Evaluation 49
Evaluation
Literary criticism is rooted in a valid concern: study of the Gospels has too often focused on the history of the tradition behind them to the extent that the Gospels themselves become lost to sight. Focus on the text as we now have it is a welcome corrective to this tendency. Literary critics have also shed new light on the way different parts of the Gospels function within the larger literary unit. And exegetes can profit from the taxonomies of narrative structures that literary critics use in their intepretations. But there are severe problems with the general movement that seriously vitiate its usefulness.
First, there exists among many literary critics a reaction not only against excessive historical analysis but against history itself. It appears that literary criticism has sought to turn the problem of historical skepticism and uncertainty into a virtue. True, they say, we can know little for certain about Jesus, but by insisting that the truth of the Gospels lies within their own "narrative world,” the literary critic can ignore the problem. Yet the problem will not go away so easily, for the evangelists are demonstrably referring to events in the real world. The failure of literary criticism to deal with this means that it can never get to the real heart of the Gospels. 84 Second, the casting of the text loose from the author means—as many literary critics teach—that there can be no such thing as a correct meaning of the text. But the evangelists were individuals writing in specific circumstances and to specific audiences; this historical setting, not the individual reader, must set the context for interpretation. 85 Third, the general tendency to derive categories of interpretation from modern literature, such as the novel, is a questionable procedure. Quite apart from the issue of the validity of modern theories of novel interpretation (and there is reason for skepticism), it is doubtful whether the Gospels can be compared to the modern novel.
Fourth, there are questions about the structuralism used in much literary criticism. These questions have to do with both the existence of the alleged deep structures as well as their usefulness for interpretation. Are we attributing to ancients modern structures of thinking and writing? Must all writing fall into such structures? These questions do not apply to all forms of structuralism, but they should make us very cautious about the usefulness of some of the more popular and far-reaching wings of the movement.