New Testament Story: An Introduction

by David L. Barr

Find yourself in the midst of New Testament times and events with NEW TESTAMENT STORY: AN INTRODUCTION, Fourth Edition. Author David L. Barr demonstrates how every New Testament writing is located within the context of a story, even if the individual piece does not express a story itself. The book helps you critically examine each piece to uncover its significance and meaning and gain a stronger understanding of the language used, as well as the historical and cultural differences between Biblical and modern times.

Genres: Nonfiction, Religion

608 pages, Paperback

First published November 9, 1994

Reviews

[Josh Trice · Rating 3 out of 5]

Outside of a possibly problematic chapter on the Gospel of John, Barr provides a nice introduction to the New Testament in the vein of oral performance criticism.

The strengths of the book are it’s outline of the texts and subsequent breakdown of how the structure factors into the overall summation of it.

The weakness of this book is that Barr has a tendency to assume an oral performance position without real reason to. As well, the oral performance of the books ultimately fails to render any new meaning out of them aside from providing an alibi for seemingly contradictions in the Gospels.