John as storyteller : narrative criticism and the fourth Gospel /

In this study, Mark W.G. Stibbe shows how the Fourth Evangelist uses all the tactics of a skilled storyteller to promote his distinctive Christology. The book is divided into two parts. In Part One, Dr Stibbe constructs a method of narrative criticism which he feels to be appropriate for research on...

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Bibliographic Details

Main Author:	Stibbe, Mark (Author)
Format:	Book
Language:	English
Published:	Cambridge [England] ; New York : Cambridge University Press, 1992.
Series:	Monograph series (Society for New Testament Studies) ; 73.
Subjects:	Bible. > John > Criticism, Narrative. Bible. > John. Criticism, interpretation, etc. Bible.
Summary:	In this study, Mark W.G. Stibbe shows how the Fourth Evangelist uses all the tactics of a skilled storyteller to promote his distinctive Christology. The book is divided into two parts. In Part One, Dr Stibbe constructs a method of narrative criticism which he feels to be appropriate for research on the Fourth Gospel. This method involves four aspects: a literary analysis of the final form of a narrative text; a structuralist approach to its genre; a sociological investigation of its community function; and a narrative-historical study of its truth-value. In Part Two, the author applies each of these four aspects of his method of narrative criticism to John 18-19. This subsequent section includes chapters which explore the literary qualities of the Johannine Passion Narrative, the literary genre of John 18-19, the social function of John 18-19 in the Evangelist's Sitz-im-Leben, and the progress of John 18-19 from history to narrative, in order to show how John has redescribed his story in a creative and poetic way. In his conclusion, the author shows how he has integrated literary and historical methodologies in his narrative criticism, thereby suggesting a new, holistic approach to the Gospel literature.