An overall sense of the story

Richard Hays' The Faith of Jesus Christ is not only significant for the way in which it marks a major turning point in scholarly discussion on the interpretation of π⋯στις Χριστο⋯. The first chapter also noted how seminal this work is for its use of narrative categories to analyse a non-narrative document. To be sure, many readers find structuralist analyses a bit cumbersome and unnecessarily technical. Yet Hays' presentation of the theory, given as background to his work, must rank as one of the clearest and simplest explanations of the Greimasian model in existence. Despite its occasional complexity, the overall concept of narrative sequence is sound and potentially helpful, at least for heuristic purposes.

For our purposes it seems unnecessary to present a full analysis of Hebrews' plot from the perspective of Greimas' system, although it could easily be done. Those who wish to play out the next two chapters in the precise categories of that model need simply to read the analysis in light of the categories Hays presents in his third chapter. My goal is much less extensive and more general, namely, to analyse the way Hebrews structures time as it argues from the story of salvation. Accordingly, this chapter and the next only engage with Greimasian categories as they seem to clarify the nature of Hebrews' narrative world and the settings of the story in time in particular.