Using Narratology to Study Christian-Roman Interactions

Last autumn, Mohr Siebeck published an edited volume (in WUNT I) on "Empire Criticism of the New Testament" that I edited. I am very happy that I could secure funding to make it open access – which means you can simply download it for free. (I am especially glad about this because the volume is explicitly designed to be used in an advanced biblical studies class; more on the project and its pedagogical rationale on my personal website.) It was very encouraging to learn recently from the publisher that despite appearing rather late in the year, the volume was the no. 1 theology eBook of the year 2025 – and no. 2 in their entire catalogue!

I really recommend you take a look because I think there is true and lasting value in the specific approach the book takes. With its multiperspectivity, it is a prime example of a project that encourages epistemic diversity – something increasingly important in an age of "convenience AI," to borrow philosopher of science Sabina Leonelli's apt phrase. (I cover the topic of AI in the foreword, if that's of interest to you.)

Here, however, I want to draw attention to the volume in particular because of my own contribution, which connects my interest in Roman-Christian interactions with one of my other main research areas – the one to which this website is dedicated: narratology.

Over a decade ago, I contributed to the field of empire criticism with a critical examination of the methodology of finding a supposed counter-imperial subtext "between the lines." (I've since made the monograph available in open access as well; an affordable paperback edition appeared with Fortress Press.) While I think it remains important to continue exploring whether and how categories such as James C. Scott's "hidden transcripts" can be applied to New Testament texts – for example, by combining the concept with papyrological analyses of how people actually talked about "secrets" in their letters, as Gillian Asquith masterfully does in our volume – I also believe that the empire criticism debate as a whole is ripe for a fundamental change of course.

There is a thriving and productive discussion in the humanities surrounding the concept of counternarratives as a means of resistance. And given that many of the allegedly "counterimperial" passages in the New Testament are, indeed, narratives, I think they deserve to be analyzed through precisely that lens. Importantly, this is not just a vibrant area of research – it is also one where we, as biblical scholars, can make a genuinely innovative contribution. The theoretical discussion around counternarratives is still relatively young, and many narratologists remain skeptical about the concept's analytical value. By showing how classical narratological categories can be employed with precision in order to identify counternarratives – and in order to describe their narrative interactions with dominant narratives – with respect to our source texts, we can make an important contribution that reaches well beyond our own discipline.

My article is meant as a first proof-of-principle analysis: a demonstration that narratology – including the parameter of focalization / narrative perspective, on which we focus primarily in our research group – can indeed break new ground in the paradigm of empire criticism. Part of such an innovative approach would also be to integrate what Justin Winzenburg discusses in his article on speech-act theory, namely the explication of the pragmatics of early Christian anti-Roman counternarratives – i.e., an account of how precisely they counter dominant stories.

I hope that I will have the chance for an in-depth exploration of this approach in the future – I am currently working on securing funding for a larger project, which I believe holds extraordinary promise for both New Testament studies, narratology, and the discourse surrounding counternarratives.