Creating a Multisensory Enter-Active Gospel Storytelling Exegetical Commentary

Many pastors and teachers struggle to make the biblical text come alive both in their own lives and in their congregations. Part of the reason is that although existing commentary genres are a wonderful tool to help in understanding Scripture, they may not allow some to encounter more fully the Word. The reasons for this are 1) great academic commentaries may not alone be able to connect with a pastor and his or her congregation; 2) there are currently no commentaries that take into account the multisensory and emotional dimensions of the original author and text; and 3) with the shift in how we think, a new genre of commentaries will need to move from being text-based, linear and logical to embodying more of the human process of knowing. Learning, in part, involves the whole person in a multisensory manner, experiencing the ancient text and entering into it as a participant, not just as a detached observer. The biblical accounts are then studied in a story-exegetical manner using a multisensory commentary approach. The integrity of the author\u27s original meaning, the genre of the literature and the current reader are all important hermeneutical components. The conviction behind this dissertation is that experiencing the Gospels through multisensory, story-telling exegesis will remove some of the frustrations that pastors and their congregations experience