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The Trial Narrative Analysis

1205 Words5 Pages

Nicole Johnson
February 4, 2015
UBBL 230 Section 12991

Skinner, Matthew L. The Trial Narratives: Conflict, Power, and Identity in the New Testament. Westminster John Knox Press: Louisville, Kentucky, 2010. The bible generally comes across as a collection of individual events over the period of a few thousand pages that are read or heard in the form of a children’s storybook. However, scholars such as Matthew L. Skinner examine the idea of the bible being written in the form of a narrative and comparatively critically analyze the thoughts, ideas, and concepts that the bible conveys through its authors and characters. Matthew L. Skinner’s writing identifies with readers whose focus is to approach the biblical text from a scholastic point of …show more content…

Nevertheless, his intention is to focus on how the biblical events, specifically the trials, influence the culture and history from that time on. In ‘The Trial Narratives’, Skinner explicitly addresses the trials that occur in the New Testament books known as the Gospels and the book of Acts with an in depth examination of the trials of Jesus, Paul, and certain disciples of Jesus. Skinner likewise addresses the trials from each of the biblical authors’ account of the events that take place reinforcing the idea that the writings are narrative in origin which helps readers …show more content…

Through the analysis of the trials in Acts, readers will see how the idea of legal travails and bearing witness before authorities becomes a theological motif that shapes the sequel to the Gospel of Luke and interprets the experiences of Christians living approximately two to three generations after Jesus. All these scenes suggest that to be on trial was to stand in Jesus’ legacy, to be sure, but they also verify that the gospel Jesus and his followers proclaim regularly challenges, confronts, and even sometimes manipulates the power structures that regulate human society. As we will see, the trials offer complex and not always uniform descriptions of a gospel that is neither completely amicable nor intrinsically hostile toward the sociopolitical structures of the first century world. Those demanding simplistic theological platitudes or univocal prescriptions concerning these issues may be frustrated by the perspectives that present themselves through the various trial scenes.” (p.

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