David, Saul, and God: Rediscovering an Ancient Story PDF
Preview David, Saul, and God: Rediscovering an Ancient Story
David, Saul, and God This page intentionally left blank David, Saul, and God Rediscovering an Ancient Story paul borgman 1 2008 3 OxfordUniversityPress,Inc.,publishesworksthatfurther OxfordUniversity’sobjectiveofexcellence inresearch,scholarship,andeducation. Oxford NewYork Auckland CapeTown DaresSalaam HongKong Karachi KualaLumpur Madrid Melbourne MexicoCity Nairobi NewDelhi Shanghai Taipei Toronto Withofficesin Argentina Austria Brazil Chile CzechRepublic France Greece Guatemala Hungary Italy Japan Poland Portugal Singapore SouthKorea Switzerland Thailand Turkey Ukraine Vietnam Copyright#2008by OxfordUniversity Press,Inc. PublishedbyOxfordUniversityPress,Inc. 198MadisonAvenue,NewYork,NewYork10016 www.oup.com OxfordisaregisteredtrademarkofOxfordUniversityPress Allrightsreserved.Nopartofthispublicationmaybereproduced, storedinaretrievalsystem,ortransmitted,inanyformorbyanymeans, electronic,mechanical,photocopying,recording,orotherwise, withoutthepriorpermissionofOxfordUniversityPress. LibraryofCongressCataloging-in-PublicationData Borgman,Paul,1940– David,Saul,andGod:rediscoveringanancientstory/PaulBorgman. p. cm. ISBN978-0-19-533160-8 1. Bible.O.T.Samuel,1st—Criticism,interpretation,etc. 2. David,KingofIsrael. 3. Saul,KingofIsrael. I. Title. BS1325.52.B672008 222.'406–dc22 2007030219 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 PrintedintheUnitedStatesofAmerica onacid-freepaper Acknowledgments To biblical scholarsEverett Fox, TremperLongman, andTerence Fretheim Iam indebtedfor their careful scrutiny as the manuscript wasbeingwritten.Theirobservationsandencouragement,combined withoccasional dialogue, helped me hone much of what value this exploration ofDavid’s story may have for you. MyfearisthatIamsuretohaveforgottensomeoftheverybright students who, over long years, have assistedme in insightsthat haveemergedfromourstudyofboththebiblicalandscholarlytexts. Fromwayback,therewereCarrieVanBruntandthenPetraBelkovic, each of whom paid specialand very wise attention to matterssub- stantiveand stylistic.Jessica Swibleand Lauren Moreau provided excellentlast-minuteassistance.AndespeciallyIwanttothankMegan Good for her tireless andsplendidhelp in all ways: I can’t quite imagine what those recent three yearswould have been like in her absence. Gordon College has been magnanimous in providing generous writingtime for the pastseveral years, and I thank them—in parti- cular,our provost, Mark Sargent. And finally I think of all those in the past decades who have been absorbed in the study of Samuel and the David story,those whose work informed,while providing me such alively and good springboard formy own narrativeanalysis. This page intentionally left blank Preface Rediscoverthestory of David? Surely the narrative in Samuel and 1 Kings1–2 has been understood well enough, especially given the prodigious activity within the field of biblical studies over the past two centuries. Thetruth, however,is thatthe story of David has suffered from whatHans Freihas called ‘‘the eclipseof biblical narrative’’—the overlooking ofbiblical texts as whole andcoherent dramas.Withrareexception,whathasbeenlostiswhatFreithinksof as essential inunderstanding any narrativecreation, namely, an op- erating assumptionthat ‘‘meaning and narrativeshape bear signifi- cantlyon each other.’’1 To rediscover David’s story is toretrieve meaning that would have emerged,for the ancient audience, from the narrative shape ofa story informedin large measure by tech- niquesofrepetition appropriate to an oral age ofstorytelling. They heard the story.To gainaccess to this story, as readers, we will pay specialattention to the broadpatterns of repetition from which emerge the meaning ofcharacters,action,andimplicit moralvision. Along the way, by way of footnotes, we will be carrying on a conversation with other readers representing various disciplines of inquiry. The David story took final shape from within an oral culture whose techniques of repetition demanded from the audience acir- cling backward—a tracking ofkey echoes—as the plotunfolds. Re- discoveryofthisarguablygreatestofallancientstories,then,involves arecognitionofanarrativeshapepeculiartoitsstorytelling manner. viii preface Moshe Garsiel and Herbert H. Klement are among the few who have understoodthenarrativeshapingthatyieldsmeaningforDavid’sstory.Robert Alter2andMeirSternberg3offerexamplesofvarioustechniquesofrepetition, butwithoutapplyingthesetothebroadcontoursofanygivenbook-lengthstory as a whole and unified drama; J. P. Fokkelman’s four-volume study of the David story is a fastidious guide to such patterns of repetition, but on a mi- crostructurallevel.4Garsiel’stitlesuggeststhepointaboutbroadpatterns:The First Book of Samuel: A Literary Study of Comparative Structures, Analogies and Parallels.5 Herbert Klement offers in the context of patterns within the whole storyafineanalysisofthestory’sconcludingchiasm,demonstratingnicelythe way major patterns interact with each other, weaving together key aspects of the entire story.6 My exploration traces twelve interlocking patterns. Pattern guidesappear at the end of the appropriate chapters. ‘‘The architectural cohesion of the narrative from the birth of Samuel to thedeathofDavid,’’RobertAltersuggests,‘‘hasbeenmadeincreasinglyclear by the innovativeliterary commentary ofthe past twodecades.’’7Referring to comments by Alter about the unity and coherence of David’s story, Walter Brueggemannopinesthat‘‘Altermaybecorrectonthispoint,buthehasonly assertedthematterandhasnotgivenitanycarefulanalysis.’’8Thisstudywill demonstrate the aptness of Alter’s assessment of the David story, while helping toanswerBrueggemann’schallenge. This reading of an ancient masterpiece is based on terms established by thetextitself:aplotworkinginconcertwithinterlockingpatternsofrepetition, common to the ancient storyteller. Such storytelling technique keeps the au- diencecirclingbackwardwhilemovingforward,attentivetohearing-cluesthat cohere and yield meaning. We will be exploring a story, beginning with Saul, that exhibits not only ‘‘architectur[al] cohesion’’ but a haunting power to engage its audience, a compelling quality unparalleled in ancient literature.
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