Should we distinguish between Story and Narrative?

Up to now, I have used the terms narrative and story interchangeably. It will, however, soon become clear that these terms refer to two different things or worlds. According to Du Plesis and Greyling  (2004, p. 33) a story refers to that which actually happened (it may be fictional or real). A narrative on the other hand, refers to the artistic representation of what had happened. A distinction is thus made between what happened (in the past) and the way it is represented.

A similar distinction may be made between history and historiography. History refers to the events that have taken place in the past while historiography refers to the writing about those events (Dillard & Longman III, 1995, p. 21). Although Long (1999, p. 84) find this distinction useful, he reckons, from a practical point of view, that these definitions are seldom maintained. For him, history refers to both “significant past events and interpretive accounts or representations, of significant past events” (italics Long’s).  

Long’s view may also apply to our differentiation between story and narrative. For the purpose of this study I will, however, maintain the differentiation between story and narrative.

For believers, one of the major obstacles when talking about story and narrative is the idea that stories are necessarily fictional (Ryken, 1990, p. 7) (see my blog on Stories and Fiction).  Here it is important to keep die above differentiations between story and narrative, and history and historiography in mind. What we have in front of us when reading narrative or historiography is the result of an author’s representation of a story or history. As we have made clear, stories may either be real (history) or fictional. As believers, we believe that what is presented to us in Scripture is based in what really happened. Thus, story and history, in terms of the Bible refer to the same thing – significant past events. If I may borrow from the New Testament, we should, however, also recognise that some stories in the Bible might be fictional. Jesus’ parables, for example, were not necessarily based on real events.

The difference between historiography and narrative then is the way these significant past events are presented. We are not presented with cold, hard facts about the past in the Bible (at least in the modern sense of historiography) but rather with a literary piece of art. Tate (2008, p. 105) refers to “’storicized’ history”. In terms of our distinction, we might call it ‘narratised’ history (just to make it a bit more complicated). In other words, when reading Genesis to Esther (and some other parts) we are presented with an artistic representation of significant past events (stories) in the literary form (genre) known as narrative.

See also: The Bible, Stories and Faith, The Bible, Stories and History

Brink, A. P. (1987). Vertelkunde:  ’n inleiding tot die lees van verhalende tekste. Academica.

Dillard, R. & Longman III, T. (1995). An Introduction to the Old Testament. Apollos.

Long, V. P. (1999). Old Testament History: A Hermeneutical Perspective, in: VanGemeren, W. A. (Ed.), A guide to Old Testament theology and exegesis: an introductory articles from the New International dictionary of Old Testament theology and exegesis, (pp. 83–99). Grand Rapids  Mich.: Zondervan.

du Plessis, H. & Greyling, F. (2004). Skryfkuns, Studiegids Vir SKRS 111A. Potchefstroom: Potchefstroomse Universiteit vir Christelike Hoër Onderwys.

Ryken, L. (1990). Part 1: “Words of Delight”: The Bible as Literature. BSac, 147(585), 3–16.

Tate, W. R. (2008). Biblical Interpretation: An Integrated Approach. Hendrickson Pub.

The Bible and the location of meaning (1)

When we look at narrative texts, the communication structure is similar to the Basic Communication Model. The sender (author) wants to communicate a message (story) to someone else (reader/audience). He does that by telling or writing down his message.

The question now is, “Where will we find the meaning of the message?” Does the meaning of the story lie with the author (what he/she intended), in the text itself or with the reader? (See diagram below) My vote is with the author; he is after all the one who have the message and knows what he wants to communicate. Furthermore, in terms of the Bible, he is the ‘inspired’ author of God’s message. If I want to study God as a character in a story, my purpose would be to come to an understanding of how the author intended the reader to understand who God is and what he is like. Unfortunately, we do not have the author with us to verify whether we understand what he meant when he wrote his story neither do we have a commentary (written by the author) to explain exactly what he meant.

Another way to go is to ask, “What did the original readers of the text understood the message to be?” After all, besides the author, they would have understood the story best as the message was intended for them. They best understood the code the author used to communicate his message with and shared a common frame of reference (context) with the author. Unfortunately, once again, we do not have the readers of the text with us to explain what they would have understood the message to be. Furthermore, we do not have any guarantee that they understood perfectly what the author intended.

Although we do want to understand what the author intended with his writing and it would be great to understand what the original receivers understood the message to be, the only ‘thing’ we have is the text. The problem with the text is that, because we are so distanced from its origins (few can read it in its original language and most have nothing more than a vague, if any, understanding of the ancient world), we can easily misunderstand the message and the author’s intention. In addition, it is too easy for us to hear from the text the message that we would like to hear. As Long (1999, p. 88) observes, “In this day and age, it would be the height of hermeneutical naïveté to deny or ignore the fact that one’s background beliefs have a significant impact on how one processes and assesses data.”

Still, that is what we are left with, the text – God’s Word – and, should we want to understand its (his) message to us, we need to go about it in a responsible manner. “What we must do is identify elements in the text that plausibly ground our interpretations” (Walsh, 2009, p. 5) [author’s emphasis]. Thus, we need to make every effort to understand the text for what it is and what it wants to communicate. 

Long, V. P. (1999). Old Testament History: A Hermeneutical Perspective, in: VanGemeren, W. A. (Ed.), A guide to Old Testament theology and exegesis: an introductory articles from the New International dictionary of Old Testament theology and exegesis, (pp. 83–99). Grand Rapids  Mich.: Zondervan.

Walsh, J. T. (2009). Old Testament Narrative: a Guide to Interpretation. Louisville, Ky.: Westminster John Knox Press.

God and Stories

When we think about the God of the Bible, we are confronted with at least two major issues (see my previous blogs): the one being the perceived contradiction between the God of the Old Testament and the God of the New Testament. The other would be the conflict between the narrator’s portrayal of God and readers’ theology. These issues are not to be taken lightly, as the way God is perceived to be (the kind of God we believe in) not only have a huge influence on believers’ faith and practise, but believers might end up believing in an altogether different God than the one we meet in the Bible.

The reality is that the text of the Old Testament, at least, does not deal with God, or theology, in a systematic manner. The fact is that most of the Old Testament consists of narratives – stories. What we know about God and his actions (who and how he is), we derive from these stories. And, as Wenham (1987:144) says, “…theological systematization is hardly the concern of the biblical narrators”. The authors of the Old Testament narratives did not intend to write theology. They wrote down the stories about God’s journey with his people that were passed down from generation to generation.

When we read the paper, we read the front page in a different way than the cartoons or sport pages. When we read the Bible, we need to distinguish the different types of literature. We cannot read narratives in the same way we read the Psalms or Paul’s letters. Different genres have different rules by which they are written and by which they should be interpreted.

As Fokkelman (1999:19) says, “What we have to learn is to read these stories according to their own rules and conventions, in an attitude of respect, and maintaining an open mind as long as possible."