Review Reports

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

This was a very stimulating article, of interest to scholars of NT, hermeneutics and literary criticism. I have just a few general comments, and then a list of English errors/suggestions and typos. 

(a) Include clear subheadings for your introduction and conclusion .. as per MDPI guidelines (otherwise, you only have three which don't full indicate the overall structure for someone just scanning the paper.

(b) The abstract, introduction and conclusion (the latter not really developed) should be made clearer in order to underline the exact logic of the paper. 

Thus, for instance, it appears that you wish to take an insight developed by Ricœur in a (limited) biblical context and show how an example from a modern short story can make this more observable and aid our understanding of how this might work in practice. 

I wonder if the ultimate purpose is thus simply to bring Ricœur's work to a wider audience to provide a literary-critical vocabulary to those encountering the same phenomena in contemporary texts. If so, your aim would be to show how the study of religious texts has made a good and proper contribution to the wider subjects within which they sit.  Or perhaps, is there an intention to expose NT and related scholars to a more obvious modern example to equip them to "see" this sort of thing more clearly in the ancient texts they are studying, and perhaps to find new relevance outside of the passion narratives? Finally, I did sense there was something of a biblical-hermeneutical agenda of offering a way of saving a text from "ideological", "external" interpretation, by providing an internal ground for determining meaning, perhaps with an enhanced claim to authenticity. This sub-plot could be brought to the surface more in your introduction. Why is this desirable? What is your own location as a scholar/practitioner in this? 

These points of explanation of purpose can then be revisited in a more developed conclusion to show what has been achieved, exactly.  

(c) There's one section early on your argument that could do with some clarification, caveats & qualifications .... 

This is on p.3 from "That is what he calls interpretive narrative"  to "works as an “internal” interpretation of the meaning of the text" ... here I wonder as follows:

Given that this internal interpretation is sometimes explicit but more often implicit, expressed via the interweaving of different strands of material, what status does Ricœur accord the process of inference on the part of the (scholarly?) reader that discerns what this line of material is telling us about what the (implied?) author believes about the main narrative? For instance, irrespective of the textual elements that are to be understood as constituting this thread, a radical re-appraisal of the social or historical might alter sensible lines of inference. In addition to this, in so far as the interweaving of material is itself an editorial artifice that might post-date, misunderstand or simply (by nudges) misrepresent the sources involved, is it not possible to conclude that this artificer is not reliable, and therefore cannot be elevated to the position of speaking "on behalf of the text"? Finally, of course, who has the job of arbitrating between competing reconstructions of what this "internal" interpretation is?

I do not doubt the elegance or evident utility of Ricœur's picture of this sort of way texts might be engineered, but wondered whether a few more lines as per the above noting some of the more recent questions that might be asked about this might help, and indeed whether this (potentially uncertain) internal interpretation should assume a quasi-canonical status and/or merit immunity from deconstruction. I suspect these might be rather amateur non-specialist queries, but this might help your more ordinary readers!

I would like to say I found this fabulously interesting, and can imagine you hitting top scores in the evaluative scales above with a little more attention to the paper's narrative and significance.   

Finally, since there were no line numbers for me to identify a number of typos and English queries, I have attached an annotated PDF version of your submission below.

 

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Comments on the Quality of English Language

Some modest English slips noted in the attached annotated file.

Author Response

Thank you very much for taking the time to review this manuscript. I am especially grateful for the thorough consideration of the concept expressed in my paper and for outlining further options for consideration. I am also very grateful for the correction of the linguistic errors and inaccuracies in the text. I have corrected everything according to the instructions.

 

1. "(a) Include clear subheadings for your introduction and conclusion .. as per MDPI guidelines (otherwise, you only have three which don't full indicate the overall structure for someone just scanning the paper."

I managed to include clear subheadings.

 

2. "(b) The abstract, introduction and conclusion (the latter not really developed) should be made clearer in order to underline the exact logic of the paper"

I rewrote the abstract and I wrote a new introduction in order to underline the logic of my paper. (Please see the attachment. In red letters.)

 

3. "(c) There's one section early on your argument that could do with some clarification, caveats & qualifications"

Thank you again for the suggestions. I have included Vanhoozer's concept in the terminology. I have written a new paragraph about how Ricoeur's interpretive model and my method of analysis problematize the primary experience of reading. (Please see the attachment. In green letters.)

 

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Page 1: The phrase "privilege of reading act" is clunky: "privilege of the reading act" is less efficient but sounds cleaner.  

The intro is fantastic--well conceived and delievered. The only advice would be to run a grammar check (you're missing occasional articles) and consider organizing your thinking into shorter paragraphs so that your points don't get lost in a wall of text. 

Interpretive Narrative: This also flows well--you do a masterful job of unfolding Ricoeur in an innovative way as you read through Mark. The same criticisms above apply here: proof read and break up the paragraphs a bit to allow your reader a way to more slowly follow what you present. 

Narrative Parallelism: Brilliant use of Bal to emphasize the importance of description. I really appreciate your description of "inlaid" narrative embedding as well. This is really brilliant work--tough going for readers who aren't specialists, perhaps, but you would probably need a book length study to unpack things more slowly. You provide enough here for your specialized readers to follow.

Interpretive Function: By page 13, it is clear to your reader what you're arguing and why it is useful as an interpretive modality. The paragraph where you unfold the Italian to really highlight the parallels is frosting on the cake--delicious. Page 14: Continue to consider breaking up your paragraphs into smaller units to allow your reader easier access to your thinking. Page 18: I appreciate how you fold in the erotic potential as a possibility that the text would not reject but does not demand--it's a good distinction that helps your reader hone in on exactly what you're arguing. 

 

 

Author Response

Thank you very much for taking the time to review this manuscript. I am also very grateful for the suggestions for correcting the linguistic errors. I tried to correct everything. On the marked pages, I have divided the problematic paragraphs into several logical units. In order to be more consequent, I have inserted some new chapter headings. In order to make the concept clearer, I have rephrased the abstract, written a new introduction (in red letters) and inserted some additional paragraphs (in green letters). Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Thank you for your welcome modifications and corrections. This is a great worked example from a modern short story that biblical scholars will do well to look at, and Ricœur is an excellent dialogue partner for the hermeneutical questions arising. I still think the abstract and the introduction could have benefitted from a simple, practical statement of this aim, and how the paper is arranged (first I do X, then, Y and then Z etc.), where for a little while, theory is kept at bay, just to help non-expert readers understand what is going on. But otherwise, this is an important and indeed underused "way" of doing biblical studies via an example from elsewhere, which makes a really great methodological contribution beyond the content per se.     

Comments on the Quality of English Language

All English errors & typos now corrected.