Announcement of a New Book by WCIU Faculty: The Return of Oral Hermeneutics:
WCIU Journal: Cross-Cultural Communications Topic
Tom Steffen, DMiss, is Professor Emeritus of Intercultural Studies at the Cook School of Intercultural Studies, Biola University.
Bill Bjoraker, PhD, is Associate Professor of Judeo-Christian Studies and Contemporary Western Culture, William Carey International University.
The book may be purchased directly from Wipf and Stock Publishers at a 20% discount.
May 2, 2020
The “People of the Book” are the people of the Story. There is an ancient and continuous biblical and Jewish storytelling tradition, with continuity to the present time in the Aggadic/Haggadic and Midrashic tradition in Judaism. Authors Tom Steffen and Bill Bjoraker re-dig some of these wells of Hebrew hermeneutics for effective use today.
“The Return of Oral Hermeneutics: As Good Today as It Was for the Hebrew Bible and First Century Christianity” tells the story of the return to Story, HisStory. The circular graphic on the cover depicts that prior to the Gutenberg’s printing press, the world’s communication was nearly all oral. Modernity has been the print era. A late modern shift has ushered in the digit-oral age, when people again prefer orality and visual communication via screens. So, we have come full circle.
In late modern Western Culture and in the most developed countries globally, the digital and electronic media and communications revolution has produced a new oral-aural orientation, especially among younger people. Our postmodern Western culture is driving a storytelling revival; learning-style preferences have changed, making storytelling and audio and visual media increasingly effective in communication.
We in the West converge with about 75% of the world who are oral learners, semi-literate or non-literate, who prefer to communicate orally. This 75% includes most of the remaining unreached peoples. Oral communication strategies will be required to reach them. Is it not then providential that the Bible is about 70% in story form? Jesus’ preferred method of teaching was using stories. He used stories to teach both the am ha aretz (the common folk) in Galilee and also for the most highly literate and erudite Torah scholars of his day in Jerusalem. He is the Master Teacher and the exemplar for our teaching vocations.
Thus, a return to oral hermeneutics is timely for the communicational context we find ourselves in today—both East and West and in the Global South. Steffen and Bjoraker begin and end the book with Bible storytelling demonstrations. The chapters in between discuss the theology, anthropology, and communication theory that explains the what, why, and how storytelling works so well in every society and culture. Humans are homo narrans. We all love to hear and tell stories. Let’s complete the circle.