506 - Centering on God: Method and Message in Luke Acts

Centering on God: Method and Message in Luke Acts

By Robert L. Brawley

Louisville, Westminster/john Knox, 1990. 256 Pp. $11.95.

This book by the Professor of New Testament at Memphis Theological Seminary appears in a new series, Literary Currents in Biblical Interpretation, edited by Danna Fewell and David Gunn, which aims to appropriate the insights of secular literary criticism for biblical study. Chapter one begins with Roland Barthes' contention that texts are woven out of five voices: (1) hermeneutic, (2) semes, (3) proairetic, (4) cultural, and (5) symbolic. The remaining chapters of the book appropriate these five voices as categories for the analysis of Luke-Acts. Chapters two through eight consider the voices separately. Chapter nine attempts to bring them together in reading the parable of the Good Samaritan. This volume will assist scholars involved in testing the relevance of secular literary theory for biblical interpretation. It will offer little to those desiring a theological reading of Luke-Acts to assist in preaching.

Charles H. Talbert, Wake Forest University, Winston-Salem, N.C.