Perspective Criticism: Point of View and Evaluative Guidance in Biblical Narrative - Softcover

Yamasaki, Gary

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0227173996 ISBN 13: 9780227173992

Publisher: James Clarke & Co, 2013

Synopsis

Countless times in the Bible readers are presented with a report of a character engaged in some action, but no explicit indication from the storyteller on how the action is to be evaluated. At first glance, it would appear the readers are being left to fend for themselves in making an evaluation. Fortunately, according to Yamasaki, that is not the case, for, he argues, though the readers are not receiving explicit evaluative guidance, they may be receiving guidance in a less-obvious fashion through the way in which point of view is being used in the passage.
Gary Yamasaki's bold new work sets out a new biblical methodology called Perspective Criticism, an approach designed to uncover evaluative guidance that may be encoded in the point-of-view crafting of biblical narratives.

Table of Contents

1 Point-of-View Crafting: An Untapped Source of Evaluative Guidance
2 Spatial Plane of Point of View
3 Psychological Plane of Point of View
4 Informational Plane of Point of View
5 Temporal Plane of Point of View
6 Phraseological Plane of Point of View
7 Ideological Plane of Point of View
8 When the Planes Concur . . . and When They Do Not
9 A Perspective-Critical Analysis of the Butch Cassidy Clip
10 New Testament Case Study: Gamaliel (Acts
5:35–39)
11 Old Testament Case Study: Gideon (Judges 6:36–40)
Bibliography
Scripture Index
Movie Index

About this title

About the Author:

Gary Yamasaki is Professor of Biblical Studies at Columbia Bible College, Abbotsford, BC. He is the author of Watching a Biblical Narrative: Point of View in Biblical Exegesis (2007), and is the founder of the Perspective Criticism Website (http://perspectivecriticism.com).

Review:

Perspective Criticism: Point of View and Evaluative Guidance in Biblical Narrative by Gary Yamasaki sets out what this methodology means, and shows how it works using two case studies: one from the Old Testament, and one from the New. It is a way of helping to interpret a story where the author gives no explicit meaning to the actions of the characters involved.


An innovative book in eleven chapters, Perspective Criticism aims to renew biblical methodology with a new approach coined as ‘perspective criticism’.
(Yves Laberge volume 26, no 1, 2014)

About this edition

• Publisher: James Clarke & Co
• Publication date: 2013
• ISBN 10: 0227173996
• ISBN 13: 9780227173992
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 170