Brown, Jeannine K.

The Gospels as Stories: A Narrative Approach to Matthew, Mark,

Luke, and John. Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2020.

Review by Eyob Abera

Thesis Statement: "The role and contribution of narrative criticism in the interpretation of the
Gospels." The author mentioned three different ways that the Church and preachers studied and
interpreted the gospels. The three ways are amalgamation or harmonization of the four gospels,
atomizing the text by taking its smaller pieces and treating them as stand-alone units, and
allegorizing the text. These three various ways of studying and interpreting the gospels do not give
sufficient attention to their storied form. So, narrative criticism has a huge role in studying and
interpreting the four gospels.

• Major arguments the author uses to unpack his thesis statement: The author describes
narrative criticism in this way: "accompanied by a focus on the final form of the text rather
than emphasis on issues of the text’s production."
• The author mentions and discusses the two levels of narrative criticism. These are the story
and discourse levels. The story level consists of elements like the settings, events, and
characters that are easily noticed by the readers. And the discourse level is described in this
way by the author; "the author’s (or narrator’s) way of shaping the story elements to
communicate key messages with the Gospel’s audience."
• After describing narrative criticism, the author deals with four main issues of how to
approach the gospel from a narrative perspective.
• The first important issue that the author deals with is plotting. The author uses different
examples from Matthew, Mark, and John to explain how the authors use their distinctive
storytelling idioms and methods of selection, sequencing, and pacing to shape their
plotlines. And then the author uses the gospel of Luke to describe what the plot is and how
Luke has intentionally laid out the plot of his gospel.
• The second important issue mentioned by the author is character and characterization.
According to the author characterization is "the art of bringing to life the characters in a
story through what they say and do and in relation to other characters in the story". The
author describes how the gospel writers characterize the people in their stories, what
characteristics they have, what they say, what they do, the characters' relationships to other
 characters, narrators, and readers, and how Matthew characterizes the disciples using his
own method.
• The third important issue mentioned and discussed by the author is intertextuality. The
author describes how the evangelists rely on the canon of the Hebrew Scriptures to explain
who Jesus is and how his identity and work are closely linked to the mission for Israel and
the rest of the world. And then the author uses two stories (Jesus as the Passover lamb and
the renewal of creation) in the gospel of John as an example of intertextuality because John
does not directly cite the Old Testament frequently.
• The last important issue mentioned and discussed by the author is narrative theology.

The interpretive method the author employs: Since the book is all about narrative criticism,
throughout the book the author uses narrative criticism as the perfect interpretive method for the
four gospels.

• The author proposes narrative criticism ("A method for understanding the Gospels that
focuses on their literary and storied qualities by moving beyond understanding their smaller
units (pericopes) to interpreting the entire story at the book level.") as a beneficial
interpretive method rather than other interpretive methods. I agree with this proposed
interpretive method because reading the gospels as a whole will lead the reader to have a
clear understanding of the whole story and focus on the final form of the text.
• Many points about the narrative criticism interpretive method are discussed above. If I
write it here, it will be a repetition.

The biblical and/or theological content the author discusses:

• According to the author's argument, theology is not always presented in propositions, but
frequently is.
• It was mentioned that narratives are another way to present theology. And that is the entire
purpose of the Gospels being told in a narrative format—to show Jesus' life, death, and
resurrection in a theological context.
• The author mentioned that narratives go beyond retelling historical events; they are also
there to theologize. I had not seen gospels like this before, but this is very true.
 • To demonstrate how Christian theology is addressed, the author uses the gospel of Matthew
as an example to discuss divine revelation and human reception. The author mentions
Matthew 4:7; how Jesus’s public ministry begins with a summary call to repent in light of
the arriving kingdom; Matthew 4:18–22; 8:18–22; 9:9; how Jesus calls disciples and some
follow him and some find the cost too great; and Matthew 8:2, 10; 9:2, 22, 29; how numbers
of people come to Jesus trusting that he is able to heal them, and Jesus commends their
faith to show different texts that imply humans' choice in response to Jesus. And then the
author mentions various texts from the gospel of Matthew to show that revelation is given
to some but not to all, revelation does not guarantee human understanding, and revelation
does not come to "the wise and learned." It is very clear and interesting.
• The author mentioned multiple interpretive questions from story to theology for discerning
narrative theology. I found them very helpful.
• The author used John 5–10 as an example of narrative theology in which Jesus is the
fulfillment of a festival (Sabbath, Passover, Tabernacle or Booth, and Festival of
Dedication or Hanukkah).
• In general, the author attempts to investigate what it means to have a focus on the narrative
theology of the authors of the four gospels by reading the gospels as stories carefully and
holistically.

Points of application regarding personal ministry:

• Around my church, many believers, including me, have a problem allegorizing and
atomizing the texts in the four gospels. This book clearly shows how important it is to read
the gospels as a whole story and how beneficial it is to use the narrative criticism
interpretive method for reading the four gospels. And the author mentioned various helpful
lenses like plotting, characterization, and intertextuality for reading the gospel as stories. I
learned a lot, and I also recommend this book for everyone who wants to study the gospels.
• The author mentioned multiple interpretive questions for discerning narrative theology.
These two questions are very helpful for a thoughtful reading of a gospel and for gaining
theological insight into a narrative. For the future, I will definitely use the two questions
that the author mentioned.