438 - Matthew as Story

Matthew as Story
By Jack Dean Kingsbury
Philadelphia, Fortress Press, 1986. 149 pp. $9.95.

This book not only represents a major methodological change for the author, but it is also one of the first narrative-critical monographs on the Gospel of Matthew. Kingsbury, New Testament professor at Union Theological Seminary in Virginia, primarily follows the method of Seymour Chatman in defining the work of a narrative critic in Story and Discourse (1980). Like any narrative, Matthew's Gospel is composed of two parts, namely, story and discourse. "Story" is basically what is told, and it is composed of three elements: events, settings, and characters. "Discourse" is how the story is told, and it includes such elements as narrator, point of view, implied author, and implied reader. As the book's title implies, the focus is upon the story of Matthew, although the discourse elements, especially the implied reader, are utilized as well.

Within the framework of the story, Kingsbury is concerned primarily with plot and characters. His thesis concerning Matthew's plot is that it is built around the dual conflict Jesus has with his disciples and the Jewish leaders. The principal conflict is the latter one, and the resolution of this part of the plot is the death of Jesus. Jesus' conflict with the disciples basically concerns his attempt to guide them to a greater understanding of their own mission of servanthood.

Kingsbury's controlling thesis for characterization is that Jesus is the central character who represents God's system of values to the reader, namely, total obedience to God's will. The baptismal scene (3:13-17), where God enunciates that Jesus is the Son of God, becomes the normative one for the reader. From this point on in the narrative, the reader will measure all other characters by Jesus' obedience, compassion, and salvific actions as the Son of God.

Since this book is a fresh methodological statement, critical comments will deal primarily with the question of method. First, as Kingsbury rightly argues, narrative criticism must assume that the Gospel of Matthew is a "unified narrative." In Matthew's case, however, this is an argument which needs to be made rather than simply asserted. The primary problem is that the discourses (like the Sermon on the Mount), which constitute roughly half of the Gospel, do not fit within Kingsbury's understanding of "unified narrative." By too rigorously following Chatman's definition of "events" as "incidents that occur," Kingsbury is forced to pass over the discourses. Chatman insists upon the opposition between an event and a state (process and stasis), but if "event" means a change from one state of affairs to another, then it is difficult to see what function the discourses have in the change. Are they stasis or part of the process?

Other narrative critics do not make such a rigorous distinction

440 - Matthew as Story

between state and event. It could be argued that any event is an infinite series of intermediary states. In this case, narrative analysis would not concentrate only on sentences that depict dynamic changes; it would include also stasis statements (like the Matthean discourses) that could imply a series of events for the reader. It is worth noting that Chatman does include in his method the "revelatory plot," that is, a plot which grows out of revealing the identity of a character. The characterization of Jesus is so crucial to Matthew's plot that Matthew's narrative may necessitate both broadening the definition of "event" and subordinating plot to character. Kingsbury's use of Chatman's method would apply well to the Gospel of Mark, and perhaps to Luke, but any narrativecritical approach to Matthew must account for the function of the discourses in relation to both plot and characterization.

Second, Kingsbury correctly acknowledges the autonomy of the narrative world in Matthew, and he contends, in contradistinction to his former redaction-critical efforts, that one should not try to reconstruct the social and theological situation of the Evangelist and his or her community from it. However, an entire chapter is devoted to the social world of the Matthean community as if it were directly represented in the narrative world. Kingsbury gives no methodological explanation for this move to the sociology of Matthew's narrative world (nor does Chatman), and one can only conclude that this part of the redactioncritical caterpillar missed the metamorphosis into the narrative-critical. butterfly.

In spite of these caveats, anyone who is interested in narrative criticism of Matthew must consider Kingsbury's work. It should be received warmly both as a textbook for students and laity and as an important contribution to Matthean scholarship.

Fred W. Burnett

Anderson College
Anderson, Indiana