Narrative-critical approach as hermeneutical framework for a creative dialogue between biblical sources and secular extra-biblical sources: The Lord of the Rings as an entry into the Book of Revelation

Abstract

This essay is motivated by the challenge that biblical texts have very often lost their affective power to address and transform the lives of readers today, because they are either not read at all or they are not fully understood as the world of the text is too far removed from the world of the reader. There are however wonderful contemporary texts that do affect readers’ lives and the question arose if the contemporary texts cannot be read together with the biblical texts, to bring them “to life” again?
A hermeneutical approach needed to be found that could create the necessary space for non-biblical literary texts to be used to interpret and elucidate biblical texts. The narrative approach provides this space for the two texts to enter into creative dialogue, given that the two texts coincide sufficiently in the significance for the two implied authors, the reference of the texts and in the situation of the implied readers.