ABSTRACT
As the narrator operates as a self so also the reader is here interpreted as a self, and a further content for the term 'selfhood' is achieved by the interaction of these two selves. The 'I' of the narrator addresses his/her words to a particular audience, the self (or selves) designated as the hearers within the text. In Ecclesiastes the narrative of Qohelet is addressed partly to self and partly to the imagined young man of Ecclesiastes 11 and 12. In Real Presences, George Steiner discusses the link between reader and text in its most philosophical form. Paul Ricoeur's study Oneself as Another explores the boundaries of identity within the concept of the ipse (self). Ricoeur moves the discussion along via two further aspects of self-identity, the first of which is that produced by narrative criticism. Barton's arguments reinforce, from a biblical perspective, the importance of the role of the reader in finding meaning in texts.
