(Part 1)

JBTM 16
Hebrew Historical Narrative:
Suggestions on How to Use it in Christian Proclamation
Robert D. Bergen, PhD
Robert D. Bergen is Associate Dean of Academic Affairs; Distinguished Professor of Old Testament and
Hebrew at Hannibal-LaGrange University in Hannibal, Missouri.
At their core, narrative compositions are presentations of chronologically sequenced
actions—they are descriptions of participants doing things. Biblical narratives certainly
fit this definition, but as evangelical Christians we affirm that they are more than
written records of time-sequenced actions; they are the very words of God—repositories
of divine insights, promises, guidance, and hope designed to benefit those who hear and
read them.
To express it more poetically, stories are murals painted on the inner walls of the human
soul. Expressed in words, they live within us as images and actions infused with ideas
and values. They are cousins to dreams and fantasies, but differ especially in the fact that
their agents, actions, and ideas were fashioned in the minds of others, not our own.
God is the great story maker. Just as he created the tree expressed as the watercolor
artist’s imitative streaks and dabs, so the Lord masterfully created the time, places, people,
and even the actional possibilities that were translated into the events of biblical narratives.
More than that, God sovereignly guided the storytellers’ art and in so doing became
both the initiator and finisher of all biblical narrative.
As evangelical Christians we affirm that biblical narratives differ from all other stories
in that they are verbally mediated expressions of the mind of God, authentic and accurate
in every way. They are, to extend an analogy, the frescoes on the soul’s vaulted ceilings. To
interact with them is to touch the finger of God.
Guidelines for Exegesis
Preaching biblical narratives transforms proclaimers into painters adorning the souls
of our listeners with divinely authorized representations of God, his work, and his world.
The challenge for the proclaimer is thus to perform the task faithfully and vibrantly.
Vibrant proclamation is a matter of both literary and performance art. It involves the
coining of felicitous phrases, sentences, and paragraphs, as well as their skillful presentation
to listeners. Faithful proclamation is the complement to the vibrant; it consists of the