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All types of communication involve some form of sensory interaction, but reading—the traditional model assumed in the interpretation of scripture—depends primarily on the visual experience. This chapter considers the importance of the senses, the kinds of nonverbal communication techniques available in the performance arena, and the implications for interpreting the gospels (e.g., ambiguity, historical questions, narrative gaps).
The introductory chapter offers a rationale for the study by examining the question of media, the place of the literary paradigm in NT studies, and the neglected consideration of audience experience.
This chapter explores the foundational differences between reading and performance. The objective of the chapter is to demonstrate that the consideration of media is a key component in the interpretative process.
Unlike readers, audiences in an oral culture have little recourse to a textual artifact. In the performance arena where narratives cannot be paused or rewound, memory plays a crucial role in audience experience. This chapter seeks to reexamine how biblical scholars have traditionally handled questions of intertextuality.
Few issues have been more neglected in the field of biblical studies than the role of emotions. Though the literary approach has led to profitable insights, the danger in studying the text as a chirographic artifact is that one may neglect to consider the emotional consequences that arise from the performative event. This chapter reflects on the importance of emotions, how they function in a performative context, and their interpretive impact in the study of the gospels (e.g., spotlighting attention, transferal of spiritual memes).
This article investigates the semantics and pragmatics of the ‘hortative’ aorist (the aorist indicative in questions with τί οὐ ‘why don't …’) and the ‘tragic’ or ‘performative’ aorist (for example ὤμοσα ‘I swear’). Lloyd argued in 1999 that the tragic aorist is a more polite alternative for the corresponding present (ὄμνυμι ‘I swear’). Recently, he has extended this view to the hortative aorist, suggesting that, for example, τί οὐκ ἐκαλέσαμεν; is a polite alternative for τί οὐ καλοῦμεν; Lloyd argues that the politeness value of the aorist derives from its being a past tense, comparing the so-called ‘attitudinal’ past (as in I wanted to ask you something instead of I want to ask you something). The present article, building on work by Colvin, Bary and Nijk, argues instead that the semantic value of the aorist is purely aspectual in these cases: the hortative and tragic aorists serve to construe the designated event as bounded, while the corresponding present forms serve to construe the designated event as unbounded. An extensive discussion of the evidence for the hortative aorist and present is presented, as well as a case study concerning the aspectual behaviour of the verb ὄμνυμι. Moreover, I argue that the proposed semantic account of the hortative and tragic aorists in terms of aspect can be unified with Lloyd's pragmatic account in terms of politeness: the difference in tone between the present and the aorist can be derived from their respective aspectual values, rather than from their temporal values.
Scholars of early Christian literature acknowledge that oral traditions lie behind the New Testament gospels. While the concept of orality is widely accepted, it has not resulted in a corresponding effort to understand the reception of the gospels within their oral milieu. In this book, Kelly Iverson reconsiders the experiential context in which early Christian literature was received and interpreted. He argues that reading and performance are distinguishable media events, and, significantly, that they produce distinctive interpretive experiences for readers and audiences alike. Iverson marshals an array of methodological perspectives demonstrating how performance generates a unique experiential context that shapes and informs the interpretive process. Iverson's study explores the dynamic oral environment in which ancient audiences experienced the gospel stories. He shows why an understanding of oral performance has important implications for the study of the NT, as well as for several issues that are largely unquestioned by biblical scholars.