Kirjahaku

The biblical story of King David and his conflict with King Saul (1 and 2 Samuel) is one of the most colourful and perennially popular in the Hebrew Bible. In recent years this story has attracted a great deal of scholarly attention, much of it devoted to showing that David was a far less heroic character than appears on the surface. Indeed, more than one has painted David as a despicable tyrant. Paul Borgman provides a counter-reading to these studies, through an attentive reading of the narrative patterns of the text. He focuses on one of the key features of ancient Hebrew narrative poetics -- repeated patterns -- taking special note of even the small variations each time a pattern recurs. He argues that such 'hearing cues' would have alerted an ancient audience to the answers to such questions as 'Who is David?' and 'What is so wrong with Saul?' The narrative insists on such questions, says Borgman, slowly disclosing answers through patterns of repeated scenarios and dominant motifs that yield, finally, the supreme work of storytelling in ancient literature. Borgman concludes with a comparison with Homer's storytelling technique, demonstrating that the David story is indeed a masterpiece and David (as Baruch Halpern has said) 'the first truly modern human.'

Among the classics of ancient Greek and Jewish literature, the story of "Luke-Acts" has few rivals. Yet we moderns miss much of the meaning of Luke's two-part drama because we read it like any other text and not as it would have been heard by ancient listeners - in public performance by a skilled storyteller. "The Way According to Luke" unlocks the big picture of Jesus' mission by attending to the repetition, patterns, and other clues of oral narrative. In this single volume, Paul Borgman lays out a holistic view of the organic unity between Luke and Acts, while demonstrating that the meaning of "Luke-Acts" is uniquely embedded in its narrative. Borgman's distinctive work makes available both the satisfying pleasure of reading the Bible as great literature and the rewarding insight gained from receiving Scripture as it was originally delivered.

Recovers the lost messages of Mark, Matthew, Luke-Acts, and John for people todayThe words of the gospels were meant to be heard. While we can still appreciate the construction and grasp some understanding when we read, we miss much of the message because we're working in the wrong medium. In Written to Be Heard Paul Borgman and Kelly James Clark offer the keys to recovering the radical, relevant messages of each gospel as they were first heard.The shaping of the gospels for oral performances, which would have been obvious to ancient (mostly preliterate) listeners, is lost on even the best contemporary reader. With careful analysis of the gospel writers' particular voices within their own ancient literary context, Borgman and Clark equip readers to read as if hearing, focusing on overlapping patterns of hearing cues that shape each text and embed theological perspective.