Schema Theory:

A Resonant

Hermeneutic in

Story/Textual

Narrative?

Paper presented to the 2011 Annual meeting of

Aotearoa/New Zealand Association of Biblical Studies

(ANZABS) at Christchurch, New Zealand

John C. Douglas

5/12/2011

1

Abstract

Scripture as story or textual narrative is approached via a broad-range of

hermeneutical treatments, among which is “Literary Theory.” Literary theory, itself broad in

assumptions is essentially; a systematic study of literature’s nature, philosophy(s), analytical

methods, and intentionality. Its theories, first formulated and tested in broader literary studies,

have found-their-way into the analysis and applications of biblical text(s). Textual story,

which generally reflects the intentionally of its “3-R’s” . . . readers, writers, and redactors;

also exists and interprets in community. Theory calls for schemata. Schema theory (Bartlett,

1932; Alba and Hasher, 1983; Rumelhart and Norman, 1983; Driscoll, 2000) was initially

introduced to explain why people reconstruct a story when recalling it, so as to make more

sense of it in terms of their own knowledge and experience. It holds schema is essentially; an

organizing and orienting attitude that involves active arranging of past experience. This paper

considers Schema Theory’s potential contributions towards a community hermeneutic

embracing considerations/contributions toward textual intentionally by writers, readers, and

redactors.

John C. Douglas,

Tauranga, New Zealand

jcd@sage.ac.nz

The meeting’s full schedule of presented papers can be viewed at http://anzabs.blogspot.com/

2

Schema Theory: a Resonant Hermeneutic in Story/Textual �arrative?

Scripture as Story or Textual �arrative

The concerns of this paper embrace reading, and hearing the textual narrative within

an ongoing community-ecology. The scriptures as text are both existent and emergent

narrative; constructed story and story in construction. Scriptures as canon were not formed,

framed, or settled in a day; neither are the church's capacity and hermeneutical frameworks

within which they are read. Both text and interpretation are co-participants in an ongoing

journey.

The Hebrew scriptures are generally thought to contain two major genres, narrative

and poetry, and of course a variety of sub-genres.1 While addressing “story within the overall

canon” from the Hebrew-end of the textual journey, it is clear that the New Testament is not

the end of Hebrew textual journey. The young faith depicted in the second-part Lukan

narrative continues, contextualises, and understands itself within its “Theoergic2 passage.”

However, the entire Bible is relentlessly narratival3

The church’s reading of the Scriptures has usually presupposed its narrative unity,

that is the whole Bible, or at least the Bible as read as a whole – tells a coherent story;4 great

idea, but one that is problematic. While the last two centuries scholarship has wrestled with

the quandary it is heightened in recent development. Bauckham comments;

The idea of reading Scriptures as a unified narrative seems problematic from at least two

perspectives: (1) that of Bible scholars for whom a great diversity of the biblical texts

makes the claim of unity inconsistent with the nature of the Bible, and (2) that of

postmodern critics for whom a unified narrative would establish Christianity as the

oppressive meta-narrative that historically it has often been.5

1W. Randolph Tate, Biblical Interpretation: An Integrated Approach, 3rd ed. (Peabody, Mass.:

Hendrickson Publishers, 2008), 74. Tremper Longman, Literary Approaches to Biblical Interpretation,

Foundations of Contemporary Interpretation (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Academie Books, 1987), 76-83.

2Produced or activated by God (theo = God/Divine + ergic = activated/from ergon).

3 Walter Brueggemann, Theology of the Old Testament: Testimony, Dispute, Advocacy (Minneapolis:

Fortress Press, 1997), 206.

4Richard Bauchham, "Reading Scripture as a Coherent Story," in The Art of Reading Scripture, ed.

Ellen F. Davis and Richard B. Hays (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 2003).

5Ibid.

3

The text of Scripture as literary narrative arises from the experience and interpretation of

God’s revelatory voice and actions within the human family, the Hebrew nation, and the

church as the newly constituted people of God called in Christ

Story or Textual �arrative’s Call for Hermeneutics

Existent and emerging text continually calls for functional hermeneutics. Adequate

and effective hermeneutics is not the exclusive concern or discipline of “interpreters/readers,”

it is an inclusive concern; some form of hermeneutic is intentionally engaged in by all of the

3-R’s - readers, writers, and redactors. For along with readers, writers and redactors engage in

hermeneutics, or through “a hermeneutic.” In essence, hermeneutical connections to a text-

narrative originate with redactors and writers before they are made by readers; text-narrative

is interpreted before it ever achieves written, let alone canonical form.6

While in a narrow sense hermeneutics is envisaged as a discipline that studies theories

of interpretation, the term’s utilization within biblical studies was first used with respect to

interpretive methods and discussions of biblical interpretation.7 Nowadays the term has a

broader use as the theory and art of interpreting any text. This broader philosophical

consideration of hermeneutics has not only introduced some tensions into more traditional

modes of interpreting biblical texts, it has also produced fruitful discussions; especially with

the influences of post-modernity and broader academic research and praxis applications on

the act of reading generally, the nature and authority of texts, and the relationship between

theory and practice.8 We will leave hermeneutics now for a consideration of literary theory in

6Joseph A. Fitzmyer, The Gospel According to Luke: Introduction, Translation, and #otes, 1st ed., 2

vols., vol. 1 (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1981), 287-90.

7Arthur G. Patzia and Anthony J. Petrotta, Pocket Dictionary of Biblical Studies (Downers Grove, Ill.:

InterVarsity Press, 2002), 56.

8Ibid.

4

the consideration of “hearing narrative” – we will return to “Mercury and Middle-earth

friends,”9 who knows, maybe introduce some more interpretive tensions?

Literary Theory and �arrative

The typical features of literary category narrative: narrative voice and time, plot,

setting, characterization, point of view, and style, are major parts of the Hebrew Bible; which

can be read in much the same way as other narratives (I.e. novels or short stories), simply

because the basic concepts of narrative are actualized in Hebrew-biblical narrative. The

disciplines of literary theory and criticism are attentive in the presence of narrative.

Literary criticism and theory approaches the biblical text recognising its literary

nature and as such seeks to interpret the whole of the literary work, whether a psalm, a story

that goes on for several chapters, or a book (I.e. Job). The narrative and its journey are

centring-factors. It aims to see the parts in terms of the whole, not just as individual parts.

Some literary critics assert that any literary work should be interpreted in and of itself without

reference to any historical reconstruction; inferring the work itself contains most, if not all, of

the necessary information for interpreting it.10 Patzia and Petrotta comment how;

Discussions of plot, characterization and themes hold interest for the literary critic,

not questions of authorship and date of composition. The danger of some forms of

literary criticism is in losing sight of the historical grounding of these stories. The

testimony of these stories is that God is acting in these events and lives; they are not

simply plots and characters acting out their destiny.11

The Pontifical Biblical Commission (1994) advised literary critical and interpretive

practitioners considering when they are working with the text from a narrative approach, it

9The messenger/interpreter of the Greek gods, Hermes becomes known in the Roman pantheon of gods

as Mercury (an early evidence of “deed-poll”?), while the leading schools in patristic hermeneutics (Alexandria

and Antioch) were situated adjacent to the Mediterranean (apologies to J. R. Tolkien).

10For example, the story of Hosea's marriage to Gomer can be seen as a parable for the relationship

between God and his people and need not be taken as a "historical" marriage, with its implicit problem of

explaining the "uncomfortable" situation of God asking Hosea to marry a prostitute.

11Patzia and Petrotta, Pocket Dictionary of Biblical Studies, 73.

5

helps to distinguish methods of analysis, on the one hand, and theological reflection, on the

other.12 The Commission further comments;

Many analytic methods are in fact proposed today. Some start from the study of

ancient models of narrative. Others base themselves upon present-day "narratology"

in one or other of its forms, in which case there can often be points of contact with

semiotics.13 Particularly attentive to elements in the text which have to do with plot,

characterization and the point of view taken by a narrator, narrative analysis studies

how a text tells a story in such a way as to engage the reader in its "narrative world"

and the system of values contained therein.14

The movement into including, identifying, and interpreting narrative shift attention from

reading the text linguistically, to hearing the text intentionally, actively, and integrativly –

calls for more than a shift of methods, but a broadening of available methodologies or applied

theory. In this broadening movement, Tate’s descriptors are invaluable;

The narrator is the voice through which the author tells the story. The narratee is

the person to whom the narrator is telling the story. The narratee may or may not be a

character in the narrative. For example, the narratee in the Gospel of Luke is

Theophilus, while in the book of Revelation; the narratee is actually made up of seven

churches.15

This “narrative task” requires an important conceptual change; the shift of author to reader

connectedness with text, to that or narrator to narratee. Is the movement from

investigative/analytical-reading to integrative-listening, selecting, meaning-finding, and

integrating the story; which is assimilated to pre-stored schemata based on previous

experience. That’s a different schema – maybe a “schema theory?”

Schema Theory

Schema theory, especially as I will relate it to community-reading of biblical literary

narrative is grounded in educational constructivism. Constructivism as a field-theory of

12 The Interpretation of the Bible in the Church, (Rome: Pontifical Biblical Commission, 1994), 11.

13 "Semiotics involves the study not only of what we refer to as 'signs' in everyday speech, but of

anything which 'stands for' something else. In a semiotic sense, signs take the forms of words, images, sounds,

gestures and objects. Contemporary semioticians study signs not only in isolation but as part of semiotic 'sign

systems' (such as a medium or genre).

14 The Interpretation of the Bible in the Church, 11.

15Tate, Biblical Interpretation: An Integrated Approach, 75.

6

learning emphasises the active construction of knowledge by individuals or groups; that is, a

constructivist viewpoint posits learning occurs when individuals integrate new knowledge

with existing knowledge. Essentially in the broad theoretical perspectives of constructivism,

the integration of new knowledge with existing knowledge can only occur when learners are

actively engaged in the learning process.16

For decades, cognitive scientists and psychologists have discussed the conception of

schema theories of human memory (Head 1920; Piaget 1926; Bartlett 1932; Ausubel 1967).

The underlying idea is that humans, as they receive incoming information, organize it around

their previously developed schemata, or “networks of connected ideas” (Slavin 1988, 155).17

See Figure #1 for a pictorial-example of a schemata, or “networks of connected ideas.”

FIGURE #1: A DIAGRAM OF A SOMEONE'S POSSIBLE SCHEMA FOR THE CONCEPT OF "EGG"18

The “formal notion of schema theory” first introduced by Fredrick C. Bartlett19 (1932) in

order to explain why people reconstructed a story when recalling it so as to make more sense

of it in terms of their own knowledge and experience. According to Bartlett, the story is

16Diane H. Tracey and Lesley Mandel Morrow, Lenses on Reading: An Introduction to Theories and

Models (New York: Guilford Press, 2006), 47.

17Mac Duis, Using Schema Theory to Teach American History, vol. ( National Council for the Social

Studies, 1995).

18Source: P.Davis 1991 in http://www.solidstateux.com/interaction-design/learning-theories-for-

instructional-designers-2-schema-theory/ (accessed 25/11/11) Todd Toler- Learning Theories for Interaction

Designers #2: Schema Theory (posted on Monday, April 5th, 2010 and is filed under Interaction Design.

19He was knighted (KBE) in 1948 his applied work done with the Royal Air Force during the Second

World War.

7

assimilated to pre-stored schemata based on previous experience. It holds schema is

essentially; an organizing and orienting attitude that involves active arranging of past

experience. The development of schema theory(s) has led to several integrated studies of

discrete and concurring elements proposed, researched, identified, and hypothesised; of

particular significance is the work of Alba and Hasher (1983) who, examined all schema

theories and from their critique identified four major or central encoding processes, namely;

1. Selection—a process that chooses only some of all incoming stimuli for

representation;

2. Abstraction— a process that stores the meaning of a message without reference

to the original syntactic and lexical content;

3. Interpretation—a process by which relevant prior knowledge is generated to aid

comprehension; and

4. Integration—a process by which a single, holistic memory representation is

formed from the products of the previous three operations of selection,

abstraction, and interpretation.20

In proposing the potential for schema theory, albeit in a modified description, as a significant

community-hermeneutic capable of enabling the necessary considerations, and contributions

toward identifying the intentionally by writers, readers, and redactors of selected textual

narratives; I identify the following theory elements.

1. Selection of stimuli is influenced by the community ecology in which listener/readers

encounter the narration. (selection)

2. In identifying of “message intention” cognitive processing takes cognisance of both

rational and trans-rational elements of story. (abstraction)

3. The story is assimilated to pre-stored schemata based on previous experience,

especially that of a theoergic nature. (interpretation)

4. Does what the story is saying to us resonate with past journey, present status, and

approaching the future? (integration)

20Joseph W. Alba and Lynn Hasher, "Is Memory Schematic?," Psychological Bulletin 93, no. 2 (1983):

205-12.

8

Theoergic Elements and Summaries in Literary Construction

God exists, speaks, and acts throughout scripture. Its’ text record things God says,

things others say about and to God; in fact more is said about and to God, more than the

Divine ever say for themselves. Likewise divine action and activity, God acts alone, acts with

others, others act with God, some against God, some just act, while others don’t act at all, and

at times God also doesn’t act. Now, when scripture, especially as narrative is encountered all

of this contributes to Bartlett’s schema-dynamic; “story is assimilated to pre-stored schemata

based on previous experience.”21 One of the prime influences is past “communal and personal

Divine-human speech and action experiences,” formed, encoded, and stored in both personal

and communal memory. In this paper I am nominating such aspects as “theoergic” or

“theoergism.”

Theoergic [meaning: produced or activated by God (theo = God/Divine + ergic =

activated/from ergon)] to designate either; human activity within Divine activity, or

Divine activity within human activity. Implying God is not “behind the historical

action/event, but active within it.”

Theoergism, the energy of the Divine purposefully working within situation and

community.

Within story/narrative(s), often after several episodic stories have followed an intentional

“narrative-string” a statement is set with the closing that functions as an overall “theoergic

summary” that resonates with the narratee/reader’s pre-stored schemata based on previous

experience; thus serving a central encoding process, or interpretive hermeneutic.

For example, when in his work, “The Art of Biblical Narrative,” 22 Robert Alter

discusses a frame-narrative sequence where the story of Tamar and Judah (Genesis 38) is set

(interpolated) between the selling of Joseph by his brothers (Genesis 37), and his appearing in

Potiphar’s house, subsequent imprisonment, and eminence as viceroy of Egypt (Genesis 39-

40), he underscores the links between frame-narrative and interpolation by highlighting

21William F. Brewer, "Bartlett's Concept of the Schema," in Bartlett, Culture and Cognition, ed. Akiko

Saito (London ; New York: Psychology Press, 2000), 76.

22Robert Alter, The Art of Biblical #arrative (New York: Basic Books, 1981), 4.

9

connectedness of the “frames.” Doing so by giving attention to at least the; artful use of

language, the shifting play of ideas, conventions, tone, sound, imagery, syntax, and narrative

viewpoint, the compositional nature;23 he gives attention to the importance of hermeneutical

skill and midrashic endeavour and calls for greater engagement in critical discourse towards

expanding critical discourse on the Hebrew Bible through astute literary analysis.24 In making

an important call in narrative hermeneutics, Alter also misses the aspect of the validity of a

hermeneutic operative in communities of hearers, though stated and implied in his analysis,

namely; the role theoergic elements in conveying an imaginative impression of the story. He

acknowledges and asserts;

The implicit theology of the Hebrew Bible dictates a complex moral and

psychological realism in biblical narrative because God’s purposes are always

entrammeled in history, dependant of the acts of individual men and women for their

continuing realization.25

With Alter, this writer holds that while such scrutiny of persons in narratives requires giving

critical attention to the biblical writer’s articulation of narrative form, not only “getting” an

imaginative impression of the story; I also assert it must not be an either-or attentiveness, but

a both-and engagement, noting alba and Hasher’s summative assertion that in the process of

abstraction “storing the meaning of a message is without reference to the original syntactic

and lexical content.”26 This stems from the process of selection in which narratees chose only

some of all incoming stimuli for representation towards abstraction of meaning.

Texts as narratives have intended, and implied meaning; but do they have clear

meaning? Meaning in mediated via data. Narrative is data rich. Readers and audiences of the

23Ibid., 12.

24Ibid., 13.

25Ibid., 12.

26The abstraction process codes the meaning but not the format of a message (e.g., Bobrow,

1970; Bransford, Barclay, & Franks, 1972). Thus, details such as the lexical form of an individual

word (e.g., Schank, 1972, 1976) and the syntactic form of a sentence (e.g., Sachs, 1967) will not be preserved

in memory. Because memory for syntax appears to be particularly sparce as well as brief (e.g., J. R. Anderson,

1974; Begg & Wickelgren, 1974; Jarvella, 1971; Sachs, 1967, 1974), the abstraction process is thought to

operate during encoding. Alba and Hasher, "Is Memory Schematic?," 208.

10

text are data-selective; some are data resistant. Clines refers to three kinds of data for

“selection” when constructing a picture of God in the Pentateuch, outlining what,27 (1) the

character of God says about himself,

But we need to realize that when the narrative says for example, 'The Lord ...

proclaimed, 'The LORD, the LORD, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and

abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness'" (Exodus 34:6, NRSV), this self-

description does not consist of the words of God himself (what language does he

speak?) but of the words of the narrator (in Hebrew). These are no more than words

put in the mouth of the character God by the narrator. Such sentences of self-

description contribute to our overall picture of the character of God, of course, but the

words in the mouth of God have no privileged status compared with the words spoken

directly by the narrator in describing God’s motives and actions.28

(2) the narrator says about God and (3) God says and does throughout the narrative. Such

data is not self-interpreting; generalized understanding in contemporary experience holds it

must be processed.29 What is processed will of necessity first be selected – consciously or

sub-consciously. There are known and unknown default settings. The process of selection,

not only chooses only some of all incoming stimuli for representation; its stimuli-selection is

influenced by the community ecology in which listener/readers encounter the narration.

For the processes of selection and abstraction to become operative the interpreting

communities or narratees must function from a different listening and encoding “starting

point for their hermeneutical perspectives.” Schema theory’s approach to “getting the story”

can be illustrated from the perspectives and schema theory dynamics one needs to grasp and

apply when doing the popular Wasgij® reverse Jigsaw puzzle game (see Figure #2). Simply

put, a Wasgij® is a “pictorial narrative text.”

27David J. A. Clines, "Images of Yahweh: God in the Pentateuch," in Studies in Old Testament

Theology, ed. Robert L. Hubbard, Robert K. Johnston, and Robert P. Meye (Dallas: Word Pub., 1992), 79-80.

28Ibid.

29Challies outlines four transmutations of data; (1) figures, (2) facts, (3) knowledge, and (4) wisdom.

Tim Challies, The #ext Story: Life and Faith after the Digital Explosion (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Zondervan,

2011).

11

FIGURE 2: THE WASGIJ® (REVERSE JIG SAW PUZZLE) CONCEPT

The WASGIJ® (reverse Jig Saw Puzzle) concept is based on the idea that an understanding of the puzzle’s picture

is not obtained by looking at the picture on the box-lid (frame #1), but a perspective point in the picture looking

back “into it” – I.e. The man with a startled face on the horse and cart’s view (see circle in frame #1) provides a

basis in applying “schema theory process dialectically” to the pictorial narrative, so as to; select, abstract,

interpret, and integrate the pieces of the puzzle” (frames #2-6).

How the community reads/hears text or narrative. They may read/hear the text “with or

against the grain.”30If read the one way it will always say, what its always said – but to read it

from the opposite perspective/community-ecology (I.e. the exodus experience from a

Hebrew-Christian perspective c.f. Egyptian-Canaanite perception) could enable the same

narration to offer differing incoming stimuli. This has been identified as dialectical reading.31

Another example a reading of the Noah narrative (Genesis 9) the issue could be framed, “is

this story of God as saviour or of Noah as saviour?” Such dialectic is imminent in the text, a

dialect between the elements of tension in the text itself. God does not save Noah, God tells

Noah what to do, Noah takes God seriously and acts alone – God warns, Noah acts.”32 Note

that the comment in second Peter interprets the “theoergism of the narrative” thusly;

30David J. A. Clines, "The Story of Michal, Wife of David, in Its Sequential Unfolding," in Telling

Queen Michal's Story (Sheffield, England: JSOT Pr, 1991), 129-30.

31Clines, "Images of Yahweh: God in the Pentateuch," 83.

32Ibid., 83-84.

12

“ ... God did not spare the ancient world, but preserved Noah, a preacher of

righteousness, with seven others, when He bought a flood on the world of the

ungodly;” (2 Peter 2:5).

In the process of selection a guiding (conscious or sub-conscious) question is not only which

incoming stimuli from textual data will narratees chose, but how will they hear those

representations towards an abstraction of meaning. Within narrative texts there are intentional

indicators investing the textual story with resonance toward seeking both process and

selection questions consideration. Such indicators have a facility to aid in identifying certain

stimuli for attention, and assist in a consistency of framing and abstracting their

significance(s) into a biblically supported encoding of the data’s meaning and implication.

They are theoergic summaries; which are generally, though not universally placed at the

closing of a discrete story-unit, or frame narrative sequence. I will example two categories of

summaries; (1) determinative-synergisms, and (2) semiotic.

Determinative-synergisms

The narration sequence of Joseph and Jacob’s journey to Egypt culminates with a

theoergic summary in the “death of Jacob” scene;

But Joseph said to them, "Don't be afraid. Am I in the place of God? 20 You intended

to harm me, but God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done, the

saving of many lives. (Genesis 50:19-20)

God has acted, and they have acted, God has determined, they have determined; the Divine

intention has woven the elements into present salvation, and future hope. Or to quote

Australian Anglican divine, Geoffrey Bingham; “while you have said oops, God has never

said oops!”

Luke, in constructing the narrative of Peter’s Pentecost sermon when he, after having

woven the passion of Christ, the phenomena of “the Day” (Pentecost), prophecy of Joel,

prophetic-poetry of David, and into a midrashic framework through the “Peter speech”

culminates not with a statement of proclamation of Jesus as Lord and Messiah, but declaring

13

in a determinative-synergism; that God has acted within your actions and contra-to them, in

stating;

"Therefore let all Israel be assured of this: God has made this Jesus, whom you

crucified, both Lord and Christ." (Acts 2:36)

This intentional narrator-summary thereby assists the audience or narratees in abstracting and

encoding their processing of the narration.

The writer to the Hebrews when cataloguing faith in the mothers and fathers’ journey

interpolates by way of theoergic summary by rehearsing within the narration the Red-sea

experience.

By faith the people passed through the Red Sea as on dry land; but when the

Egyptians tried to do so, they were drowned. (Hebrews 11:29)

As the narrator catalogues the “heroes,” the narratees encounter Red Sea theoergism’s

inclusion into the narration; highlighting the faith of the exodus community in contrast to that

of the Egyptians within the theoergic event, Leon Morris comments;

The crossing of the Red Sea is attributed to God (Exodus 14:14) and to the east wind

that God sent (Exodus 14:21); but the author has the narrator concentrate on the faith

that enabled the ancestors to respond to what God had done. The story emphasizes

that their faith and not merely their courage was important is shown by the fate of the

Egyptians. The Egyptians were just as courageous as the Israelites, for they attempted

to cross in the same way. But they lacked faith, and the result was disaster. Their fate

shows that the faith of Moses and his followers was real and not just a formality.33

This theoergic summary of the Red Sea/”Song of the Sea,” by way of recurring scripture

motif is already well established (Nehemiah 9:9; Psalm 66:5-6; 78:1-55; 106:7- 9, 22; 136:1-

26; Isaiah 63:11-14; Habakkuk 3:8-13), and therefore functions easily in the narratees’ life-

theology, via a repeated processing schematic resonance; grounded in the Judeo and early-

Christian community’s diachronic nature.

33Leon Morris, Hebrews: Bible Study Commentary, Bible Study Commentary Series (Grand Rapids,

Mich.: Zondervan, 1983).

14

Semiotic Summaries

Theoergic summaries also operate via stitchwort or shorthand through the literary

function of semiotics. Sadly the semiotic elements in narratives have too often been reduced

to “typologies” in forms which dictate (or predicate) schemata, thus dealing with the text as

pre-established interpretation, rather than engendering narrator-narratee interactions with the

text. Paul in one of his Corinthian correspondences summarises and connects the “signs

within an encoded schema.”

For I do not want you to be ignorant of the fact, brothers, that our forefathers were all

under the cloud and that they all passed through the sea. 2 They were all baptized into

Moses in the cloud and in the sea. 3 They all ate the same spiritual food 4 and drank

the same spiritual drink; for they drank from the spiritual rock that accompanied

them, and that rock was Christ. (1 Corinthians 10:14)

Cloud, sea, spiritual food, spiritual drink, and the Rock act as semiotic theoergic summaries,

providing stimuli through which the reader/narratee now “re-encounter story” previously

assimilated, now stored into a schema-theory dynamic based on both a previous encounter

and their communal linking with the forefathers’ experience.

In Summary

As much as the nature of Scripture text as narrative, assumes and demands the

presence of a narrator, it demands the narratee also be present. For the Judeo-Christian

narratee that presence is fore mostly within a community-ecology. The very nature of

text/narrative implied by cannon is community, Scripture and its narratives as canon have

arisen out of the community through which the Spirit has framed the received-text, through

which the Spirit frames the community. Now how could that theoergic reality resonate within

our schemata(s) of hermeneutical pursuit?

15

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Eerdmans, 2003.

Brewer, William F. "Bartlett's Concept of the Schema." In Bartlett, Culture and Cognition,

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Challies, Tim. The #ext Story: Life and Faith after the Digital Explosion. Grand Rapids,

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Clines, David J. A. "The Story of Michal, Wife of David, in Its Sequential Unfolding." In

Telling Queen Michal's Story, 129-40. Sheffield, England: JSOT Pr, 1991.

________. "Images of Yahweh: God in the Pentateuch." In Studies in Old Testament

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Davis, Ellen F., and Richard B. Hays. The Art of Reading Scripture. Grand Rapids, Mich.:

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Duis, Mac. Using Schema Theory to Teach American History. National Council for the Social

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