376 - Matthew's Inclusive Story: A Study in the Narrative Rhetoric of the First Gospel

Matthew's Inclusive Story: A Study in the Narrative Rhetoric of the First Gospel

By David B. Howell

(JSNT Supplement Series 42). Sheffield, Academic Press, 1990.292 pp. $43.50.

In his revised doctoral dissertation, Howell addresses the problem of the "two horizons" in Matthew's Gospel: how does the story of Jesus presented in the Gospel relate to the situation of the readers to whom this book was addressed? Howell criticizes redaction-critical attempts to relate these two horizons, for they have imposed a salvation-historical periodization upon the Gospel that is alien to the narrative. Furthermore, they have either emphasized the historicizing character of the narrative to the denigration of its present signification, or they have so emphasized the representational function of various characters in the story as to lose sight of the historical distance between the story and the situation of the reader. Howell identifies the underlying problem as failure to read the narrative on its own terms.

Howell insists that insights from narrative and reader-response criticisms can clarify the relationship between these two horizons. The situation of post-Easter disciples is not reflected in any character or group of characters, such as the disciples, but rather, is found in the "implied reader." By means of plotting, point of view, and rhetorical devices, the implied reader is led to recognize the significance of Jesus and to respond by accepting Jesus' demands and aligning behavior to that of Jesus, who is the model of true discipleship.

Howell is justified in castigating an approach that moves uncritically from the presentation of characters in the narrative to the situation of the intended readers of the Gospel, and he is correct when he argues that one must begin with the narrative itself and approach the problem of the post-Easter reader through the medium of the implied reader. Yet, he overreaches in his criticism of attempts to discern a schema of salva

378 - Matthew's Inclusive Story: A Study in the Narrative Rhetoric of the First Gospel

tion history in the Gospel. Moreover, Howell's analysis of the implied reader of the Gospel tends to be flat and unidimensional and, consequently, fails to yield much new insight into the relationship between the two horizons.

David R. Bauer, Asbury Theological Seminary, Wilmore, Ky.