Experiencing the Apocalypse at the Limits of Alterity

Erscheinungsjahr 2010
ISBN: 978-90-04-18563-0
Verlag: Brill

Buch, Englisch, Band 102, 292 Seiten, Format (B × H): 165 mm x 244 mm, Gewicht: 676 g

Reihe: Biblical Interpretation Series

Applying current narrative criticism to the study of the Apocalypse, Hongisto underscores the oral nature of the narrative vis-à-vis the roles of the readers/listeners. EXPERIENCING THE APOCALYPSE AT THE LIMITS OF ALTERITY probes the interplay of meaning creation as readers/listeners encounter the narrative. The author shows how readers/listeners alike partake in the narrative design and become constructors of the narrative, given their own life experiences. Thus, the overarching reading context assists in the creation of a narrativity for the text. The form of the Apocalypse along with its imagistic quality convey a message that is not primarily cognitive, but is delivered and grasped by a sense of alterity encompassing the imaginary world of the text and the real world of the readers/listeners.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Hongisto, Leif

Fachgebiete

• Geisteswissenschaften Christentum, Christliche Theologie Bibelwissenschaften Neues Testament: Exegese, Geschichte

Inhaltsverzeichnis

contents
Introduction

Part one
Apocalypse, a text looking for a reading

Chapter One
Critical Orientation
1.1 Questions and Method
1.1.1 Focus and Boundaries
1.1.2 Task
1.2 Some Definitions and Assumptions
1.3 Modalities of Reading
1.3.1 Realist and Non-realist Relation to the Other
1.3.2 A Virtual Text
1.3.3 Shifts in Viewpoints
1.3.4 Text and ‘Site’

Chapter Two
Reading the Form of the Apocalypse
2.1 Defining the Form and Function of the Artefact
2.1.1 The Notion of a Setting
2.2 Framing a Hybrid Text
2.2.1 The Role of a Frame
2.3 The Scripture Profile of the Apocalypse
2.3.1 Literary Freedom
2.4 The Apocalypse as Oral Performance
2.4.1 Word-pictures
2.5 Historical, Narrative and Imaginative Qualities
2.6 The Trait of Construction
2.6.1 The Necessity of Selectivity
2.6.2 Transaction

Chapter Three
Apocalypticality: An Integrating Function
3.1 Imagining the ‘Other’
3.1.1 The Spectacular
3.1.2 Sequels to Repeated Readings
3.1.3 Staged ‘as if ’
3.2 Prismatic Reflections
3.2.1 Experience of Cognitive Dissonance
3.3 From Plain Words to Powerful Metaphors
3.3.1 Communal Cognitions
3.3.2 Collective Experience
3.4 Search for a Setting
3.4.1 Exegetical Assumptions and Spiritual Experience

Part two
Take up and read
Take Up and Read

Chapter Four
Narrative Positioning – Aligning Experiences
4.1 The Narrative Situation – the First Meeting with the ‘Other’
4.2 Visions of Jesus: Experiencing the Known Anew
4.2.1 Visionary Experiences of Jesus
4.2.2 Corpus of Visionary Sayings
4.3 The Medium of Sharing God’s Knowledge
4.3.1 Deictic Expressions
4.3.2 Gave ‘Him’
4.3.3 ‘He’ Sent
4.4 The Form of Visionary Appropriation
4.4.1 John’s Own Vision
4.4.2 As He Saw It
4.5 The Sweet Bitterness of Reading

Chapter Five
Narrator Perspectives – Affirming Narration
5.1 The Narrator as the Experiencer
5.2 Co-Narrator
5.3 Alternating Between Narrator and Co-narrator

Chapter Six
The Narratee’s Experience – Connectedness of Life
6.1 ‘You’ as Narrative Identity
6.2 The Other as Oneself
6.3 When Narrative Voices Clash
6.4 The Art of Suppleness

Chapter Seven
Towards an Anatomy of Apocalypticality
7.1 Action Day
7.1.1 Time of Action
7.1.2 Secular and Sacred
7.1.3 Sinners and Saints
7.2 Conceptual Blends and Shifts
7.2.1 Imagistic Cognitions
7.2.2 Alterations
7.2.3 Merging of Time and Eons
7.3 Concentric Spaces

Conclusion
Postscript
Twelve Storyboards of the Apocalypse
Bibliography
Index

Über Autor(innen)

Leif Ilmari Hongisto received his PhD in New Testament Exegesis from Åbo Akademi University, Finland. He is a long-time educator and his research interest lies in the application of Cognitive Narratology to biblical texts. He is now President of Middle East University in Beirut, Lebanon.