Delivering from Memory: The Effect of Performance on the Early Christian Audience

Description:
When the New Testament was read publicly, what effect did the performances have on the audience? In Delivering from Memory, William Shiell argues that these performances shaped early Christian paideia among communities of active, engaged listeners.

Using Greco-Roman rhetorical conventions, Shiell's groundbreaking study suggests that lectors delivered from memory without memorizing the text verbatim and audiences listened with their memories in a collaborative process with the performer. The text functioned as a starting place for emotion, paraphrase, correction, and instruction. In the process, the performances trained and shaped the character of the reader and the formation of the audience. The lector's performance functioned as a mirror for the audience to examine themselves as children of God.

These conventions shaped the ways lectors performed Jesus. Just as the New Testament reflects many titles for Jesus, so the canonical form of the Gospels offers many ways Jesus was performed in the ancient world. By interpreting through the eyes of performance, we join a conversation that has existed since the formative stages of the Christian movement. By performing with the ancient audience, we shape the character of reader and audience through the emotions, rhetorical figures, and memories in the text. We raise new questions about audiences in the ancient world and interpret stories through the ears of performance.


Endorsements:
""Drawing on ancient rhetorical criticism and the emerging field of performance criticism, Shiell uses the Greco-Roman rhetorical convention of memory to explicate the relationship between performer and audience in the hermeneutical process of performing and hearing sacred texts. This book simply sparkles with gems from the rhetorical handbooks that illuminate the ways in which performance of Christian texts instructed, informed, and formed (what Shiell calls paideia) the identity of early Christian audiences as followers of Christ . . . This is a must-read book for scholars and preachers alike!""
-Mikeal C. Parsons
Professor and Macon Chair in Religion
Baylor University

""Based on a wealth of information from ancient sources, William Shiell paints a fascinating picture of the early church as a predominantly oral culture--performers, audiences, and rhetorical impact. He argues persuasively that oral teaching from memory shaped the social identity and practices of early Christian communities. This book will transform your image of the early church and stimulate fresh possibilities for the church today. I commend this study to preachers, teachers, students, and scholars as a solid introduction to the oral ethos of early Christianity.""
-David Rhoads
Emeritus Professor of New Testament
Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago


About the Contributor(s):
William D. Shiell is the Senior Pastor of First Baptist Church of Knoxville, Tennessee. He is the author of Reading Acts: The Lector and the Early Christian Audience (2004) and Sessions with Matthew (2008).