Performing Early Christian Literature
Audience Experience and Interpretation of the Gospels

Performance creates a unique space for audience experience and influences how traditions, like the Gospels, are received and interpreted.

Kelly Iverson (Author)

9781316516225, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 7 October 2021

256 pages
22.3 x 14.5 x 2 cm, 0.45 kg

'… the book will serve practitioners of the Bible as they preach and teach to their respective congregations, providing them with a historical context (the original performance) in which to consider in new and refreshing ways the text as it was initially delivered.' David Seal, Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society

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.

1. Introduction
2. Foundations of Audience Experience
3. Aspects of Audience Engagement: The Emotional Experience
4. Aspects of Audience Engagement: The Nonverbal/Sensory Experience
5. Aspects of Audience Engagement: The Memorial Experience
6. Conclusion.

Subject Areas: Religious life & practice [HRLM], Christian spirituality & religious experience [HRCS], Biblical studies & exegesis [HRCG], Literary studies: classical, early & medieval [DSBB], Performance art [AFKP]