What Is Narrative?

Vogt:

A narrative is a selective record of a series of events that uses shared conventions to convey the author's communicative intention in an engaging manner. In the case of the biblical narratives, this communicative intention is usually a theological one, and the author understands the events described as having actually taken place.

—Peter T. Vogt, Interpreting the Pentateuch: An Exegetical Handbook (Grand Rapids: Kregel, 2009), 48.