DESCRIPTION

Although they do not constitute a dominant genre, vision-reports--such as those surrounding the nativity, the transfiguration and resurrection, Stephen's martyrdom, and Jesus's appearance to Saul--appear at crucial moments in numerous New Testament texts. Surprisingly, however, they have occasioned few detailed studies.

Edith Humphrey's careful work neatly fills that gap in the scholarly literature. By means of a literary and rhetorical approach, Humphrey offers new insights into the use of vision-reports, moving beyond previous studies that have tended to focus only on the recorded event (what actually happened?) to the deeper polemical, literary, and theological dimensions (how and to what end do the authors embed the vision-report in their writings?).

Humphrey details four uses of vision-reports: to complete the narrative, to direct the argument, to shape the narrative, and to fire the imagination. Taking the cue from these narratives, which are at once "open" and "directive," she commends a hermeneutics of receptivity to the reader. This work is directed largely at scholars and students who will find much here to stimulate and inform their studies of the vision-reports and their narratives. Clergy will also find this an enlightening and accessible work that will give them much material to consider when preaching on these or related New Testament passages.