Interpreting Pedagogical Acts: Acts 8.26–40 and Narrative Reflexivity as Pedagogy

What is it about?

This article foregrounds a fact so basic that it often goes unnoticed: stories frequently depict the acts of reading and/or interpreting stories; many narratives are themselves concerned with proper modes of narrative interpretation. I contend that such scenes work rhetorically to inculcate particular kinds of hermeneutical skills in their audiences, and thus can be read as pedagogical scenarios vis-à-vis implied readers. I begin the article by introducing the contemporary notion of narrative reflexivity and situating that concept within the broader literary subfield of rhetorical narratology. Then, I turn to Acts 8.26-40 as a brief case study in order to demonstrate how narrative reflexivity can help us to think in fresh ways about the pedagogical force of ancient narratives. Specifically, I argue that this story in Acts reflexively commends the following hermeneutical principle for its readers: because reading is not synonymous with understanding, one ought to have an authoritative interpretive guide, and embrace a hermeneutic of hospitality toward the received narrative. Finally, I highlight several examples from ancient literature that demonstrate why my proposed reading coheres with ancient views about pedagogy and textual interpretation more broadly.

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