Handbook for Biblical Interpretation: An Essential Guide to Methods, Terms, and Concepts by W. Randolph Tate

Author:W. Randolph Tate [Tate, W. Randolph]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Tags: etc.), REL006080, REL006680, Bible—Criticism (interpretation
ISBN: 9781441240361
Publisher: Baker Publishing Group
Published: 2012-11-01T04:00:00+00:00

N

NAB. See NEW AMERICAN BIBLE

NAG HAMMADI LIBRARY

A collection of thirteen textual fragments discovered in 1945 near the city of Nag Hammadi, Egypt. Although originally written in Greek, these TEXTs as we have them are composed of fifty-two treatises written in Coptic, an ancient Egyptian language. The text fragments date from the mid-fourth century CE, but the treatises themselves are from the second century CE. The texts include EPISTLEs, GOSPELs, and APOCALYPSEs used by gnostic (see GNOSTICISM) Christians from the second to fourth century CE. The Nag Hammadi texts were considered heretical by early orthodox Christianity. Although these texts improved the picture that scholars had of early Christian gnostics because these texts come out of gnostic communities, the picture is not complete. The reason for this incompleteness is that these texts do not set forth the gnostic system: a knowledge of the system seems to be taken for granted by the texts. Furthermore, the texts themselves are not entirely consistent in their worldview. Nonetheless, these texts do suggest that the Christian movement in the early centuries CE was anything but monolithic. For an accessible translation and commentary on the Nag Hammadi Library, see Robinson.

Bibliography. James M. Robinson, ed., The Nag Hammadi Library in English (4th rev. ed.; Leiden: Brill, 1996).

NARRATEE

The person to whom a NARRATOR addresses the DISCOURSE. This is not the same as the IMPLIED READER (the type of reader assumed by an AUTHOR) or the IDEAL READER (the type of reader who would understand everything the author/narrator says and does). For example, the narratee of Luke-Acts is Theophilus.

NARRATIO

In ancient rhetoric, the facts presented in support of the thesis of a SPEECH. Because the NT EPISTLEs for the most part are written discourses or SERMONs, scholars have found it possible to analyze the EPISTLEs by REFERENCE to the basic pattern followed by these speeches. For an example of the narratio, see Gal. 1:11–2:14. The other elements of the pattern are EXORDIUM (introduction), PROPOSITIO (thesis or proposition), PROBATIO (argumentation), and PERORATIO (closing summary). See EPISTOLARY LITERATURE; RHETORICAL CRITICISM.

NARRATION

One of the four types of composition (the others being ARGUMENTATION, DESCRIPTION, and EXPOSITION). Narration presents the events of a STORY either chronologically or PLOT-structured, the AUTHOR arranging the events by design based on the effects the writer expects the NARRATIVE to have. For example, while the SYNOPTIC GOSPELS recount many of the same events, these events are not always presented in the same chronological order or in the same CONTEXT. Some of Matthew’s material in the SERMON ON THE MOUNT is found in Luke’s SERMON ON THE PLAIN, while some of it is found in a different context in Luke. When the Synoptics are compared with John’s Gospel, we find that the cleansing of the temple scene in the Synoptics occurs toward the end of Jesus’s ministry, but in John it happens toward the beginning of Jesus’s ministry. In narration, authors select and arrange materials of the narrative on the basis of a predetermined plan or agenda. See also SELECTION AND ARRANGEMENT.

Narration may occur in four modes—direct narration, dramatic narration, DESCRIPTION, and COMMENTARY.

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