Historical-critical discourse

Socio-Rhetorical Examples

Definition of historical discourse.

Let us look at an example of narrative analysis which is ideologically aligned with historical-critical interpretation. Here the discourse adopts the mode of accurate historiography which yields theological insight into God's activity in the world. It is fair to say that this kind of discourse currently dominates most commentaries on New Testament texts.

When the false witnesses accuse him [Jesus] of threatening to destroy the temple and promising to build another, their witness is patently false. Jesus never said that he would destroy the temple. But by the cursing of the fig tree and his final discourse, he does announce its destruction. On a level that Jesus' persecutors cannot understand, there is truth in the temple charge. By his death, Jesus makes the old temple and its cultic worship obsolete. In its place, he establishes a new community of believers: Jews and Gentiles, a temple not made by human hands (Matera 1986: 72)

In his own words, Matera's account does not try to present a historical study, "that is, it does not try to reconstruct the historical events which actually occurred" (Matera 1986: 5). The goal "is to study each passion narrative in terms of the particular evangelist's theology" (Matera 1986: 6). Since the discourse is sound and sober "narrative" theology, however, the ideological texture of the commentary evokes a certainty that the reader is getting a basically accurate insight into the history of first century Christianity. Only if the theology were radical or excessive would the history be unreliable. Or to put it another way, the discourse evokes a conviction that there is really no better insight into this history than these texts that were chosen by reputable early Christians to represent the story of who they are. As indicated above, this mode of discourse represents dominant culture rhetoric in the field of biblical studies today. But there are also modes of discourse with significantly different ideological alliances.

From V. K. Robbins, Exploring the Texture of Texts, (Valley Forge, PA: Trinity Press International, 1996), pp. 106-7.

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