Written to Be Heard
Recovering the Messages of the Gospels
By: Kelly James Clark, Paul C. Borgman and Kelly James Clark and Paul C. Borgman
328 Pages
- Paperback
- ISBN: 9780802877048
- Published By: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company
- Published: March 2019
$30.00
Building upon a growing consensus that the gospels were written in an oral milieu and were likely experienced by early audiences as oral performances, Paul Borgman and Kelly James Clark’s Written to be Heard: Recovering the Messages of the Gospels seeks to identify oral markers and performance features in the canonical gospels and Acts. As the title suggests, the goal is to exhume the “lost” messages of these biblical texts, providing a new hearing for modern readers.
The approach is guided by three primary and interrelated principles: First, in order to recover the lost message of the gospels, one must read the texts as if hearing them aloud. Each gospel has a distinct shape, crafted through “hearing cues,” which prime listening audiences to the message(s) within. Second, each gospel must be heard as a unified whole within its own textual and cultural context. Third, readers must set aside presuppositions and outside influences, which distort the voice of each gospel. In short, one must learn “how to read as if hearing and how to hear each gospel as a whole and how to hear with a minimum of distorting biases” (8, italics original).
Following a brief introduction, the body of the volume consists of five parts, one for each of the canonical gospels and Acts. Each part consists of a close reading of the text, with analyses informed by specific “hearing cues.” For example, the themes of “authority” and “response” are identified as hearing cues in the Gospel of Mark, emphasizing the call to respond to Jesus and his words. Other hearing cues are structural in nature. Matthew’s structuring of the genealogy and the repetitive use of scripture fulfillment motif emphasize for hearers Jesus’ continuity with God’s covenant with Israel. Still other cues appear to be more genre specific, such as the chiastic structuring of John’s prologue. These diverse hearing cues (among several others) function as hooks for a listening audience and become something like a harmony through which the “lost” message of each gospel may be heard.
I am sympathetic to the thesis of this volume and to the authors’ premise—attention to the auditory elements of biblical texts could prove to be a significant step forward in understanding their message. However, not all readers will share such sympathies, and those who do not will find little in this work to persuade them otherwise.
For example, readers familiar with literary and narrative-critical readings of the gospels will find many of the conclusions in this volume anticipated by scholarship in those arenas. Due to such similarities, it is not always evident how “hearing” or an aural hermeneutic informs a particular conclusion. At a broad level, the “hearing cues” identified in this volume are primarily thematic and structural in nature. But is thematic repetition unique to an aural presentation and listening audiences, or can it also be an effective literary tool aimed at readers? Are structural patterns (i.e., genealogy, chiasm, etc.) more easily recognizable and cognitively accessible in hearing than in reading? The authors seem to assume such distinctions throughout rather than demonstrate them. While the authors identify particular elements within narratives as “hearing cues,” greater specificity is needed to establish them as “hearing” cues as opposed to “reading” cues.
This lack of a clear distinction is further exacerbated by the mixed terminology throughout the book. For example, the authors seem to vacillate in their use of “hearer” and “reader,” the result of which is a blurring of the lines between two distinct types of audience. What specific differences are there between the ancient hearer and the modern reader? Do readers (ancient or modern) receive the same message as hearers (ancient or modern)? Despite addressing the theoretical differences between hearers and readers briefly in the introduction, such distinctions are less evident as the volume progresses, raising questions as to their usefulness as distinct categories. Whether definitive answers to such questions are necessary for this work to be considered successful is something each reader can decide. However, a more thorough differentiation between an aural hermeneutic and a literary approach could have been demonstrated further, rather than merely assumed.
This highlights another peculiarity of the book: its choice of discourse partners. In the introduction, the authors state that they intentionally limit their engagement with secondary references to keep the gospel messages front and center (5). On the one hand this is commendable, as the prose is clear and accessible to readers at every level. This is also practical, as the book attempts to provide fresh readings of five canonical texts. On the other hand, this decision prohibits the authors from engaging with the vast and rapidly growing body of work within biblical studies on orality studies, sound-mapping, performance criticism, performance dynamics, and so on. This is a surprising and rather stark omission from a book on “hearing” the biblical texts. The effect of this decision is a book with an underdeveloped theoretical basis, especially when compared to other works in this arena. Further engagement with at least some of these areas would have gone a long way in strengthening the overall persuasiveness of a book proposing a new “hearing” of biblical texts.
Borgman and Clark’s close reading of the biblical narratives, especially in identifying key ideas and literary structures within each text, is both ambitious and commendable. Not only do the authors show extensive care for the narratives, but the volume is accessible and could comfortably find a place in an introductory course at either the high school or undergraduate level. Unfortunately, however, the areas in which the work excels—the close reading of the text and the clarity of the authors’ prose—at times undermines the goal and calls into question its usefulness as an aid for “hearing” the gospels anew.
Zechariah Eberhart is a PhD candidate in New Testament and Early Christianity at Loyola University of Chicago.
Zechariah EberhartDate Of Review:September 24, 2022
Kelly James Clark is senior research fellow at the Kaufman Interfaith Institute at Grand Valley State University; his many other books include Written to Be Heard, Return to Reason, and When Faith Is Not Enough.
Paul Borgman is professor emeritus of English at Gordon College and the author of The Way according to Luke: Hearing the Whole Story of Luke- Acts.