Baptists and Unity
Southwestern Journal of Theology
Volume 51, No. 1 – Fall 2008
Managing Editor: Malcolm B. Yarnell III
By Edith M. Humphrey. Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2007. 238 pages. Softcover, $22.99.
The authors of the Scripture utilized various literary forms in their compositions. The literary form known as “vision-report” is the most appealing literary device to postmodern-minded readers due to its unique nature—hermeneutic openness. In other words, radical reader-response hermeneutics frequently has a tendency to pursue a deconstructive approach to interpretation by creating diverse meanings beyond the text. Symbol and imagination, in vision-report, have the potential both to depict creative pictures in the readers’ minds and to forfeit the propositional notions in the texts.
Edith M. Humphrey, Professor of New Testament Studies at Pittsburgh Theological Seminary, expounds upon the relationship between the words (argumentative substances) and images (creative effects) in the New Testament vision-reports, maintaining that New Testament writers employed the vision-reports to heighten both authorial notions and rhetorical impacts. She argues that “in the Jewish and Christian traditions, vision and words are typically conjoined, even while some aspects of the vision are left to make an imaginative rather than a cognitive impact” (22).
In this volume, the contribution she makes to an understanding of vision passages is the balanced discussion of both their allusive imageries and their authors’ assertions. In order to explicate this correlation between allusion and assertion, Humphrey selects fourteen vision/dream-report passages in the New Testament (Matt 17:1–8; Mark 9:2–8; Luke 1:5–2:40; 9:28–36; 10:17–24; Acts 7:54–60; 9:1–25; 10:1–11:18; 22:1–22; 26:1–24; 2 Cor 12:1–10; Rev 1:12–3:22; 4:1–5:14;11:15–12:17) and compares them with each other using literary-rhetorical analysis. She examines the functions of these vision-reports in both narrow and broad literary contexts by categorizing them into four groups. Even though her criteria are not always apparent, especially in her second and third classifications, this categorization system is a seminal guideline for grasping the divergences among vision-reports.
In teh first classification, “Making a Case: Word Clinched by Vision” (31), Humphrey argues that “a creative speaker might well use the vision- report as a building block in an argument if its significance were manifest to his designed audience” (35). In the polemic argument of Paul (2 Cor 12:1–10) and the narrative of Luke (Acts 7:54–60), these explicit vision- reports function as supporting more directly the authors’ main arguments. With this classification system she clearly substantiates a straightforward meaning of certain vision-reports in their literary contexts.
The second classification, “Directing the Argument: The Power of Repetition with Narrative” (57), presents the more rhetorically equal re- lationship between speeches and implicit vision narratives (Acts 9:1–25; 10:1–11:18; 22:1–22; 26:1–24). Humphrey argues that “the visions do not present a fait accompli but are artfully presented and combined to lead the hearers within the story, and the readers of the story, to certain conclu- sions” (81). These reiterated vision-reports are just as difficult to interpret explicitly in narratives; however, they lead the readers to join implicitly in the author’s arguments.
In the third classification of “Shaping the Narrative: Embryonic and Strategic Visions” (103), Humphrey argues that certain embryonic visions (Matt 17:1–8; Mark 9:2–8; Luke 1:5–2:40; 10:17–24; Luke 9:28–36) are “placed judiciously alongside hymnody so as to grasp the imagination of the reader and set up the implicit argument” (197). These visions of chreia (i.e. anecdote), infancy, and Jesus’ transfiguration move readers from closed to “open potential” meanings (103). The main focal point of these rhetorical narratives, however, is Christ.
The last classification “Firing the Imagination: Visions with Embeded Propositions” (151), focuses on the apocalyptic literature of John (Rev 1:12–3:22; 4:1–5:14;11:15–12:17) which is “composed almost entirely of allusive visionary language and [is] seemingly far removed from the rational, discursive mode of Paul, more perplexing than the implicit rhetoric of Luke’s repeated narratives, and less univocal than the transfiguration episodes” (152). Humphrey asserts that John intentionally employed this symbolic literary form to create deep visual impacts based on his proposi- tions for the readers.
Examining conspicuous functions of vision-reports in their literary contexts, while underlining implicit or explicit authorial intents, is Humphrey’s most noteworthy contribution in this work. Despite this profitable achievement, this book still has two problematic areas. First, concerning her primary methodology of literary-rhetorical analysis, Humphrey succeeds in judiciously accounting for the literary contexts and devices of the vision-reports. This, however, is not sufficient to delineate the unique rhetorical effects in this analysis. She needs to explicate more particular rhetorical functions and devices among vision-reports.
Second, she presupposes that according to the traditions of Jewish and Christian writing, “Every example of vision-report in the New Testament is connected with a clear interpretive word or direct context” (22). However, she fails to address substantially the linear hermeneutic connection between Jewish and Christian traditions in vision-reports in this work. Despite these two weaknesses, anyone interested in investigating the vision-reports in the New Testament cannot afford to overlook this work.
