Performance criticism: an emerging methodology in Second Testament studies—Part II

Biblical Theology Bulletin, Winter, 2006 by David Rhoads

Abstract

In Part I of this article, I sought to depict performance criticism as an emerging discipline in Second Testament studies. I explained how the first-century Mediterranean area comprised predominantly oral cultures, that writing primarily served orality, that performances were central to early Christian communities, and that the Second Testament writings were basically "remnants" of oral performances. I proposed an outline of the key features of the performance event in an effort to encourage us to interpret Second Testament writings in the context of such performance scenarios. Part 2 comprises two sections. In the first section, I want to lay out the eclectic nature of performance criticism and identify the contributions of many potential partners in the enterprise. These partners include traditional methodologies, recent methodologies, and new approaches to biblical studies related to performance. In the second section, I will lay out the insights and benefits that come from my personal experience of performing biblical materials and of incorporating these experiences into the methods of interpretation that comprise performance criticism. My hope is that performance criticism may not only add to the tools of research in the field but also that the paradigmatic shift in medium from written to oral may bring changes in the way Second Testament disciplines in general pursue their subject matter.

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The overwhelming experience of the earliest Christians was oral/aural in the context of a predominantly oral culture. Virtually all of the Christian traditions were shared in formal and informal contexts of storytelling and letter-sharing, for most people without a direct connection to manuscripts. Indeed, most Second Testament writings were not even penned until the last two decades of the first century. It is difficult to get at the broad, popular storytelling level because our written remains are mostly from literate circles, whereas the vast majority of peasant folk were not literate. Even when the traditions were written down, they were put to writing in the service of orality. Letters were dictated as performances and then were used as scripts for performance. The gospel traditions were composed orally and eventually written as aids to performance. It was the sounds and the actions of performance that were paramount, and the marks on the page were designed either to record the sounds or to remind performers of the sounds and the actions that the writing denoted. Clearly, taking a flesh and blood performance and putting the sounds alone in script was a reduction of the event.

If an early Christian had been asked about a letter from Paul or a story of Jesus by "Mark," they would have thought of the flesh and blood performance rather than a manuscript, much as we think of the music and not the score when we mention Beethoven's Fifth Symphony or much as we and Werner Kelber as pioneers and mentors in this endeavor. think of our experience of the play performed rather than the script when we refer to Hamlet or Medea. For early Christians, the Gospel of Mark, for example, was not a text; it was an event. Perhaps, if performances of Second Testament writings had been kept alive through these many centuries, we would think of the Gospel of John or the First Letter of Peter primarily in terms of our experience of various performances of them.

We may not have any access to these ancient performances, but we do have the collected writings of the Second Testament. How are we to see them as "oral literature"? When we interpret the Gospel of Mark, are we interpreting the (manu-)scripts or are we interpreting performances--insofar as we are able to (re-)construct them or re-enliven them! If the Second Testament texts are like fossil remains of live performances, how will our study of them as performance literature shape our understanding of the meaning and rhetoric of these texts? The challenge of performance criticism is to learn everything we can learn about performances of early Christian traditions and to interpret, as best we can, the texts before us as "performance literature."

Methodological Approaches

There are a number of methodologies in Second Testament studies that can help to bring rigor to the discipline of performance criticism and that together can offer new insights and provide checks and balances on interpretation. In fact, I would argue that developments in a number of disciplines are already converging into what I am referring to as "performance criticism." I propose that performance criticism stand on its own as a methodology with many partners. One might think that performance criticism should be a sub-discipline of orality criticism or rhetorical criticism or narrative criticism or discourse analysis. In some sense, performance studies are a sub-discipline of all these methodologies. However, precisely because performance criticism is an eclectic discipline bringing together many different methods already employed in Second Testament studies, it would be advantageous to treat performance criticism as a discrete discipline. Unless we bring all the insights from many methods together under one umbrella, the capacity to assess the performance event will be fragmented and limited. Performance criticism can draw on many disciplines, both within Second Testament studies and from secular methodologies (such as theater studies and oral interpretation of literature), and can adapt those disciplines for use in constructing scenarios of performance and in gaining fresh insights for interpretation. At the same time, performance criticism should not just be an added discipline alongside others. Rather, because performance criticism involves a paradigmatic media shift from written to oral, the study of performance should--in a kind of cross-pollination--also inform other disciplines and transform their strategies, methods, and results as well.