now communication between the narrator and the narratee), the events of the story world are past and therefore are generally expressed in past tense verbs. However, the communication between the characters in the story occurs in their here-andnow, in the spatiotemporal coordinates of their world, with verbs essentially articulated in (their) present tense.17 at is why direct reported speech, unlike indirect and other types of reported speech, can introduce imperatives, vocatives, and questions in the interlocution among characters in the story world.18 15. Wallace M, Recent Theories of Narrative, Ithaca, NY, Cornell University Press, 1986, p. 51, describes the same phenomenon: “[…] when a character speaks, the words are not a substitute for, or representation of, something else. e language of the character is the character, just as the words you and I speak are ourselves, in the eyes of others” [emphasis in original]. 16. S, “Point of View” (n. 8), p. 69; Mieke B, Narratology: Introduction to the Theory of Narrative, 2nd ed., Toronto – Buffalo, NY – London, UK, University of Toronto Press, 1997, p. 44. 17. S, “Point of View” (n. 8), p. 110: “In the modern use of the term, deixis covers the function performed by the whole set of grammatical and lexical elements – notably tense, personal pronouns, and demonstratives (like this, that, here, now, tomorrow) – which relate the utterance to the spatiotemporal coordinates of the situation of utterance. Normally, the speaker relates all the persons, events, and objects he talks about to the unique here-and-now of his own deictic context; the addressee correspondingly identifies, places, and links the referents in relation to the same zero point.” e study of deictics is described in Cynthia L. M, “Discourse Functions of Quotative Frames in Biblical Hebrew Narrative,” in Water R. B (ed.), Discourse Analysis of Biblical Literature: What It Is and What It Offers (SBL SS, 27), Atlanta, GA, Scholars, 1995, 155182, p. 157-158. See her summary, p. 158: “us, the relation between direct quotation and its frame is one of independence. is independence is manifested in two ways. First, the quotation is syntactically independent of the frame. Second, pronominal reference within the quotation is not identical to that of the frame, but is determined with reference to the frame and in accord with the pragmatic context.” 18. Graham P, Mikhail Bakhtin: The Word in the World (CTC), New York, NY, Routledge, 2007, p.  191-192; S, “Point of View” (n.  8), p.  111-112: “First, the inset being invested with a show of the autonomy typical of any normal, nonframed speech-event explains why direct speech naturally accommodates all those elements and constructions that are excluded from indirect and anomalously admitted in free indirect discourse. More revealing, this also explains why direct speech has no problem in employing two important constructions that are inadmissible even in the privileged free indirect form: vocative expressions and imperative sentences. By nature, each of these

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To sum up: direct reported speech, a speech-event of a character represented in the story world, constitutes an independent inset in the narrative framing discourse; it implies sound, which indicates presence in present time, which in turn implies a physical, perceptible, bodily source of emission; the sound produced takes the form of words, of language used in interlocution. roughout the narrative of John’s Gospel, these phenomenological and formal features of direct reported speech apply to the character Jesus, both in his pre- and post-resurrection presences. Because speaking first and foremost requires a character’s bodily presence, an investigation of how the bodily presence of Jesus is represented before and aer his resurrection arises as a necessary first step, for a different kind of bodily presence will most likely occasion a different use of direct reported speech contributing to characterization. 3. Bodily Presence(s) of Jesus 3.1. Pre-resurrection, chapters 1–19 In chapters 1–19, the pre-resurrection flesh-body-self of Jesus is simply taken for granted.19 It is unambiguous and immediately perceptible by constructions goes straight from the speaker (I) to the addressee (you) whose attention or obedience is solicited within the deictic context. […] Most important of all, this double-centeredness explains why direct speech is the only form of report that can always give a verbatim reproduction of the original utterance: the obligatory retention of an independent scaffold of coordinates within the inset makes it possible for the reporter to fill in all the verbal slots with the appropriate replicatory material.” Also, , The Poetics of Biblical Narrative: Ideological Literature and the Drama of Reading, Bloomington, IN, Indiana University Press, 1985, p.  158: “rhetorical questions, figurative language, imperatives and other forms of command, vocatives, references to the first and second person, oaths, emotionalisms, verbal irony” are possible in an inset representing direct reported speech, but not in the frame. 19. In the present discussion, I have opted to use the awkward phrases “flesh-bodyself ” and “risen-body-self ” to underline key aspects of the character Jesus, before and aer his resurrection respectively, as presented in John. I use the term “flesh” as described by Sandra S, “Touching the Risen Jesus: Mary Magdalen and omas the Twin in John 20,” in Craig R. K – Reimund B (eds.), The Resurrection of Jesus in the Gospel of John (WUNT, 222), Tübingen, Mohr Siebeck, 2008, 153-176, p. 159-160: “[…] flesh in John’s anthropology is not a part of the human, distinct from bones and blood, but the whole person as natural and mortal. […] To say that in Jesus the word of God (λόγος τοῦ θεοῦ) became flesh (σάρξ) is to say that the word became fully human (i.e., mortal).” As well, I use the term “body” as she defines it further in the same article, p.  161: “e body is quintessentially the person as selfsymbolizing (i.e., as numerically distinct, self-consistent and continuous), a subject that can interact with other subjects, and who is present and active in the world.” “Risen” refers to Jesus’ post-Easter status. As for “self,” I use the term simply to underline the independent, autonomous, and self-consistent aspect of the human person as a subject

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other characters in the story world. He can be seen, heard, touched; he in turn can also see, hear, touch.20 As well, he can be located in specific spatiotemporal coordinates; he is portrayed as moving about from place to place.21 He can be sought out by others, and he encounters others along his travels. He is described making various bodily gestures.22 He experiences emotions.23 For the most part, these flesh-body-self capacities and activities are expressed in the narrator’s discourse, although in a number of places they appear in the words attributed to Jesus himself.24 As well, occurrences of Jesus’ special knowledge are presented either by the narrator or by the character himself. In a number of instances, he knows what people are thinking, and/or knows their prior history; elsewhere, he is aware of up-coming events, particularly concerning himself.25 Of all the flesh-body-self capacities ascribed to Jesus, however, none is more frequently and prominently represented than his speaking, most of which occurs in the form of direct reported speech.26 Finally, the fact of his being a flesh-body-self is most emphatically underscored and confirmed in the events of his passion, crucified death, and burial.

of being and action. us, “flesh-body-self” refers to the character Jesus in chapters 1–19 while “risen-body-self ” refers to the same character in chapters 20–21. 20. “See”: 1:38, 42, 47, 48, 50; 3:11, 32; 5:6, 19; 6:5; 8:10; 9:1; 11:33; 19:26; “look”: 1:42; “li his eyes”: 6:5; 11:41; 17:1; “hear”: 5:30; 15:15; “touch”: 2:15 [3 ×]; 9:6; 13:5. For a more complete repertoire on the use in John of the terms for “seeing,” “hearing,” “knowing,” “witnessing,” “remembering,” and “believing,” see the Appendix in Josaphat C. T, Apprehension of Jesus in the Gospel of John (WUNT, 2. Reihe, 399), Tübingen, Mohr Siebeck, 2015, p. 209-216. 21. 1:11, 43; 2:12; 3:22; 4:3, 4, 5, 40, 43; “sat by the well,” 4:6; 5:1; 6:1, 3, 15; 7:1, 10, 14; 8:1, 59; 9:1; 10:22, 39, 40; 11:6, 17, 38, 54; 12:1, 36; 18:1; 19:5, 17; “head,” 19:2; “mouth,” 19:29; “head,” 19:30; “legs,” 19:33; “side,” 19:34; “body,” 19:38, 40; “napkin which had been on his head,” 20:7. 22. Turn, 1:38; made a whip, drove, poured, 2:15; baptized, 3:22; liing his eyes, 6:5; took loaves, distributed them, 6:11; stood up, 7:37; bent down and wrote, 8:6; stood up, 8:7; bent down and wrote, 8:8; spat, made clay, anointed, 9:6; lied his eyes, 11:41; sat upon the donkey, 12:14; rose from supper, laid aside his garments, girded himself, 13:4; poured water, washed, wiped, 13:5; had washed their feet, taken his garments, and resumed his place, 13:12; dipped the morsel, gave it to Judas, 13:26; lied up his eyes, 17:1. 23. 11:33, 35; 12:27; 13:21; also, the various mentions of Jesus’ love for his disciples in the Farewell Discourse. 24. John 2:4, 25; 3:11; 4:1, 18, 53; 5:6, 42; 6:6, 15, 61, 64; 7:30, 34; 8:20, 37, 55; 9:3; 10:14, 15, 27; 11:4, 42; 13:1, 3, 18; 16:19; 18:4; 19:28. 25. John 2:25; 4:1, 18; 5:6, 42; 6:6, 15, 61, 64; 8:55; 9:3; 10:14, 15, 27; 11:42; 13:1; 16:9; 18:4; 19:28. 26. Of the fieen instances of indirect reported speech in the Fourth Gospel (4:44, 47, 51, 52; 5:15; 8:27; 9:15; 11:51, 57; 13:29; 18:14, 19; 19:31, 38; 20:18), only three refer to Jesus (4:44; 8:27, and 13:29, none of which refers to the risen Jesus in chapters 20–21).

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3.2. Post-resurrection, chapters 20–21 In chapters 20–21, however, the presence of his body-self cannot be presumed: due to his death by execution, he is absent.27 It is not enough for the narrator to recount that Mary Magdalene “saw Jesus standing” (20:14), that he “came and stood among” the assembled disciples (20:19,  26), that “he showed them his hands and his side” (20:20), and that he “stood on the beach” (21:4). Even when he does appear, his presence at first remains mysterious, enigmatic, elusive. Unless and until he appears, he cannot be located in a specific time or place; he is not, as before, described as moving from place to place. As a result, unlike in chapters 1–19 where people sought him out and where he met others during his ministry in Galilee, Samaria, and Jerusalem, now he is the one who must seek out others. If, before, he was depicted as making various bodily gestures, in chapters 20–21 these are limited to three only: showing his hands and side (20:20; it is unclear exactly what gestures this entailed), breathing the Holy Spirit on the disciples (20:22), and taking and giving bread and fish to the seven disciples (21:13). Unlike in chapters 1–19 where various of his body parts are mentioned, chapters 20–21 refer only to his hands and his side. If, before, he experienced emotions, nothing of the kind occurs regarding the risen Jesus. e narrator never explicitly says that Jesus sees and hears, as was the case in chapters 1–19, although it is obvious from the dialogues between him and the 27. H, Dialogism (n. 10), p. 165-166: How and how much would the following apply to the risen-body-self of Jesus? “True to his essentially Kantian (and anti-Hegelian) roots, Bakhtin sought to square his epistemology with the findings of science as well as with the speculations of metaphysics and the deductions of logic. In particular, he sought to apply to the conscious human subject the same set of conditions that would apply in attempts to locate any other entity. Two physical laws in particular – one from classical physics and another from Einsteinian physics – bear directly on dialogism’s obsession with placement. e first is that two bodies cannot occupy the same space at the same time; the second is that the time/space of any specific body can only be known relative to a particular reference system appropriate to it. e human subject, before it is anything else, is a body. e implication of the first law is that each subject is a body occupying a unique site in time and space. e funeral formula, ‘ashes to ashes,’ is one of the ways we recognize that the decomposition of our physical bodies aer death marks the evacuation of the unique time/space we materially occupied in life. Every human being has, as a body, a very clearly marked beginning and end. But the human subject is not merely a body, of course – it is a conscious body.” If the risen Jesus appears and speaks, he must perforce occupy a specific time and space. Put more succinctly, Graham W, “Bodies: e Displaced Body of Jesus Christ,” in John M – Catherine P – Graham W (eds.), Radical Orthodoxy: A New Theology, London, UK – New York, NY, Routledge, 1999, 163-181, p. 174, writes: “e Gospel narrative, which had previously followed Jesus Christ wherever he went until his disappearance into the tomb, now can follow him no longer.”

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disciples that he does. Indeed, in these two ultimate Johannine chapters, all the verbs of perceiving, moving, knowing/not-knowing used in narrator’s framing discourse are ascribed exclusively to the disciples.28 As well, the only “inside views” offered by the narrator pertain to the disciples, not to Jesus.29 While the pre-resurrection Jesus is the subject of special knowledge, whether expressed by the narrator or by the character himself, nothing of the like is overtly attributed to the risen Jesus, although he obviously knows where to find the disciples. According to what he says, especially his leading questions and his knowing responses, it becomes apparent that he is aware that Mary Magdalene had been seeking his entombed body in the garden, that the other disciples were gathered in the room for fear of the authorities, that omas had insisted on touching his wounds, that Peter and his companions had caught nothing and that a multitude of fish lay off the right side of the boat, that Peter had denied him three times. 30 Overall, then, the narrator remains discrete, circumspect, 28. Variously for the disciples: John 20:1, 2, 5, 7, 8, 9, 12, 13, 14 (2 ×), 18, 20, 21, 25 (2 ×), 27, 29; 21:4, 9, 12, 15, 16, 17, 20, 21, 24. e triple mention of “knowing” in 21:15-17 is ascribed to Jesus by the character Peter, not by the narrator, another indication of the narrator’s self-effacement in characterizing the risen Jesus. 29. John 20:9, 14, 15, 20; 21:4, 12. Regarding the “inside view” of Jesus’ knowing that Peter loves him, see previous note (n. 28). On the overall difference between the pre- and post-Easter Jesus, see Michael W, “Resurrection and Eternal Life: e Canonic Memory of the Resurrected Christ, His Reality, and His Glory,” in John P – Michael W (eds.), The End of the World and the Ends of God: Science and Theology on Eschatology (eology for the Twentieth Century), Harrisburg, PA, Trinity Press International, 2000, 279-290, p. 283-284: “e resurrection of Christ is not a mere reanimation of the pre-Easter Jesus. In no case do the biblical witnesses give the impression that the post-Easter Christ lived together with his disciples or with other persons in the same way that the pre-Easter Jesus did. Although they claim that there is both identity and continuity between the pre-Easter and the post-Easter Jesus Christ, they point to a complex identity and continuity that need to be unfolded. e continuity is not just the continuity of an earthly physical existence, realized at several space-time points of intersection.” 30. e risen Jesus’ familiarity with the present circumstances of the disciples to whom he appeared bodily implies that he had enjoyed a significant lived experience and history with them during his public ministry. As a result, it was a matter of the disciples coming to recognize him in his post-Easter transformed bodily state: one can recognize (literally, come to know again) someone only if one already had known that person previously. at is why in the Gospel episodes the risen Jesus appears bodily only to those who had previously known him well; other people – the crowds, the ruling authorities, etc. – would have had only a passing acquaintance with him and would therefore probably not have been able to recognize him in his post-Eastern state. Nor, for that matter, would anyone else, believer or non-believer, recognize him were he to appear bodily aer the limited span of his post-Easter appearances, for they would not have had any significant lived history with him in his pre-Easter existence. In his article “‘Seeing’ the Risen Jesus,” Stephen T. D (in Stephen T. D – Daniel K – Gerald O’C (eds.) The Resurrection: An Interdisciplinary Symposium on the Resurrection

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reserved vis-à-vis the risen-body-self of Jesus. By stepping aside to let the character Jesus speak, the narrator instead relegates the disciples’ task of recognizing Jesus’ transformed body-self on the strength of direct reported speech with the implications regarding sound, bodily presence, present time, and interlocution that this narrative device educes.31 Given the differences in the bodily presences of Jesus before and aer his resurrection, and given that direct reported speech requires, and inheres in, a bodily presence, is there a difference as well in the use of direct reported speech attributed to him before and aer the resurrection? 4. Direct Reported Speech and the Character Jesus Before his resurrection, the fact of his speaking was not in itself particularly noteworthy or exceptional. Aer the resurrection, however, his speaking assumes a singularly critical role. Until the risen Jesus speaks to the disciples – calling Mary Magdalene by name, wishing peace to the assembled disciples, querying and then urging the disciples in the boat to cast their net on the right side, inviting them to have breakfast – they fail to identify and/or recognize him. Without the words with which he addresses them, his bodily appearance remains at best equivocal and inconclusive, at worst unintelligible. For the disciples, those capacities attributable to his now risen-body-self – seeing, hearing, being locateable, being otherwise perceptible – must, instead, be inferred and deduced for the most part from the fact itself of his speaking.32 Until he of Jesus, Oxford, UK, Oxford University Press, 1998, 126-147, p.  131-132 and 137-138), suggests that Jesus appeared not only to believers but to non-believers as well. Among the latter he lists omas and James the brother of Jesus: until Jesus appeared bodily to them, they had not believed. However, they were able to recognize him because they had had a prolonged lived experience and history with him before Easter. Paul’s case is different. At the time of his Damascus road Christophany, he was both a non-believer and someone who had never had a lived experience with the pre-Easter Jesus. us, Paul saw a light and heard a voice (Acts 9:3-4; 22:7-8; 26:13-14), but there is no mention that the risen Jesus appeared to him in the same bodily way as he did to the disciples who had known him before Easter: there was no recognition as with the disciples (and James, the brother of the Lord, as well as the five hundred mentioned in 1 Cor 15:6-7). 31. is implies that in the appearances the risen-body-self of Jesus occupies space and time, albeit in a punctual and temporary manner. See D, “‘Seeing’ the Risen Jesus” (n. 30), p. 133-134. 32. H, Dialogism (n. 10), p. 63: “But one thing should be very clear: in so far as an utterance is not merely what is said, it does not passively reflect a situation that lies outside of language. Rather, the utterance is a deed, it is active, productive: it resolves a situation, brings it to an evaluative conclusion (for the moment at least), or extends action into the future. […] Discourse does not reflect a situation, it is a situation. Each time we talk, we literally enact values in our speech through the process of scripting our place and that of our listener in a culturally specific social scenario” [emphasis in original].

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appears and speaks, he cannot be convincingly identified and/or recognized.33 is difference in the role that speaking plays between the pre- and post-resurrection Jesus is further accentuated by the content of what he says. In chapters 1–19, his words, which in various ways aimed to reveal who he really is and his intimate relationship with the Father, fail to convince or persuade others.34 Instead, his words cause friction, antagonism, fear, disbelief, controversy, perplexity.35 Where in some instances there is belief, this faith tends to be tentative, temporary, wavering.36 Moreover, the characters who do believe are not mentioned again in chapters 20–21, having no further incidence in the plot of the story. Except for “his mother, his mother’s sister, Mary the wife of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene […] and the disciple he loved” (19:25b-26a), all his other followers abandon him aer his arrest. In short, then, throughout his public ministry, his fleshbody-self constituted an impediment or obstacle for others coming to believe what his words intended to communicate.37 Aer his resurrection, 33. In the episode as well of Jesus walking on the water, seeing is insufficient; direct reported speech is required to assure identification: [e disciples] “saw Jesus walking on the sea and drawing near to the boat. ey were frightened, but he said to them, ‘It is I; do not be afraid’” (6:19b-20). 34. In the Synoptic Gospels, Jesus’ words for the most part concern the Kingdom of God (or of Heaven) rather than his identity and his intimate relationship with the Father. 35. Instances of these are woven in various ways and intensities throughout chapters 1–19. 36. Perhaps the most explicit attestation of incomplete or insufficient faith appears in John 16:29-32a, the last words Jesus exchanges with his disciples before his arrest: “His disciples said, ‘Yes, now you are speaking plainly, not in any figure of speech! Now we know that you know all things, and do not need to have anyone question you; by this we believe that you came from God.’ Jesus answered them, ‘Do you now believe? e hour is coming, indeed it has come, when you will be scattered, each to his home, and you will leave me alone.’” 37. Jesper Tang N, “Resurrection, Recognition, Reassuring: e Function of Jesus’ Resurrection in the Fourth Gospel,” in K – B (eds.), The Resurrection of Jesus in the Gospel of John (n. 18), 177-208, p. 193 and 194: “Nevertheless, his earthly period ends in the crucifixion, where he fulfils the Father’s demand but apparently fails to convince anybody of his divine being.” […] “In his earthly existence Jesus cannot be fully recognized: ‘No declaration of Jesus’ identity prior to his being lied up, his death and resurrection, could be a full anagnōrisis’ [citing R. Alan C, The Gospel and Letters of John (IBT), Nashville, TN, Abingdon, 1998, p. 83]. For that reason the recognition scenes in the corpus of the gospel are indeed a bent genre. At best they consist of partial recognitions with very little persistence. Note the description of the disciples as a timid, insecure group hiding behind locked doors (20:19). e point is that Jesus before his resurrection is not particularly successful. His true identity remains unrecognized, and complete belief has not yet arisen. e reason for the ambiguous answers to Jesus’ proclamation during his earthly life lies in the complicated relationship between his appearance and his being. Because of the incarnation he appears to be only human in the middle phase of the narrative, but he also is divine. ere is no direct access to his divinity. He is incognito, and consequently he cannot immediately convince the humans of his divine status” [emphasis in original].

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however, his words succeed in authenticating and confirming his risenbody-self. Before, if his flesh-body-self stood in the way of the words, aerwards his words open the way to perceiving his risen-body-self. In short, before, despite his speaking, others did not recognize him; after, because he speaks, the disciples recognize him. us far, the above observations have focused almost entirely on the story level, on what is represented in the narrative. What, then, of the discourse level, the representing instance? Why would the discourse represent the body-self of Jesus and his direct reported speech differently aer from before his resurrection? e first reason devolves from the demands of what is being represented. As mimetic performance, narrative discourse cannot stray too far from the world it seeks to represent, from the events that are purported to have taken place in the story world, as Sternberg explains: “[…] each [discoursive] choice will be regulated by the inescapable logic of imitation, realizing the functional requirements of art (from unity to catharsis) in terms of referential processes and linkages analogous to life. Poetic fiat, features, drives, scales, impacts will then all be mapped out onto what I call the actional dynamics of narrative.”38 In John 20–21, representing an enigmatic, elusive, unexpected, unpredictable, mysterious risen-body-self can best be achieved, it would seem, via narratorial reticence, discretion, circumspection, reservedness on the one hand, with instead increased reliance on direct reported speech and all its inherent implications and inferences on the other hand, both in contrast to the opposite emphases representing Jesus’ previous flesh-body-self in chapters 1–19. In either case, before the resurrection and aer, the medium of the discourse mirrors (mimics) the message of the story.39 e second stems from the formal independence, on the discourse level, of the inset from its narrative frame, as mentioned above. What is represented in citing verbatim the purported words of a character is, according to Sternberg (quoted earlier), a “subject or manifestation of subjective experience: speech, thought, and otherwise expressive behavior.” e words a character is made to say, therefore, are, for the other characters in the story as well as for the reader, unforeseen and unpredictable: both characters 38. S, “Mimesis and Motivation” (n.  7), p.  359, 416; also, p.  417-418: “So authorial strategy must in each case (telling/depicting, chronologizing/analogizing) be realized in and through spatiotemporal attributes of the represented object itself. Or from the reader’s viewpoint, the process of aesthetic synthesis and explanation goes hand in hand with the piecing together of the fictive construct”; , “Ordering the Unordered: Time, Space, and Descriptive Coherence,” in Yale French Review 61 (1981) 60-88, p. 72-73. 39. S, “Mimesis and Motivation” (n. 7), p. 419.

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and reader learn the newly-divulged information at the same time,40 which serves to underscore the unique, autonomous, and independent reality of the speaking character. is independence is further abetted in the way the risen Jesus relates to the world peopled by others in the story. Before, by virtue of his fleshbody-self, he was in one way or another unavoidably involved in the social and material world they shared. Such is no longer the case aer his resurrection, for he had become absent, no longer perceptibly and palpably accessible to them or in the world they, unlike him, continued to inhabit. His renewed engagement with his disciples, then, could come about only and entirely through his intention and initiative. Nothing in the world of the disciples, nothing they might have said or done, would of itself have prompted his presence and involvement. Only until and unless he initiates the encounter are they able to relate to him again: now, only he can penetrate their world, not they his.41 e narrator’s stepping aside in virtual self-effacement to let the risen Jesus engage in direct reported speech is what contributes compellingly toward creating the impression of his being fully, bodily alive,42 of remaining, in the felicitous phrase of Rowan Williams, “the subject of his history.”43 is impression of subjective initiative and autonomy is yet further amplified in chapters 20–21 by the liberal, and nearly exclusive, attribution to the risen Jesus of vocatives, imperatives, and questions, which, as mentioned earlier, only direct reported speech can represent.44 40. e reader learns the newly-divulged information in the here-and-now communication between the narrator and the narratee; the other characters in the story world learn the newly-divulged information from the speaking character. See my article “e Illusion of Immediacy: An Exploration of the Bible’s Predilection for Direct Discourse,” in Theoforum 31 (2000) 131-151 (reproduced in chapter 1 of this volume). 41. is is the exact reverse of what David realizes upon the death of his infant son in 2 Sam 12:23: “But now he is dead; why should I fast? Can I bring him back again? I shall go to him, but he will not return to me.” e risen Jesus must enter the on-going world that the disciples inhabit, that is, he must temporarily be locatable in time and space, his appearance is an event in the world, actively realized by him (see the quotation from H in n. 11 above). 42. Necessarily “bodily”: see n. 11 and n. 19 above. 43. W, “Between the Cherubim” (n. 4), p. 193; also, p. 186: is unprovoked and unprompted initiative of the risen Jesus suggests that the resurrection of Jesus cannot “be stated exclusively in terms of what happens to the minds and hearts of believers,” that is, in Bultmann’s phrase, Jesus is ‘risen into the kerygma.’” See n. 48 below. 44. Vocatives, imperatives, and questions spoken by the risen Jesus appear, singly or combined, in the following verses in the last two chapters of the Fourth Gospel: 20:15, 16, 17, 19, 21, 22-23, 26, 27, 29; 21:5, 6, 10, 12, 15, 16, 17-18, 19, 22, 23. In the few instances where Mary Magdalene or Peter employs one or another of these forms, the exchanges in which they occur were initiated by Jesus. For these expressions as formal indicators of interlocution, see n. 18 above.

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5. Revelation of Jesus’ True Identity Direct reported speech remains a key device for characterizing Jesus throughout the Fourth Gospel, in which the main issue consists in revealing who Jesus truly is. is revelation finds explicit expression in chapters 1–19 where Jesus’ debates, arguments, and long monologues are found; nothing of the kind appears in chapters 20–21. Once the disciples encounter him anew and recognize that it is really Jesus who appears to them, one would expect that all he had said about his identity prior to the resurrection would be brought forward and rehearsed again with the disciples so that the full meaning and truth of the words he once spoke might be confirmed. But that is not the case. What, then, is the status of these revelations about his identity, articulated in chapters 1–19, in light of his appearances in chapters 20–21? e crucial role that the many prospective statements interspersed throughout the discourse, whether spoken by the narrator or by Jesus, here becomes manifest: Narrator’s asides (in the framing instance) – His disciples remembered that it was written, “Zeal for your house will consume me” (2:17). – When therefore he was raised from the dead, his disciples remembered that he had said this; and they believed the scripture and the word which Jesus had spoken (2:22). – Now this he said about the Spirit, which those who believed in him were to receive; for as yet the Spirit had not been given, because Jesus was not yet glorified (7:39). – His disciples did not understand this at first; but when Jesus was glorified, then they remembered that this had been written of him and had been done to him (12:16).

Jesus’ prospective statements (speech-events in insets) – “I tell you this now, before it takes place, that when it does take place you may believe that I am he” (13:19). – “But the Counselor, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all that I said to you” (14:26). – “I go away, and I will come to you” (14:28). – “And now I have told you before it [his leaving to go to the Father] takes place, so that when it takes place, you may believe” (14:29). – “But when the Counselor comes, whom I shall send to you from the Father, even the Spirit of truth […]” (15:26). – “But I have said these things to you, that when their hour comes [those who will persecute the disciples] you may remember that I told you of them” (16:4). – “If I go, I will send him [the Counselor] to you” (16:7b). – “When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you in all truth” (16:13).

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  – “A little while, and you will see me no more; again a little while, and you will see me” (16:16). – “Truly, truly, I say to you, you will weep and lament, but the world will rejoice; you will be sorrowful, but your sorrow will turn into joy” (16:20). – “[…] I will see you again and your hearts will rejoice” (16:22). – “I have made your name known to those whom you gave me from the world. ey were yours, and you gave them to me, and they have kept your word. Now they know that everything you have given me is from you, for the words that you gave me I have given to them, and they have received them and know in truth that I came from you; and they have believed that you sent me” (17:6-8).

In one way or another, each of these statements holds out the promise that one day the disciples would understand Jesus’ words and therefore come to comprehend who he truly is, a promise realized explicitly when the risen Jesus returns and breathes on them the Holy Spirit, the Counselor who caused them to remember and understand. Although plotted in the narrative before the resurrection of Jesus, these revelations were in effect formulated retrospectively, for how could the disciples have known that the promise had indeed come true except through its realization? And if this promise, spoken before the resurrection, is true because it had come to pass aer the resurrection, then everything Jesus had said about himself before must perforce be true as well.45 e proof lies in chapters 1–19, for these chapters record words spoken earlier that the disciples did in effect remember after Jesus’ resurrection. us, the disciples have come to learn through their encounters with the risen Jesus speaking to them in the story world (the speech-events in the framed insets) what the narrator has known all along (indicated through the asides in the framing instance listed above), that what was revealed about and by Jesus in chapters 1–19 was indeed true.46 e narrator’s reticence and self-effacement regarding the risen Jesus in chapters 20–21, then, is intended to allow the disciples to come to this realization, most fully 45. T, Apprehension (n. 20), p. 187: “[…] a resurrected Jesus proves John’s (previous) testimony true; the earthly Jesus in GJohn’s storyline is now demonstrated to be the living (and omniscient) Jesus.” 46. Paul R, Temps et récit I, Paris, Seuil, 1983, p.  251: “Si tout récit met en œuvre, en vertu même de l’opération de mise in intrigue, une connexion causale, cette construction est déjà une victoire sur la simple chronologie et rend possible la distinction entre l’histoire et la chronique. En outre, si la construction de l’intrigue est œuvre de jugement, elle lie la narration à un narrateur, et donc permet au ‘point de vue’ de ce dernier de se dissocier de la compréhension que les agents ou les personnages de l’histoire peuvent avoir eu de leur contribution à la progression de l’intrigue; contrairement à l’objection classique, le récit n’est aucunement lié à la perspective confuse et bornée des agents et des témoins immédiats des événements; au contraire, la mise à distance, constitutive du ‘point de vue,’ rend possible le passage du narrateur à l’historien.”

        

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expressed in omas’ “My Lord and my God!” (20:28), upon the interventions and initiatives alone of Jesus as a risen-body-self , encounters (events) made perceptible mainly through, with, and in his use direct reported speech.47 e pivotal event in the narrative that transforms prospection into retrospection, the occurrence that overcomes disbelief in Jesus’ prior revelations about himself into promised understanding, lies in the resurrection, for had it not occurred, he would have remained, even aer his crucified death and burial, a flesh-body-self, the very impediment that had prevented the possibility of recognizing the truth of his self-revelation in chapters 1–19.48 e process of post-resurrection retrospective formulation is, of course, common to all four Gospels. Unique to John, however, is that the before/ aer difference finds its focus in the way direct reported speech, as a capacity inherent in a body-self, is used to characterize Jesus both before and aer his resurrection. Since John speaks of “incarnation” (1:14), for him the resurrection of Jesus, and only this, could result in revealing the identity of the incarnate Word: e words that the pre-resurrection,

47. T, Apprehension (n. 19), p. 173: “What has been apprehended by the narrator/ author is finally grasped by the disciples back in the narrated time.” 48. N, “Resurrection, Recognition, Reassuring” (n.  37), p.  178; also, p.  201: “e crucifixion is the peripeteia of the narrative, which marks the culmination of the middle phase and results in the glorification that initiates the final phase. In the final phase the stigmata of the resurrected one evoke the anagnōrisis which could not have happened without the crucifixion.” is interpretation counters the thesis that, since John’s Gospel focuses so climactically on the cross, the resurrection accounts play no significant role and are in fact not essential. Harold W. A, “From Discord Rises Meaning: Resurrection Motifs in the Fourth Gospel,” in K – B, The Resurrection of Jesus in the Gospel of John (n. 19), 1-18, p. 1-2, explains this thesis as follows: “Much of the gospel focuses on the event of the cross, which is the point where Jesus is ‘lied up/exalted,’ where the work he has come to do is completed (19:30), where an effective sign is given that epitomizes and encapsulates the previous ‘signs.’ Like the serpent in the desert (3:14), the body of Jesus on the cross will heal when seen with the eyes of faith. Like the Son of Man coming in glory, Jesus lied up on the cross will draw all people to himself (12:32). From the side of Jesus, who is suspended on the cross, comes the water and the blood that will nourish and cleanse (2:1-11; 4:10; 6:51-58; 7:37-39). e cross is certainly a focal point of the text, both in its symbolism and in its underlying theology. So why does the text continue with resurrection appearance accounts? Are they merely aerthoughts, unavoidable elements of the resurrection tradition, simple illustrations of pious themes? Or do they serve an essential function in John’s story of Jesus?” is interpretation, with which Attridge does not agree, appears to stem from Rudolf B, Theology of the New Testament, Vol.  2. Trans. Kendrick G, London, UK, SCM, 1958 [1955], p. 56: “If Jesus’ death on the cross is already his exaltation and glorification, his resurrection cannot be an event of special significance. No resurrection is needed to destroy the triumph which death might be supposed to have gained in the crucifixion. For the cross itself was already triumph over the world and its ruler” [emphasis in original].

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flesh-body-self Jesus spoke about himself were indeed true; he is everything he had revealed himself to be. 6. John’s Reader Unlike the disciples in the narrative, the reader has not seen the risen Jesus (20:29). What, then, can be surmised about the Gospel’s effect, with its unique way of narrating the before/aer differences in the body-self of Jesus along with the consequent differences in the direct reported speech attributed to him, on the reader? In plotting the narrative as he does, with the disciples’ encounters with the risen Jesus leading them to realize that his flesh-body-self, first seen as an impediment, in fact was the very locus revealing his true identity, John intimates that the same prospective/retrospective dynamic obtains for the reader.49 Now that Jesus’ appearances have ceased and that instead his risen presence continues to be experienced only in mediated form, in various perceptible “signs” (above all in sacrament and scripture), John urges his readers not to be misled (confounded, put off, deterred, constrained, hampered, hindered), as the disciples had been at first, by the impediment of the “incarnated” nature of these signs (their physical, perceptible aspects), but rather to believe that these “signs” already contain the revelation of Jesus’ true identity, an identity that will assuredly be made known fully in the future: “Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of the disciples, which are not written in this book; but these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing you may have life in his name” (20:30-31).50 Faith enables the reader to 49. Wayne M, “e Man from Heaven in Johannine Sectarianism,” in JBL 91 (1972) 44-72, p. 69: “The book functions for its readers in precisely the same way that the epiphany of its hero functions within its narratives and dialogues” [emphasis in original]. 50. S, “Touching the Risen Jesus” (n. 19), p. 173: “Sacramental experience is not disembodied. It is an experience of the spiritual precisely in the material.” A, “From Discord Rises Meaning” (n. 48), p. 18-19 points out that the “signs” are what lead to faith in the present: “For the Fourth Gospel the resurrection of Christ is the conditio sine qua non for the life of faith, but it is not a warrant for that faith. It is the ultimate semeion in the text, an event that has meaning only as a pointer to a reality beyond itself. e gospel’s critique of a naïve belief on the basis of signs hangs as a background warning to the reader who would take the resurrection as an event that suffices to compel belief in the Resurrected One. e Gospel knows him to be elusive, now inaccessible to the sight of potential disciples, not easily recognizable even when he was with his own. Tokens of his resurrection (i.e., the accounts of the empty tomb in the resurrection narratives) and visions (i.e., the list of authoritative witnesses that Paul provided) could cause some to believe in the reality of his abiding presence. But it is only the experience of that presence that provides any ground for belief, and that presence is encountered in the community where the Spirit resides” [celebrated, one might add, in

        

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intimate, to anticipate retrospectively what for the present exists only prospectively.51 7. Conclusion Direct reported speech is but one in an array of narrative discourse devices that contribute to characterization. e characterization of Jesus in John, therefore, cannot pretend to be based on it alone. Nonetheless, this device plays an indispensable role in the overall communicative design of John’s Gospel. Without it the characterization of the risen Jesus in John would be weakened if not seriously jeopardized, as, in consequence, would be the attempt to discern the overall narrative aim of the Fourth Gospel and its intended effect on the reader. Momentarily deleting all the direct reported speech attributed to the risen Jesus in John 20–21 confirms this. If the challenge facing the author of John’s Gospel lay in expressing in narrative form, in discourse mimetically representing an eventful world-in-action featuring the speech-events of both the flesh-body-self (“the Word became flesh and dwelt among us” [1:14]) and the risen-body-self (“It is the Lord!” [21:7]) of Jesus, then direct reported speech as a means of characterization shows itself to be a crucial, indeed indispensable, narrative device toward achieving that goal.

the “signs” of sacrament and scripture]. W, “Bodies” (n. 27), p. 174-175: “e body of Jesus keeps absenting itself from the text. Where does it go? What the body is replaced by is the witness of the Church. First the angels pass on the news that he is risen, and then Mary bears witness. Finally, several other disciples narrate their experiences (those on the road to Emmaus, the disciples in the upper room to omas). Jesus’ presence is mediated through the discourses of those who will comprise the early Church. […] us, the absenting body of Christ gives place to (is supplemented by) a body of confessional and doxological discourse in which the Church announces, in a past tense which can never make its presence felt immediately: ‘We have seen him. He is risen.’ e testimonials cited in the Gospels provide a self-conscious trope for the writing of the Gospel narratives themselves. For we had only the mediated body of Jesus Christ throughout. We have been reading and absorbing and performing an ecclesial testimony in the fact that we have the Gospel narratives (and Pauline Epistles) at all. e confessions and doxologies staged within the narratives are self-reflexive moments when the narratives examine that which makes the Gospels possible: the giving and receiving of signs.” e narrative nature of much of this witness is thus not incidental to belief, as mentioned above in the introduction. 51. N, “Resurrection, Recognition, Reassuring” (n. 37), p. 208: “But if the truth of Jesus’ claim was proven right by his resurrection, according to the Fourth Gospel, the proof of the truth of the Fourth Gospel remains an eschatological expectation.”

C 12

SOCIORHETORICAL INTERPRETATION’S “NARRATIONAL TEXTURE” IN DIALOGUE WITH NARRATOLOGY 1. Introduction is essay is a slightly revised version of a paper I was invited to present by the members of the Rhetoric and Religious Antiquity Seminar at the November 23-26, 2013, Society of Biblical Literature Annual Meeting held in Baltimore. e members of the seminar had been engaging, over a projected span of several years’ meetings, in reviewing, assessing, and possibly enhancing the different “textures” that constitute Socio-rhetorical Interpretation.1 To do so, the seminar members invited scholars who, while not themselves practitioners of SRI, specialized in disciplines or exegetical methodologies germane to aspects of it. Indeed, the seminar’s initiative responds well to one of the aims of SRI: “to set specialized areas of analysis in conversation with one another.”2 As “Narrrational Texture” was the chosen focus of the 2013 meeting – the full title being “Narrational Texture, Narrative Studies, and Rhetoric: An Exploration of Biblical and 1. For descriptions and applications of Socio-rhetorical Interpretation, see the programmatic books by Vernon K. R, The Tapestry of Early Christian Discourse: Rhetoric, Society and Ideology, London, UK – New York, NY, Routledge, 1996; Exploring the Texture of Texts: A Guide to Socio-rhetorical Interpretation, Valley Forge, PA, Trinity Press International, 1996; and more recently his Sea Voyages and Beyond: Emerging Strategies in Socio-rhetorical Interpretation, Blandford Forum, Dorset, UK, Deo Publishing, 2010. Further applications of SRI can be found in David G – Duane W – L. Gregory B (eds.), Fabrics of Discourse: Essays in Honor of Vernon K. Robbins, Valley Forge, PA, Trinity Press International, 2003. For a helpful and succinct discussion of the origins and development of SRI, see David G, “Socio-rhetorical Interpretation: Textures of a Text and Its Reception,” in JSNT 33/2 (2010) 191-206, and the bibliography appended thereto. 2. R, Tapestry (n. 1), p. 3. See also Vernon K. R, The Invention of Christian Discourse, Vol. 1 (RRAS), Blandford Forum, Dorset, UK, Deo Publishing, 2009, p. 5: “[…] a sociorhetorical interpretative analytic applies a politics of invitation, with a presupposition that the people invited into the conversation will contribute significantly new insights as a result of their particular experiences, identities, and concerns. In other words, a sociorhetorical interpretive analytic presupposes genuine team work: people from different locations and identities working together with different cognitive frames for the purpose of getting as much insight as possible on the relation of things to one another.”

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Related Texts” – my interest in narratology and narrative criticism led the seminar members to recommend me, along with other scholars, as dialogue partners. And while I am not a practitioner of SRI, I had become somewhat familiar with it over the years through evaluating, and serving on juries for, at least five dissertations adopting this approach. For the SBL presentation, I divided my reflections in three sections: (1) What occasioned my accepting to formulate my thoughts regarding Narrational Texture in light of narratology; (2) e narrativity of narrative, that is, what distinguishes narrative from other types of discourse; (3) Suggestions for possibly enhancing SRI’s analysis of narrative texts. 2. Occasion for Accepting the Invitation In the winter and spring of 2013, I served as jury member for two dissertations that used SRI to analyze non-narrative, non-biblical texts. In previous years, I had also served in the same capacity for three dissertations applying this interpretive analytic to narrative biblical texts. In these three earlier instances, no questions arose in my mind regarding the implementing of Narrational Texture. However, the two recent dissertations applying Narrational Texture to non-narrative, non-biblical texts did give me pause. For example, the attempt to apply the analytic process proposed for Narrational Texture to a section of Origen’s Commentary on John’s Gospel did not seem to fit comfortably. Aer all, Origen’s text is a commentary, not a narrative; more specifically, it is a commentary on the narrative of John 4. Hence, applying the term “narrator” to Origen seemed out of place. Origen’s voice is very much present in his text, but it is not, to my mind, the voice of a narrator. I then turned to Vernon Robbin’s The Tapestry of Early Christian Discourse in which he presents the theoretical foundations for SRI, at least as it had been developed to date (1996). Let me present three observations concerning a selected few – by all means not all – of these foundations. 1) According to Robbins, one of the key presuppositions of SRI is “that texts are performances of language, and language is part of the inner fabric of society, culture, ideology and religion.”3 On the next page he elaborates as follows: “[t]he inner workings of language presuppose that words, phrases, clauses and sentences stand in an interactive relation not only with thoughts, convictions, attitudes and values but also with trees, rocks, buildings, people, institutions and events.”4 Teasing out this use of 3. R, Tapestry (n. 1), p. 1. 4. Ibid., p. 2.

- ’ “ ” 201 language in ancient texts is clearly SRI’s strength, as its track record over the years abundantly shows. 2) It appears to me that SRI was first elaborated with narrative texts in view, for Robbins uses the standard diagram for narrative theory: real author, implied author, narrator, characters, world of the text, real world. “Narrator” and “characters” have to do with narrative. Within this diagram, Robbins positions Innertexture, of which Narrational Texture is one component, between the implied author on the one hand, and the narrator and characters on the other hand. In this way, Robbins correctly points out that SRI “identifies the environment [my emphasis] among the implied author, the narrator and the characters as the arena where interpreters investigate the inner texture of a text.”5 I  will return to this placement of Narrational Innertexture later in my presentation. 3) “A text,” writes Robbins, “is a thick matrix of interwoven networks of meanings and meaning effects.”6 It conjures up a represented world, what Paul Ricœur calls “the world of the text.”7 When it comes to a narrative text, the “voices,” the purveyors of the words, phrases, sentences of the text, are those of the narrator and of the characters. It is through these creations of the implied author that the world of the text, the represented world, is made to emerge in the reader’s mind. is all seems to me quite accurate. As an illustration of Narrational Texture a few pages further in the book, however, Robbins uses 1 Cor 9.8 Here again, I am not sure I would use narrative concepts for a text that, at least in my mind, is not a narrative as such. Paul in 1 Cor 9 is not telling a story; he is not narrating. Rather, he arguing, persuading, cajoling, etc., as any good rhetor might do. Let me diverge here in a bit of an aside. e topic of narrative in Paul’s letters has attracted much attention for at least several decades if not longer.9 For the most part, such studies, which I find convincing and compelling, demonstrate that in his letters Paul presupposes a story, what one might call the story of God, the world, the chosen people, etc., a story that for Paul was unexpectedly and definitively reconfigured in the Christ event. Paul alludes to, comments on, argues from, and otherwise reinterprets this story in light of the revelation he experienced on the road to Damascus. is presupposed

5. Ibid., p. 29. 6. Ibid., p. 20. 7. Paul R, Du texte à l’action. Essais d’herméneutique II, Paris, Seuil, 1986, p. 112-115. 8. R, Tapestry (n. 1), p. 53-58; Paul R, Temps et récit I, Paris, Seuil, 1983, p. 121-122. 9. Bruce L (ed.), Narrative Dynamics in Paul: A Critical Assessment, Louisville, KY, Westminster John Knox, 2002.

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narrative, however, is not the concern of Narrational Texture in SRI, for Narrational Texture analyzes the text itself. References and allusions to, and citations of, etc., the underlying story are dealt with in SRI’s next step, an analysis of Intertexture. For the most part, Paul in his letters – indeed given the literary genre itself of letter – argues, persuades, urges, admonishes, praises, etc. He rarely narrates as such. e few instances within his letters where he actually engages in any sustained narrating appear in 1 ess 1–3, Gal 1–2 (and possibly for several verses 2 Cor 12) where he recalls and relates autobiographical experiences.10 As a narratio that is oen recommended in ancient rhetorical handbooks, such a component serves to bolster and otherwise support his overall rhetorical strategy.11 is little detour about Paul’s letters and narrative can serve as a bridge to my next section. If in 1 Cor 9 Paul is not, to my mind, narrating, and if in his Commentary on John Origen is also not narrating, what, then, do I mean by narrative? What makes narrative narrative, and not something else? What constitutes the uniqueness, the narrativity, of narrative? 3. What is Narrative? I have used the word Narratology in my title, but it is probably not the best term, for it refers, according the Martin Kreiswirth, to “the first rigorously formal attempt [in the 70s and 80s] to isolate story as story and consolidate narrative ubiquity by building a heuristic pan-narrative model.”12 e term Narrative Theory is perhaps a bit more accurate, for it is more oriented to the underpinnings of the genre than concerned with its content and is therefore more all-encompassing. Be that as it may, in my reading on narrative theory I have tended to gravitate more and more toward the theoretical and applied narrative work of Meir Sternberg, who is probably best known among biblical scholars for his 1985 The Poetics of Biblical Narrative: Ideological Literature and the 10. For the use of narrative in 1 essalonians, see my article “Explorations du fait narratif et son effet théologique dans 1  1–3,” in Camille F – André W (eds.), Analyse Narrative et Bible: Deuxième Colloque International du RRENAB, Louvain-la-Neuve, Avril 2004 (BETL, 191), Leuven, University Press – Peeters, 2005, p. 437448 (the English original appears as chapter 6 in this volume). 11. “Cicero in Inv. 1.27 defines the narratio in this way: ‘e narrative is an exposition of events that have occurred or are supposed to have occurred,’” Karl Paul D, “e Epistolary and Rhetorical Context of 1 ess. 2:1-12,” in Paul, Thessalonica, and Early Christianity, Grand Rapids, MI, Eerdmans, 2002, chapter 8, 163-194, p. 173, note 36. 12. Martin K, “Narrative Turn in the Humanities,” in David H – Manfred J – Marie-Laure R (eds.), Routledge Encyclopedia of Narrative Theory, London, UK – New York, NY, Routledge, 2005, 377-382, p. 378-379.

- ’ “ ” 203 Drama of Reading.13 roughout his theoretical writings, mostly in extensive articles in Poetics Today and other journals, he consistently and constantly insists on the need to determine the generic definition of narrative.14 How does one define the particular genre of discourse called narrative? What constitutes the narrativity of narrative? is is not as simple as it might at first appear, for, as Sternberg points out, “components and structures […] such as spatialities, characters, viewpoints, themes, ideology, semiotic code (e.g., language), and time of communication itself” can appear in non-narrative as well as in narrative texts, or even “with textuality at large.”15 us, they are not genre-specific to narrative. Such features are general features of discourse, but they do not in themselves constitute the generic specificity of narrative, that is, what is unique to the genre called narrative. For Sternberg, signalling out one or more of these general features of discourse as purportedly necessary for narrative falls into a formalist approach, an approach that ultimately cannot bear definitional fruit.16 Instead, he proposes a functional approach to narrative: not the elements, components, and structures it might exhibit, but rather what it does.17 Put succinctly, it’s about time. 13. Meir S, The Poetics of Biblical Narrative: Ideological Literature and the Drama of Reading (Indiana Studies in Biblical Literature), Bloomington, IN, Indiana University Press, 1985. 14. Among the more informative in this regard: Meir S, “Narrativity: From Objectivist to Functional Paradigm,” in Poetics Today 31/3 (Fall 2010) 507-659; “How Narrativity Makes a Difference,” in Narrative 9/2 (Jan 2001) 115-122; “Universals of Narrative and eir Cognitivist Fortunes (I),” in Poetics Today 24 (2003) 297-395; “Telling in Time (II): Chronology, Teleology, Narrativity,” in Poetics Today 13/3 (Fall 1992), 463-541; “Epilogue. How (Not) to Advance toward the Narrative Mind,” in Geert B – Jeroen V (eds.), Cognitive Poetics: Goals, Gaps and Gains, Berlin, de Gruyter, 2009, p. 455-532. 15. S, “Narrativity: From Objectivist to Functional Paradigm” (n.  14), p.  647. See also S, “How Narrativity Makes a Difference” (n.  14), p.  115-116: “[…] all discourse actually has perspectivity built into it: there is no representation without evaluation, across media, no communication without sender/addressee asymmetry, and no language use without orientational subjectivity as well, via deixis. Given such universal common denominators, what, if anything, marks off narrative perspectivizing, and why? Likewise with other common properties, semiotic, thematic, ideological, rhetorical, spatial, temporal. […] Even the undisputed narrative essentials, character and event, are also found in descriptive writing – hence across polar variety. Come to that, how to separate description within and outside narrative?” 16. In addition to the entire article “Narrativity: From Objectivist to Functional Paradigm” (n.  14), see also Meir S, “Reconceptualizing Narratology: Arguments for a Functionalist and Constructivist Approach to Narrative,” in Enthymema 4 (2011) 35-50, p. 37, also 45: “[…] the definition of narrative has generally been framed in terms of the represented world – of events, or of the relations between events and characters, or of agents with their intentions, and so forth.” 17. S, “Narrativity: From Objectivist to Functional Paradigm” (n.  14), p. 643: “If narrative/narrativity is what it does to the experiencer in the discoursing, then what it does willy-nilly branches into this well-defined set of responses to mental pressure

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According to Sternberg, “In or out of language, narrative uniquely entails the concurrence of two temporal sequences: that in which events happened and that in which they unfold, the dynamics of action and of its narration, represented and communicative time […].”18 At first, this seems simply to repeat the now standard distinction between story and discourse, one of the key theoretical foundations of narrative theory. But in fact there is more to his functional definition. Let me take the definition apart and then put it back together again. First, the storyworld. While every text has what can be called the world of the text, a narrative text has a storyworld, a narrative world.19 It is a world-in-motion. is world-in-motion refers to the mimesis of the lived experience of the protagonists in the time and space of their world. In this world, events happen. ere is constant instability due to the contingencies of the unknown, unforeseen future. ere are unexpected events, outcomes, reversals, twists and turns of plot, as time moves forward. e storyworld is never fully at rest until the end, and sometimes not even then. But that is not all. Second, on the discourse or communication level there is motion as well. Because the information in the discourse plays with time – structuring in slower or faster pacing; introducing flashbacks or flash-forwards; divulging information here, withholding it there, never revealing information all at once; placing strategic gaps that need to be filled – the reader, too, undergoes a roller-coaster ride of constantly guessing, hypothesizing, supposing, inferring, revising, wondering, always trying to make the most sense of the information as it is communicated from moment to moment. e reader experiences instability, restlessness, disequilibrium, etc., that continue until the end, and sometimes even beyond the end, of the story. As Sternberg puts it: Among all genres, narrative alone perforce makes things happen to characters inhabiting and traversing some represented spacetime, as well as to exerted by the intersequence: to a gapped gestalt in time, to a broken event line, to perceptibly missing and dechronologized information, to epistemic uncertainty and disequilibrium”; also S, “Reconceptualizing Narratology” (n.  16), p.  37 and 40: “I believed that we must start with the effect on the mind, and that is the key to all my work: we must start with the effect on the mind”; “I start by asking, What is the effect, and then I try to see what form(s) can trigger this effect.” 18. S, “Universals of Narrative and eir Cognitivist Fortunes (I)” (n. 14), p. 326. 19. David H, Story Logic: Problems and Possibilities of Narrative, Lincoln, NE, University of Nebraska Press, 2002, p. 14; also p. 5: “[…] storyworlds are mental models of who did what to and with whom, when, where, why, and in what fashion in the world to which recipients relocate – or make a deictic shi.” For an insightful discussion of the relationship between the world of the story and the real world, see Patrick O’N, Fictions of Discourse: Reading Narrative Theory, Toronto – Buffalo, NY – London, UK, University of Toronto Press, 1996, p. 33-41.

- ’ “ ” 205 ourselves in developing and disclosing their fortunes along another, plotted, trajectory. Narrative therefore uniquely carries movement in time to the limit of interplay between the times of real or fictional living and discoursed telling/reading, between action and communication.20

Now, to put the definition back together again. In narrative, there are two concurrent dramas going on, the drama of that which is represented (in the story) and the drama of that which is representing (in the telling/ reading).21 ey are concurrent, both occurring, and mutually influencing each other, in their interplay through time. According to Sternberg again: Intersequence, intertemporality, interdynamics, interprocess: always ‘inter,’ because this generic relation entails not just two sequences (times, dynamics, processes) but a Siamese twinship, whereby narrative/narrativity lives in between, or more exactly yet, in our inescapable restless movement between the two, from start to finish. at ‘between’ relation, with the peculiar effects that universally arise from it […] holds the key to narrativity.22

Of these two – the communicative and the communicated, the representing and the represented – the communicative takes precedence, for it is only through the activating of the discourse in telling/reading, with all its restlessness and instability in the reader’s attempt to make sense, that the drama of the story can unfold and be represented. e communicative drama colors the story drama, for in the communication lies the crooked, twisted, manipulated playing with time, for, according to Sternberg, the telling/reading sequence is mapped onto a told/read about sequence.23 Moreover, the communicative drama has both cognitive and affective effect on the reader, cognitive in the reader’s constructing the story’s world-in-motion, affective in the reader’s undergoing the suspense, curiosity or surprise built into the communicative process. Sternberg again: ere arises a sequential change indeed, but a double and correlated one, whereby our mind, at progressive work on the message, generates an objective mimesis of progression in this or that form of eventhood, happening, action, and the like. From the sense-maker’s changeful dealings with the text, in short, there emerges a changing world as the best fit. Inversely, the underlying enacted [world-in-motion, with its earlier-to-later chronology] is 20. S, “Universals of Narrative and eir Cognitivist Fortunes (I)” (n. 14), p. 383-384. 21. S, “Reconceptualizing Narrative” (n.  16), p.  46: “If the condition for narrative is two sequences, then it must be defined in terms of those two sequences, because this twinship is what distinguishes it from everything else.” 22. S, “Narrativity: From Objectivist to Functional Paradigm” (n. 14), p. 635. 23. Ibid., p. 637.

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  (re)constructed, by trial and error, in and from and throughout the discourse process, as it unfolds, at will twists, moment by moment.24

Let me now return to the first point in this second section of my paper on what is narrative. I mentioned at the outset that the formal and structural components found in narrative are not necessarily specific to it, that all of these can be found in other discourse genres or in textuality generally. In narrative, however, these features, while not essential to its generic definition and specificity, “assume,” writes Sternberg, “a distinctive reference and energy once controlled and mobilized by the dynamics of narrative.”25 Or again, in the process of communicating action, the narrative force […] also narrativize[s] everything else in the text, by assimilating it willynilly to [its] dynamics of lifelike development and/or artful disclosure. Once subjected to the objective instabilities of action or to the twists devised in its narration and our information or both, any word may fork, change, even reverse its initial meaning and patterning, just like an event, indeed along with it. So may a character-trait, relationship, place, idea, viewpoint, ontology, normative frame, and what not, to enact its own drama of happening/reading between the generic lines.26

To sum up, then. (1) Narrative is unique because of its narrativity, that is, the moment by moment play of time between story time and discourse time. Narrative uniquely creates two concurrent and interrelating dramas, the drama taking place in the story and the drama taking place in the communication. (2) e communicative drama has both cognitive and affective effect on the listener/reader. (3) Narrative dynamizes any feature or component that might also be found in other discourse types. With this in mind, I now turn to section three of my presentation. 4. Suggestions for SRI My first suggestion is that the term “Narrational Texture” be reserved for narrative texts only. Of course, this raises the question of what term to use when applying this kind of Innertexture to non-narrative texts, such as 1 Cor 9. Here, Paul is not a narrator but rather a rhetor. But any term based on the word “rhetoric” and cognates would probably add 24. Ibid., p. 637-638. Also, S, “Universals of Narrative and eir Cognitivist Fortunes (I)” (n. 14), p. 326: “[…] the action or event line itself hinges for its telling and reading and very narrativizing on communicative time”; S, “Epilogue” (n. 14), p. 462. 25. S, “Narrativity: From Objectivist to Functional Paradigm” (n.  14), p.  647. See also S, “Telling in Time (II): Chronology, Teleology, Narrativity” (n. 14), p. 472; S, “Epilogue” (n. 14), p. 482-484. 26. S, “How Narrativity Makes a Difference” (n. 14), p. 117.

- ’ “ ” 207 confusion, for the name Socio-rhetorical Interpretation already includes it. And so I best leave that to its practitioners. Secondly, I mentioned in my first section that placing Narrational Texture, one of the several Innertextures, between the implied author on the one hand and the narrator/characters on the other hand, seemed plausible, for Innertexture seeks to identify “the environment [my emphasis] among the implied author, the narrator and the characters as the arena where interpreters investigate the inner texture of a text.”27 If it is the case, however, that the narrativity, or the narrative force, of narrative uniquely narrativizes and dynamizes the components and structures that can be found in other types of discourse, then perhaps narrativity in fact permeates – dynamizes, narrativizes – all the textures analyzed in and teased out of an ancient text by SRI. at is to say, the dynamic nature of the interplay between the two times, creating a world-in-motion with its double drama, assumes into itself and colors every aspect of an ancient narrative text. Simply put, the narrativity of narrative is not so much another texture, but rather all the textures dramatically played through, with, and in the movement of the intersequential times. In a sense, SRI seems to lend itself somewhat naturally to this. At the risk of being a bit too simplistic, I suppose one could say that the socio part of SRI – its underscoring “that texts are performances of language, and language is part of the inner fabric of society, culture, ideology and religion,”28 and that “[t]he inner workings of language presuppose that words, phrases, clauses and sentences stand in an interactive relation not only with thoughts, convictions, attitudes and values but also with trees, rocks, buildings, people, institutions and events,”29 – would correspond to the story world, while the rhetorical part would correspond to the cognitive/affective effect of a text on the listener/reader. All that would be needed would be to factor in, on the one hand, not simply the world of the text, but the world-in-motion, and, on the other hand, not only the effect on the reader, but the drama of making cognitive sense and of the affective impact experienced by the listener/reader in the hearing/reading of the text. In short, push the “play” button to see what happens both from moment to moment as well as over the entire sweep of the narrative. Whether or not it would be worthwhile to incorporate this dynamic dimension of the narrativity of narrative into SRI, and if so how, again I leave to its founders and practitioners. 27. R, Tapestry (n. 1), p. 29. 28. Ibid., p. 1. 29. Ibid., p. 2.

BIBLIOGRAPHY A, H. Porter, The Cambridge Introduction to Narrative, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2002. A, Paul J., “Omne verbum sonat: e New Testament and the Oral Environment of Late Western Antiquity,” in JBL 109 (1990) 3-27. A, Richard, “Hearing Voices in Narrative Texts,” in New Literary History 29 (1998) 467-500. A, Jean-Noël, Israël et la loi dans la lettre aux Romains (LD, 173), Paris, Cerf, 1998. —, “Romains 4 et Genèse 17. Quelle énigme et quelle solution?” in Biblica 84 (2003) 305-325. A, Robert, The Art of Biblical Narrative, New York, NY, Basic Books, 1981. A, Frank R., Narrative Logic: A Semantic Analysis of the Historian’s Language (Martinus Nijhoff Philosophy Library, 7), e Hague – Boston – London, Nijhoff, 1983. A, Harold W., “From Discord Rises Meaning: Resurrection Motifs in the Fourth Gospel,” in Craig R. K – Reimund B (eds.), The Resurrection of Jesus in the Gospel of John (WUNT), Tübingen, Mohr Siebeck, 2008, 1-18. B, Mikhail M., The Dialogic Imagination: Four Essays, Michael H (ed.), trans. Caryl E – Michael H, Austin, University of Texas Press, 1981. —, Toward a Philosophy of the Act (Slavic Series, 10). Trans. and notes by Vadim L. Vadim L – Michael H (eds.), Austin, TX, University of Texas Press, 1995. B, Egbert J., “Mimesis as Performance: Rereading Auerbach’s First Chapter,” in Poetics Today 20 (1999) 11-26. B, Mieke, “First Person, Second Person, Same Person: Narrative as Epistemology,” in New Literary History 24 (1993) 293-320. —, Narratology: Introduction to the Theory of Narrative, revised 2nd  edition, trans. Christine V B, Toronto, University of Toronto Press, 1997. B, Raphaël, La tension narrative: suspense, curiosité et surprise, Paris, Seuil, 2007. B, Richard, “Commentary: Foundations in Performance,” in Journal of Sociolinguistics 15 (2011) 707-720. —, “Performance,” in David H – Manfred J – Marie-Laure R (eds.), Routledge Encyclopedia of Narrative Theory, London, UK – New York NY, Routledge, 2005, 419-420. B, Eve-Marie, “e Gospel of Mark in the Context of Ancient Historiography,” in Patricia G. K – Timothy D. G (eds.), The Function of Ancient Historiography in Biblical and Cognate Studies (LHB / OTS, 489), New York, NY – London, T. & T. Clark, 2008. B, J. Christiaan, Paul the Apostle: The Triumph of God in Life and Thought, Philadelphia, PA, Fortress, 1980.

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B, Klaus, “III. History of Salvation (‘Salvation History’),” in Karl R (ed.), Encyclopedia of Theology: The Concise Sacramentum Mundi, New York, NY, Seabury, 1975, 1506-1512. B, Hans Dieter, Galatians: A Commentary on Paul’s Letter to the Churches in Galatia (Hermeneia), Philadelphia, PA, Fortress, 1979. —, “e Literary Composition and Function of Paul’s Letter to the Galatians,” in NTS 21 (1975) 353-379. B, Yves-Marie, “Bible et liturgie,” in Carlo B – Alessandro P (eds.), La liturgie, interprète de l’Écriture II. Dans les compositions liturgiques, prières et chants. Conférences Saint-Serges, XLIXe semaine d’études liturgiques, Paris, 24-27 juin 2002 (BELS, 126), Roma, Edizione Liturgiche, 2003, 259-276. B, Normand, “Explorations du fait narratif et son effet théologique dans 1  1–3,” in Camille F – André W (eds.), Analyse Narrative et Bible: Deuxième Colloque International du Réseau de Recherche en Narrativité et Bible (RRENAB), Louvain-la-Neuve, Avril 2004 (BETL, 191), Leuven, University Press – Peeters, 2005, 437-448. —, “e Illusion of Immediacy: A Narrative-Critical Exploration of the Bible’s  Predilection for Direct Discourse,” in Theoforum 31 (2000) 131151. B, Peder, Bread from Heaven: An Exegetical Study of the Concept of Manna in the Gospel of John and the Writings of Philo (NTSup, 10), Leiden, Brill, 1965. B-C, Alla, The Word’s Body: An Incarnational Aesthetic of Interpretation, University, AL, University of Alabama Press, 1979. B, Jo-Ann A., Dialogue and Drama: Elements of Greek Tragedy in the Fourth Gospel, Peabody, MA, Hendrickson, 2004. B, Robert L., “Multivocality in Romans 4,” in SBL 1997 Seminar Papers, Atlanta, GA, Scholars Press, 1997, 285-305. B, Jacques, La narrativité, Louvain-la-Neuve, Duculot, 1994. B, William F., “e Nature of Narrative Suspense and the Problem of Rereading,” in Peter V – Hans Jurgen W – Mike F (eds.), Suspense: Conceptualizations, Theoretical Analyses, and Empirical Exploration, Mahwah, NJ, Routledge, 1996, 107-127. B, Peter, Reading for the Plot: Design and Intention in Narrative, Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press, 1984. B, Raymond E., The Death of the Messiah: From Gethsemane to the Grave, Vol. 1 (e AB Reference Library), New York, NY, Doubleday, 1994. —, The Gospel According to John XIII-XXI (AB, 29A), London, Geoffrey Chapman, 1972 [1966]. —, “e Resurrection in John 21 – Missionary and Pastoral Directives,” in Ronald D. W (ed.), Christ in the Gospels of the Liturgical Year, Collegeville, MN, e Liturgical Press, 2008, 255-266. B, Brendan, Romans (SP, 6), Collegeville, MN, Liturgical Press, 1996. C, Matei, Rereading, New Haven, CT, Yale University Press, 1993. C C  C B, Lectionary: Sundays and Solemnities, Ottawa, 2009. C, Adriana, Relating Narratives: Storytelling and Selfhood (WSEP) trans. with an Introduction by Paul A. K, London, UK, Routledge, 2000.

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS While these essays were conceived and produced independently of each other over the span of some twenty years, they were nonetheless fostered in an environment conducive to their nurturing and growth. I would here like to acknowledge a few of the more prominent contributors that fostered an intellectual climate propitious to my efforts in this realm of inquiry. I am first of all grateful to Saint Paul University for granting me a year-long sabbatical leave during which I was able to lay the foundations for a narrative approach to biblical texts. is time of intense and uninterrupted study turned out to be seminal to my subsequent forays in narrative criticism. e seeds then sown might not have sprouted and flourished without my participation in the Réseau de Recherche en Narratologie et Bible, a European and Canadian francophone network of faculties, professors, and doctoral students committed to exploring and applying a narrative approach to biblical and related texts. e annual meetings of this group, alternating between symposiums (for members only) and colloquia (open to the public), offered wonderful opportunities to share ideas and investigate new avenues, well epitomized in my use of the word “essay” (try, test) to characterize the pieces published here. In signalling only a few of its members by name, I extend my gratitude to all. anks to my three colleagues at Saint Paul University, Andrea Spatafora, Yvan Mathieu, and Christian Dionne, for their institutional and personal support; to André Wénin, professor emeritus at Université catholique de Louvain, for his leadership and unstinting encouragement over the years; and to Martha Acosta Valle, professor at Niagara University, for many delightful, stimulating, and wide-ranging discussions on narrative issues of common interest and fascination. I am grateful to Alain Gignac, professor at Université de Montréal and director of the Terra Nova series, for his expert and energetic shepherding of this volume through its many phases leading to publication. Finally (and in this instance unrelated to RRENAB), I wish to thank Marie Clausén for her cheerful assistance and wise counsel in the proof phases of this project.

INDEX OF SUBJECTS (Entries for French items and corresponding page referrals are in italics) Abraham/Abram, 37, 115-127 Acts of the Apostles, 8, 71 (n. 22), 180 (n. 5), 188 (n. 30) Adam and Eve, 118 aesthetics; esthétique-poétique, 68 (n. 14), 88, 89 (n. 6), 130, 131 (n. 11) appearances (of the risen Jesus), 159, 162, 166, 167, 175, 177, 179, 180, 188 (n. 30), 189, 190 (n. 37), 192, 193, 195 (n. 48), 196 argument, as text-type, 13, 102, 105 art, work of, 131 (n. 13), 132, 133 autobiography, 108 (n. 16), 111 body, 57, 73, 82, 125, 186 (n. 21), 187, 188 body-selves, 183, 187, 196 pre-resurrection Jesus, 185-186 post-resurrection Jesus, 187-189 flesh-body-self of Jesus, 185, 186, 190, 191, 192, 195, 196, 197 risen-body-self of Jesus, 185 (n. 19), 189, 191, 195, 196, 197 breakfast (by the lakeshore, John 21:114), 171, 173, 174, 175 character; personnage in the story, 7-27 passim, 41, 45, 47, 48, 49, 50, 51, 54, 55, 56, 58, 60, 61, 67, 69, 71, 72, 74, 77, 78, 80, 81, 82, 83, 84, 85, 86, 87, 88, 90, 91, 92, 93, 95, 96, 97, 99, 108, 112, 118, 120, 122, 123, 129, 133, 135, 136, 144, 149, 153, 161, 165, 169, 170, 172, 176, 181, 183, 184, 185, 186, 191, 192, 201, 203, 204, 207 minor, 39, 43, 44, 45, 52, 53, 55, 56, 59 Jesus as narrative character, 38, 43, 48, 52, 53, 55, 59, 75, 76, 81, 149, 154, 156, 179, 185, 186, 189, 193, 194

disciples; disciples, 49, 72, 73, 75, 79, 80, 81, 82, 83, 95, 144, 146, 149, 151, 152, 154, 159-177 passim, 187, 188, 189, 190, 191, 192, 193, 196, 197 Peter, 81, 165, 166, 170, 172, 173, 174, 188 (n. 28, n. 29) Beloved Disciple, 170, 171, 173, 174 Mary Magdalene, 187, 188, 189, 190 omas, 165, 188, 189 characterization, 44, 68, 84, 85, 101, 102, 107, 110, 111, 125, 126 Christology, 61 cognitive/affective (emotive) effect; effet cognitif/affectif, 3, 88, 89, 90, 205, 296, 207 contingency, 48, 50, 51, 52, 56, 59, 61, 64, 85 Jesus and human contingency, 43-61 creation, 118, 126, 140 curiosity, see under narrativity dead/death, 40, 41, 56, 58, 59, 60, 73, 76, 77, 82, 84, 118, 123, 124, 125, 126, 127, 175, 177, 187, 193, 195 deixis/deictics/deictic shi, 19, 20, 69 (n. 18), 133, 134, 135, 138, 145, 184 (n. 18) description; description, in narrative, 11, 33 (n. 16), 34, 77, 78, 82, 93, 94, 119, 162, 164, 170, 171, 172, 173, 174 as Text-type, 13, 102 diegesis, 9, 10 (n. 8), 11, 12, direct reported speech, 7-27, 162, 164, 165, 168, 169, 170, 172, 173, 174, 175, 179-197 in narrative theory, 7-12, 181-185 formal features, 144-146 functional features, 146-148 and voice, 152 and performance, 155

226

  

percentages in NT narrative texts, 8 percentage in Gospel of John, 149 and liturgy, 155-156 discourse/discourse level; discours/ niveau discours, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 26, 27, 46, 47, 48, 53, 60, 61, 66, 67, 69, 70, 83, 89, 90, 91, 97, 99, 101, 106, 107, 108, 123, 133, 134, 135, 137, 145, 146, 147, 148, 152, 160, 161, 162, 164, 167, 169, 175, 176, 177, 180, 183, 184, 185, 186, 188, 191, 193, 197, 200, 203, 204, 205, 206, 207 drama, of reading, 203, 206, 207 for the characters, 160, 205 for the reader, 161, 176, 205 concurrent, 160, 205 else-where/else-when, 3, 103, 133, 135 embedded text/inset, 11, 18, 19, 20, 21, 25, 141, 144, 145, 146, 147, 148, 150, 151, 152, 154, 156, 157, 184, 185, 191, 193, 194 enacting/performing, 23, 24, 153, 154 expositional material/mise-en-scène, 25, 78, 92, 92, 93, 165, 166, 168 faith/believe, 6, 40, 51, 52, 53, 55, 58, 59, 60, 73, 76, 83, 85, 86, 104, 105, 109, 111, 116, 119, 120, 121, 122, 123, 124, 125, 126, 127, 190, 193, 194, 196 First essalonians, 101-113 fish, fishing, catch of fish, 165-175, 187, 188 Fourth Gospel, see under Gospel/John frame/inset, see embedded text/inset gap; blanc, 2, 14, 74, 89, 136, 161, 162, 165, 167, 171, 173, 175, 204 Genesis, 41, 115-127 Gentiles/nations; païen, 99, 105, 109, 116, 124, 125, 126, 127, 136 God (and divine); Dieu, 26, 27, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40, 41, 42, 86, 96, 99, 104105, 108, 111, 140, 195 divine plan, will, purpose, story, 35, 37, 38, 39, 41, 49, 60, 85, 118-127, 201 and Jesus, 38, 42, 43, 49, 50, 53, 54, 55, 59, 60, 81, 87, 98, 112, 196

Gospel Matthew, 8, 72-73, 76, 77, 81, 82, 83, 85 Mark, 8 genre/specificity, 40-41 and history, 37-39 and theology, 39-42 and narrative, 29-42 healings, 43-61, 63-86 suspense, 63-86, 87-99 exorcisme (Marc 5, 1-20), 87-99 mise en intrigue, 87-99 Luke, 8, 17 John/Fourth Gospel, 8 Last Supper Discourse, 149; John 15:1-11, 149-151 Passion, 129, 138-139, 186 Jesus’ appearances, 159-178, 179197 Jesus’s self-revelation, 193-196 as embedding or quoting frame, 144, 146, 148 quoting characters, quoting Jesus, 149, 153-154 and liturgical proclamation, 141-157 and narrative curiosity, John 21:1-14, 159-178 and reader, 196-197 bodily presence of Jesus, 185-188 incarnation, 195, 196 healing of paralyzed man (in Mark 2:1-12), 50-55 of woman with a flow of blood (in Mark 5:21-43), 55-59 of Jairus’s daughter (in Mark 5:2143), 55-59, 72-84; (in Matthew 9:18-26), 72-84 history historical consciousness and knowledge, 29-32 history, knowledge and narrative, 32-33 biblical historical narrative, 34-36 Mark as a historical biblical narrative, 36-41 as story later to be told, 29-30, 35, 37, 38, 41, 42 humanities (vs. physical sciences), 130

   illusion of immediacy, 7-27 inset, see embedded text intertextuality and Romans 4, 115-117 Jesus/Christ; Jésus/Christ, 18, 19, 26, 29, 37, 38, 39, 40, 41, 42, 43, 44, 48, 49, 50, 51, 52, 53, 54, 55, 56, 57, 58, 59, 60, 61, 72, 73, 75, 76, 77, 78, 79, 80, 81, 82, 83, 84, 86, 87, 93, 94, 95, 96, 97, 98, 99, 104, 105, 108, 112, 113, 125, 126, 127, 138, 139, 141, 144, 146, 148, 149, 150, 151, 152, 153, 154, 156, 159, 161, 162, 164, 165, 166, 167, 168, 169, 170, 171, 172, 173, 174, 175, 176, 177, 179, 180, 181, 185, 186, 187, 188, 189, 190, 191, 192, 193, 194, 195, 196, 197, 201 Jews, 104, 108, 125, 126, 127, 138 John, Gospel of, see Gospel language, 25, 32, 66, 112, 140, 145, 146, 181, 182, 185, 200, 201, 203, 204, 207 Last Supper Discourse, see Gospel, John lector, 142, 154-156 letter(s) of Paul, letter-writing conventions, 103, 105 Paul as author, 105, 108, 109, 112 and underlying narrative, 200-201 genre, as text-type, as argument, 102, 202 judicial/epidectic/deliberative, 101 narratio, 101, 102 Romans 4, 115-127 1 Corinthians 9, 202 Galatians, 101 1 essalonians 1-3, 101-113 liturgy Roman Catholic Eucharist, 143, 155 Good Friday, 138 Passover, 138-139 as quotation, 141, 143-144 Liturgy of the Word as embedding frame, 144, 146, 148, 150 as proclamation, 141-142, 155-156 as performance, 141-143, 155-156 as speech-event, 142-143, 146-148 and voice, 152-155 Luke, Gospel of, see Gospel

227

Marc, évangile de, see under Gospel/ Mark/exorcisme Mark, Gospel of, see Gospel Matthew, Gospel of, see Gospel midrash, 116-117 mimesis, 9, 9 (n. 6), 11, 12, 24, 25, 83, 145, 148, 157 (n. 28), 204, 205 narrative; récit theory, 9, 12-19, 25, 45-48, 181, 201, 202, 204 criticism, 43, 44, 45, 59, 64, 65-72, 200 as mediation, 26, 27, 65, 147, 177, 196 functional approach (Sternberg), 3, 160-161, 203-206 generic definition, 203-206 as text-type, 13, 102, 105, 133 levels; niveaux, (story/discourse/ narration; histoire/discours/narration), 2, 13-26, 46, 47, 48, 51, 52, 60, 66, 67-72, 77, 90-91, 102, 105-107, 108, 121, 123, 134, 135, 154, 184, 191, 204 interplay of narrative levels, 2, 14, 25, 64, 72, 133, 134, 135, 136, 137, 140, 160, 176, 205, 206, 207 agents; agents, 14-19, 23, 24, 25, 66-67, 72, 90-92, 95, 105-108 narrator; narrateur, 9-27 passim, 32, 38, 39, 41, 47, 48, 49, 50, 51, 52, 53, 56, 57, 58, 59, 69, 70-72, 77-85, 91-99, 107-108, 115, 119123, 126, 138, 148, 152-154, 162176, 181, 184, 186, 187, 188, 191, 192, 193, 194, 200, 201, 206, 207 biblical, 7, 8 omniscient, 48, 56, 57, 77, 79, 82, 145 types of, 17 (n. 30, n. 31) reader; lecteur, 3, 8, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 23, 25, 26, 27, 37, 41, 46, 47, 48, 49, 50, 51, 52, 53, 54, 55, 56, 57, 58, 59, 60, 66, 67, 69, 70, 71, 72, 74, 75, 76, 77, 78, 79, 80, 86, 88, 89, 90, 91, 92, 93, 94, 95, 96, 97, 98, 99, 106, 107, 109, 111, 112, 115, 122, 123, 125, 126, 127, 129, 132, 133, 134, 135,

228

  

136, 137, 138, 139, 140, 144, 146, 147, 148, 150, 152, 160, 161, 162, 163, 164, 165, 166, 167, 168, 169, 170, 171, 173, 175, 176, 177, 178, 179, 181, 191, 192, 196, 197, 201, 204, 205, 206, 207 plot; intrigue, 13, 35, 44, 45, 48, 49, 51, 56, 58, 59, 68, 85, 87, 89, 90, 91, 95, 96, 99, 101, 107, 118, 119, 125, 129, 133, 140, 163, 179, 190, 194, 196, 204, 205 setting; mise en scène, 9, 10, 45, 47, 68, 77, 78, 91, 101, 107, 129, 136, 144, 164, 183 time; temps chronology/chronologization, 14, 16, 68, 102, 107, 108, 110, 161, 205 story time/represented time; histoire/temps représenté, 2, 3, 13, 14, 61, 89, 90, 91, 97, 99, 102, 108, 129, 133, 136, 160, 164, 166, 175, 204, 205, 206, 207 discourse time/representing time; discours/temps représentant, 2, 3, 13, 14, 20, 21, 66, 89, 90, 91, 97, 99, 102, 133, 136, 137, 160, 175, 204, 205, 206, 207 of narration; narration, 13, 21, 22, 61, 129, 136, 138, 140 past time/then-and-there; temps passé, 20, 22, 24, 33, 37, 40, 65, 78, 97, 89, 91, 93, 103, 109, 110, 121, 123, 147, 150 present time/here-and-now; temps présent, 2, 3, 20, 21, 22, 23, 30, 32, 65, 78, 89, 90, 91, 93, 97, 103, 105, 107, 109, 110, 112, 115, 126, 127, 129, 130, 131, 133, 134, 137, 138, 139, 140, 141, 142, 146, 147, 148, 150, 151, 154, 181, 182, 184, 185, 189 future time; futur, 2, 14, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 36, 37, 39, 40, 41, 42, 47, 48, 59, 60, 64, 69, 72, 74, 76, 77, 81, 85, 86, 91, 93, 112, 113, 118, 119, 120, 122, 123, 125, 126, 127, 134, 135, 139, 140, 142, 152, 156, 161, 165, 181, 196, 206

retrospective, 31, 41, 57, 100, 162, 165, 166, 167, 169, 170, 171, 172, 173, 174, 175, 176, 177, 194, 195, 196, 197 prospective/prospection; prospectif/ prospection; 90, 91, 95, 98, 160, 167, 168, 175, 193, 195, 196, 197 and disclosure of information; temps et information, 24, 64, 70, 71, 72, 74, 75, 77, 78, 80, 83, 84, 85, 86, 87, 88, 161, 102 narrativity, 2, 160, 175, 200, 202, 203, 205, 206, 207 suspense; suspense, 63-86, 87-99, 120, 136, 160, 161, 162, 205 definition, 64, 87-89 curiosity, 159-178 as narrative processural force, 136, 160, 161, 162, 164, 173, 177, 178 and cumulative retrospective inference, 159-178 surprise, 160, 161, 205 narratology, 106, 199-207 functional narratology, 160-161 narrator; narrateur, see under narrative Old Testament/Hebrew Scriptures, 8, 35, 36 oral, biblical texts proclamation, 137, 138, 139, 141-157 performance, 129, 137, 138, 141, 154, 156 Origen, commentary on John, 200, 202 Passion acc. to John, see under Gospel/John Paul, see under letters performance/performing, see under oral and under enacting phenomenology, 2, 181 play, hermeneutics of, 130-132 plot, see under narrative presence/being present, 2, 3, 22, 23, 26, 53, 65, 131, 131, 135, 137, 138, 140, 142, 150, 154, 160, 162, 164, 166, 173, 174, 177, 181, 182, 185, 187, 189, 192, 196 proclamation, see under oral

   promise, 37, 38, 39, 41, 113, 116, 119, 120, 121, 122, 124, 125, 127, 194, 195 quotation, see direct reported speech; liturgy as quotation, 143-144 reader, see under narrative reading/rereading, 129-140 represent; représenter world/storyworld/events, 1, 2, 4, 9, 10, 23, 65, 111, 131, 183, 191, 197, 201, 204, 205 time; temps, 2, 14, 20, 89-91, 97, 99, 160, 175, 204 sounds/speech, 3, 9, 10, 23, 24, 25, 83, 144, 145, 146, 147, 148, 150, 156, 183, 185, 191, 192, see enacting Jesus, 81, 146, 181, 185, 191 resurrection of Jesus, 40, 41, 123, 125, 126, 127, 177, 179-195 of believers, 127, 159, 177, 178, 179 Revelation, book of, 8, 17 rhetoric/rhetorical, 32, 45, 101, 102, 102, 117, 118, 118, 164, see Sociorhetorical Interpretation Romans, see letters setting, see under Narrative showing/telling, 9, 10 signs (in John), 174, 176, 177 sin, 40, 51, 53, 54, 55, 105, 118, 119, 124, 125, 127 Socio-rhetorical interpretation, 199-207 narrational texture, 199, 200, 201, 206, 207 innertexture, 201, 206, 207 sound, 3, 138, 154, 181, 182, 185, 189 speak/speaker/speaking, 7, 10, 13, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 47, 53, 54, 70, 72, 83, 108, 111, 119, 120, 122, 145, 148, 149, 151, 152, 154, 164, 165, 168, 169, 172, 179, 181, 182, 185, 189, 190, 191, 194, 195 speech-event, 143, 144, 145, 146, 147, 148, 150, 151, 153, 154, 156, 157, 183, 184, 186, 193, 194, 197, see direct reported speech

229

spirit; esprit, and Jesus, 49, 52, 53, 59 Holy Spirit, 104, 187, 193, 194 unclean; impur, 39, 93, 97, 98 exorcisme, see Gospel, Mark Legion; Légion, 75, 98 demon, 49, 56, 75 story of salvation, see under God storyworld, see under World surprise, see under narrativity suspense, see under narrativity telling, see under showing text-types (Argument, Description, Narrative), 13, 13 (n. 20), 102, 105, 133 theater, 9, 11, 23 Tiberias, Sea of, 159, 163, 164, 165, 166, 167, 175 Timothy, 104, 105, 109, 110, 112 verb, 19, 116, 126, 146, 188 past tense, 20, 102, 106, 107, 138, 184 present tense, 20, 75, 184 future, 149, 151, 152, 156 passive; passif, 50, 94, 121 imparfait, 94 imperatives/vocatives, 20, 103, 184, 192 voice, 9 of narrator, 9, 10, 17, 47, 69, 70, 71, 107, 108, 200, 201 in liturgical proclamation, 141, 143, 152-156 world; monde, 29, 33, 86, 87, 124, 140, 155, 191, 194, 201 of the text, 129, 130-132, 137, 201, 204, 207 storyworld (narrative world, worldin-motion); monde du récit, 2, 3, 4, 18, 20, 24, 25, 26, 47, 48, 49, 55, 57, 59, 60, 61, 69, 70, 86, 89, 91, 129, 132, 133-135, 137, 138, 139, 140, 145, 146, 147, 161, 162, 164, 166, 183, 184, 185, 186, 191, 192, 194, 197, 204, 205, 207

AUTHOR INDEX A, H. Porter, 66 A, Paul J., 46 A, Richard, 16, 70 A, Jean-Noël, 116, 117, 124 A, Robert, 7, 34, 35, 37, 45, 159 A, Frank R., 29, 121 A, Harold W., 195, 196 A, Hans, 6 B, Mikhail M., 84 B, Egbert J., 153 B, Mieke, 11, 12, 16, 17, 18, 21, 71 B, Raphaël, 87, 88, 89, 90, 162 B, Craig, 68 B, Richard, 142, 143, 144, 156 B, Eve-Marie, 38 B, J. Christiaan, 127 B, Klaus, 35, 40 B, Hans Dieter, 101 B, Reimund, 160, 177, 185, 190 B, C. Clion, 160 B, Yves-Marie, 143, 144 B, L. Gregory, 199 B, Walter R., 20, 184 B, Normand, 54, 83, 95, 97, 153, 192, 202 B, Peder, 117 B, Cheryl, 92 B-C, Alla, 153, 155 B, Carlo, 143 B, Jo-Ann A., 150 B, Robert L., 123, 124 B, Jacques, 12, 15, 22, 47, 51, 65, 66, 69, 75, 78, 97, 106, 180, 183 B, William F., 87 B, Geert, 147, 203 B, Peter, 1, 12, 22, 30, 61, 64, 134 B, Raymond E., 139, 160, 168, 172 B, Rudolf, 195 B, Régis, 6 B, Brendan, 119

C, Matei, 129, 137 C C  C B,  C, John C., 72 C, Adriana, 108, 111 C, Seymour, 12, 13, 15, 17, 18, 23, 44, 46, 66, 67, 71, 90, 102, 105, 106, 107, 110 C, Louis-Marie, 155 C, Eric S., 8 C, 101, 202 C, Claire, 5 C, David, 124 C, Raymond, 111 C-G, Corina, 5, 97 C, Antoine, 144, 145, 147 C, Albert, 25, 35, 36 C, Robert B., 154 C, Anja, 1 C, Florian, 19, 24, 70, 153 C, Charles E.B., 119 C, Frederick E., 132 C, Richard Alan, 8, 160, 190 C, Mark, 12 D, Iréné-Henri, 142 D’A, Mary Rose, 72, 76, 85 D, Arthur C., 29, 31, 32, 33, 40, 41, 115, 122, 123, 126 D, Georges Jacques, 33 D, Adolf, 30 D, Ellen F., 163 D, Stephen T., 188, 189 D, Lucien, 43 D, Joanna, 43, 46, 52, 56, 155 D, Christian, 5 D, Karl Paul, 101, 202 D, Robert M., 132 D, Kristina, 154 D, James D.G., 121 D, Jacques, 52, 61 E, John Adney, 120

232

 

E-V, Daphna, 183 F, Gilles, 97 F, Joseph A., 119, 120, 121 F, Monika, 1, 9, 12, 15, 67, 90, 106, 109 F, Camille, 5, 81, 82, 95, 202 F, Roger, 18 F, Richard T., 63 F, Palatine Elector, 32 F, David N., 139 G, Hans-Georg, 4, 130, 131, 132, 139, 152, 183 G, Gilles, 180 G, Beverly Roberts, 160, 164 G, Gérard, 11, 12, 21, 56 G, Larry D., 159 G, Alain, 6 G, Joachim, 56, 97 G, Lydia, 29, 31, 33, 34 G, Timothy D., 38 G, Michel, 76, 80 G, David, 199 G, Arthur C., 92 G, William A., 3, 143, 155 G, Colin, 68 G, Jean, 130, 131 G, Robert A., 80, 98 G, Robert, 56 G, George, 111 H, Robert G., 101 H, William F., 19 H, Anthony Tyrell, 119 H, Martin, 160, 169, 174 H, Jeremy, 64 H, Richard B., 169 H, Holly, 4, 155 H, David, 1, 2, 19, 64, 88, 108, 133, 142, 144, 151, 202, 204 Hester, James D., 101 H, Hans, 136 H, Michael, 84, 182, 187, 189 H, Albert, 3, 142 I, Ken, 2 I, Wolfgang, 2, 3, 68, 153 I, Kelly, 4

J, Manfred, 1, 2, 19, 64, 88, 142, 202 J, Bruce C., 101 K, Emma, 89, 108, 151 K, Aidan, 142 K, Leander E., 39, 40, 119, 120, 125, 176 K, Werner H., 46, 79 K, Robert, 12 K, Anthony J., 167 K, Daniel, 188 K, Frank, 159 K, Karl, 53 K, Jack Dean, 44, 55 K, Patricia G., 38 K, Craig R., 160, 185, 190 K, Veronica, 177 K, Paul E., 101 K, Martin, 202 L, Susan Sniader, 67 L, Kasper B., 160, 176, 177 L, Bianca, 177 L, Simon, 76, 78, 79, 80, 93, 99, 117, 125 L, omas M., 12 L, Michel, 121 L, Mavis M., 165 L, Miriam, 155 L, Charles N., 19, 23, 26, 70 L, Vadim, 182 L, Robert K., 3 L, Bernard J.F., 31, 132 L, Bruce W., 115, 118, 201 L, J.A. (Bobby), 154 L, Didier, 6 L, George, 103 M, Daniel, 5 M, Elizabeth Struthers, 44, 45 M, Abraham J., 110, 111 M, Christopher S., 53 M, Tullio, 19, 22, 24, 65, 67, 83, 103, 134, 153 M, Joel, 49, 57, 63, 76, 81, 82, 83, 84, 87, 94, 98 M, Daniel, 5, 101

  M, Jean-Luc, 176 M, Christopher D., 50, 51, 54, 58, 59 M, I. Howard, 118 M, Wallace, 12, 13, 15, 19, 25, 46, 83, 96, 103, 134, 145, 184 M, Yvan, 5 MC, Richard D., 131 MC, David, 70, 84, 96, 120 MK, Edgar V., 44 M, Wayne A., 176, 196 M, Samuel A., 7 M, Adam A., 8, 20, 25, 134, 139 M, Petri, 79, 84, 85 M-P, Maurice, 182 M, Ben F., 35 M, Donald, 43, 49, 52, 56 M, John, 187 M, Cynthia L., 20, 184 M, Françoise, 120 M, R. Walter L., 120, 121 M, Karl, 68 M, Halvor, 116, 117 M P, A., 137 N, Mark D., 101 N, Isaac, 31 N, Jesper Tang, 190, 195, 197 N, Christophe, 5 O’C, Gerald, 167, 188 O’D, Gail, 159 O, Bernhard, 143 O, Brent, 92 O, Walter J., 3, 4, 137, 152, 154, 182, 183 O’N, Patrick, 10, 12, 13, 14, 16, 17, 18, 22, 23, 26, 46, 60, 66, 67, 69, 70, 71, 77, 90, 91, 106, 107, 133, 144, 145, 152, 191, 204 O’R, John J., 164 P, Isabelle, 55 P, Anne, 5 P, Natalie K., 92 P, Graham, 184 P, Rudolf, 53, 55, 76, 82, 83 P, Catherine, 187

233

P, Alessandro, 142, 143 P, 9 P, John, 188 P, Robert, 8 P, Stanley E., 159 P, Charles S., 142 P, Mark Allan, 15, 16, 67, 90, 106 P, Vern S., 163, 166, 168 P, Gerald, 12, 64 P, Heta, 88 Q, France, 57, 80 R, Karl, 30 R, Gisela, 96 R-C, Isabelle, 138, 143, 144, 155, 156 R, David, 4, 43, 45, 49, 52, 56, 79 R, David H., 1 R, Paul, 2, 13, 31, 43, 60, 61, 64, 65, 68, 69, 70, 74, 79, 88, 89, 91, 103, 105, 108, 110, 111, 130, 131, 132, 135, 140, 183, 194, 201 R-K, Shlomith, 10, 12, 13, 15, 16, 17, 21, 44, 45, 48, 67, 71, 90, 106 R, Vernon K., 199, 200, 201, 207 R, omas Christian, 118 R, Jean-Louis, 121 R-M, Jean-Louis, 120, 121 R, Eugen, 163 R-J, Philip, 155 R, Marie-Laure, 1, 2, 19, 64, 88, 142, 145, 202 S, James T., 101 S, José, 96 S, George W., 8 S, Elaine, 10 S, Benjamin, 116, 117, 118, 119, 120, 121, 122 S, Rudolf, 139, 171, 175 S, Sandra, 185, 196 S, Robert, 12 S, Tanja, 160 S, Daniel R., 139 S, Dan, 2 S, Jean-Louis, 7, 49, 61, 118, 119, 122 S, Joop, 101

234

 

S, Stephen H., 8, 43, 71 S, Herbert Weir, 117, 163 S, Jean-Pierre, 7, 36, 61 S, Patrick E., 159 S, Jörg, 30 S, Benoît, 177 S, Christopher D., 116, 117 S, Franz Karl, 10, 11, 12 S, Emma, 97 S, George, 109 S, Meir, 2, 3, 7, 10, 12, 15, 19, 20, 21, 23, 25, 34, 35, 54, 64, 69, 75, 78, 79, 85, 86, 87, 88, 89, 90, 91, 92, 93, 94, 115, 120, 133, 134, 136, 144, 147, 151, 160, 161, 162, 179, 180, 181, 183, 184, 203, 204, 205, 206 S, Philip, 8, 134 S, Mark W.G., 167 S, Agustine, 94 S, Stanley K., 120, 126 S, Philip John Moore, 12 S, Richard W., 155 S, Eve, 97 S, Kari, 79 T, Josaphat C., 150, 186, 194, 195 T, Robert C., 44 T, Vincent, 94 T, Tom, 164 T, Burton H., Jr., 72 T, Hartwig, 168, 170 T, omas H., 117 T, Tzvetan, 46 T, Mary Ann, 49, 63 T, Achille M., 142

V, Jeroen, 147, 203   H, John, 65, 66, 68 V O, Geert, 6  V, Mario, 136 V, Kevin J., 36, 68 V, Walter, 119  D, Axel, 117, 119 V, Peter, 87 W, Mark I., 61 W, Kendall L., 137 W, Graham, 187, 197

W, Duane, 199 W, Alexander J.M., 35 W, Annette, 154 W, Christian, 174 W, Michael, 188 W, André, 5, 7, 45, 61, 118, 120, 202 W, Hugh, 15 W, Katherine, 92 W, Anna, 21 W, Ulrich, 116, 119, 121 W, Rowan, 3, 139, 142, 155, 159, 167, 177, 179, 192 W III, Ben, 117 W, Ronald D., 160 W, N. omas, 32, 41, 119, 120, 126, 173 W, Hans Jurgen, 87 Y C, Adela, 38, 40 Z, Jean, 173, 175

Z, Reinhold, 53

BIBLICAL REFERENCES Genesis 12:1–25:11 12 15 15:5 15:5b 15:6 15-17 17:5

8 115, 118 118 115, 118, 123 (2×), 125, 127 116, 121 () 116 116 (3×), 117, 118, 119, 121, 122 (2×), 125, 126 (3×) 126 116

Deuteronomy 8 Joshua

8

Judges

8

Ecclesiastes

8

Psalms 31:1-2 44:1-3

116 (2×) 36

Matthew 9:18-26 9:18b 9:20 9:22 9:25

179 72-86 76, 82 76 76 82

Mark 1:1 2:1-12 2:1a 2:1b 2:2a 2:3-4 2:5

179 44, 49 45, 50-55 50 50 51 51 51

2:6a 2:6b 2:7b 2:8a 2:8b-11 2:9a 2:9b 2:10 2:11 2:22-23 2:24 2:25-27 2:28 2:29 2:30a 2:30b 2:32 2:34 2:35 2:35b 2:36 2:37 2:39 2:40 2:41-42 5:1-20 5:2 5:3-5 5:7 5:14 5:15-16 5:16 5:19 5:21-43 5:21-24 5:21 5:22 5:22-23 5:25-28 5:25-34 5:26 5:29 5:29b

53 53 54 53 54 54 54 54 54 56 56 56 57 57 57 57 57 57 57 57 57 57 57 57 57 75, 87-99 93 93-94, 96, 97, 98 97 95, 98, 99 96 98 99 55-59, 63, 86 45 78 78 75, 82 79 45 82 80, 82 82

236

 

5:30 5:31 5:33 5:33a 5:35-43 5:35 5:34 5:36 5:37 5:38 5:40

80, 82 80 77, 81 80 45 75 76 76, 83 78 78 78

Luke

17, 179

John 1–19 1:11 1:14 1:38 1:42 1:43 1:47 1:48 1:50 2:4 2:12 2:15 2:17 2:22 2:25 3:11 3:22 3:32 4 4:1 4:3 4:4 4:5 4:6 4:18 4:40 4:43 4:47 4:51 4:52

146 (7×), 148 (5×), 149 (2×), 153, 154 (3×), 179 179, 186, 187 (3×), 190, 191, 193 (2×), 194, 195 186 195, 197 186 (2×) 186 (2×) 186 186 186 186 186 186 186 (2×) 193 193 186 (2×) 186 (2×) 186 (2×) 186 200 186 (2×) 186 186 (3×) 186 186 186 (2×) 186 186 186 186 186

4:53 5:1 5:6 5:15 5:19 5:30 5:42 6:1 6:3 6:5 6:6 6:11 6:15 6:19b-20 6:61 6:64 7:1 7:10 7:14 7:30 7:34 7:37 7:39 8:1 8:7 8:8 8:10 8:20 8:27 8:37 8:55 8:59 9:3 9:1 9:6 9:15 10:14 10:15 10:22 10:27 10:39 10:40 11:4 11:6 11:17 11:33 11:35 11:38 11:41

186 186 186 (3×) 186 186 186 186 (2×) 186 186 186 (3×) 186 (2×) 186 186 (3×) 190 186 (2×) 186 (2×) 186 186 186 186 186 186 193 186 186 186 186 186 186 (2×) 186 186 (2×) 186 186 (2×) 186 (2×) 186 (2×) 186 186 (2×) 186 (2×) 186 186 (2×) 186 186 186 186 186 186 (2×) 186 186 186 (2×)

11:42 11:51 11:54 11:57 12:1 12:14 12:16 12:27 12:36 13:1 13:3 13:4 13:5 13:12 13:18 13:19 13:21 13:26 13:29 14:26 14:28 14:29 15:1-11 15:5-6 15:7 15:15 15:26 16:4 16:7b 16:9 16:13 16:16 16:19 16:20 16:22 17:1 17:6-8 18:1 18:4 18:14 18:19 19:26 19:28 19:31 19:38 19:2 19:5 19:13-15a 19:17

186 (2×) 186 186 186 186 186 193 186 186 186 (2×) 186 186 186 (2×) 186 186 193 186 186 186 (2×) 193 193 193 149, 151 149-151 151, 152 186 193 193 193 186 193 194 186 194 194 186 (2×) 194 186 186 (2×) 186 186 186 186 (2×) 186 186 186 186 138 186

 

237

19:25b-26a 19:29 19:30 19:33 19:34 19:38 19:40 20 20–21

190 186 186 186 186 186 186 185 179, 186, 187 (4×), 190, 191, 193 (2×), 197 188 188 188 186, 188 188 188 (2×) 188 188 187, 188 (2×) 188, 192 192 192 186, 188 187 187 (2×), 188 (2×) 188, 192 187 192 188 187, 192 187, 192 195 187, 192 196 159 (3×), 160 (4×), 172, 174 159-178, 159, 160 (2×), 162 (3×), 164, 165, 175, 177 160, 162, 166 (2×), 175 164, 187 164, 165 165, 170, 188 164, 166, 173, 188 166 167 168 165, 168, 174, 192 169, 170, 172, 173, 192

20:1 20:2 20:5 20:7 20:8 20:9 20:12 20:13 20:14 20:15 20:16 20:17 20:18 20:19 20:20 20:21 20:22 20:22-23 20:25 20:26 20:27 20:28 20:29 20:30-31 21 21:1-14 21:1 21:1-4 21:2 21:3 21:4 21:4a 21:4b 21:5-8 21:5 21:6

238 21:7 21:8 21:9-13 21:9 21:10 21:11 21:12 21:13 21:14 21:15-23 21:15 21:16 21:17 21:17-18 21:19 21:20 21:21 21:22 21:23 21:24

  164, 165, 169-170, 172 (2×), 174, 197 164, 170, 172 171 165 (2×), 171, 188 165, 172, 174, 192 172 164, 165, 173, 174 (2×), 176, 188 (2×), 192 165, 173, 174, 187 160, 164, 175 160 188, 192 188, 192 188 192 192 188 188 192 192 188

Acts 9:3-4 22:7-8 26:13-14 Romans 3:9 3:27-31 3:27 3:31 4 4:1-12 4:1 4:2 4:3 4:4 4:5 4:6 4:7 4:7-21 4:8

17 189 189 189 117 117 117 117 115-127, 123 (2×), 125, 127 124-125 117 (2×) 116, 117 116 (2×), 117 (2×), 126, 127 116 116 (2×) 116 119 119 116

4:8-11 4:9 4:10 4:10-11 4:10-14 4:11 4:12 4:12-16 4:13 4:14 4:15 4:16 4:17 4:17-22 4:18 4:19 4:20 4:22 4:23 4:24 4:24-25 7:15-23

119 116 (3×), 117 (3×) 116, 117 (2×) 126 126 116 (3×) 116 119 116 (2×), 117 (2×) 116, 117 116, 117 116, 117, 119 116, 127 125, 126 (2×) 116 116 116 116, 117 116 116 (2×) 126, 127 125

1 Corinthians 9 201 (2×), 202 15:6-7 189 2 Corinthians 12 202 Galatians 1–2

202

1 Thessalonians 1–3 101-113, 202 1:5–2:16 109 2:2a 109 2:4a 109 2:14 108 2:15 108, 109 2:17-18 109 3:1-5 109 3:4 109 3:6-7 109 3:13 113 Revelation

17