Over at Crux Sola, Christopher Skinner has a very intriguing post on narrative criticism research on the Gospels being geographically located mainly in North America or to North Americans who study abroad. Conversely, research in Europe has continued to focus more on historical questions. I think his question is an intriguing one, why are North Americans and Europeans asking different questions?

As I’m at my second UK university, I can verify that generally (but not all) of the research among faculty members is of a historical nature. A correlation I’ve noticed has been that scholars who are doing more narrative critical work tend to be those who are seem to be either be more hermeneutically self-aware or who are interested in reading the Bible as scripture. This isn’t the only factor, but a trend I’ve noticed.

Do you have any thoughts?