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Sense of Biblical Narrative I: Structural Analyses in the Hebrew Bible (JSOT Supplement Series) PDF

105 Pages·1986·4.2 MB·English
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Preview Sense of Biblical Narrative I: Structural Analyses in the Hebrew Bible (JSOT Supplement Series)

JOURNAL FOR THE STUDY OF THE OLD TESTAMENT SUPPLEMENT SERIES 7 Editors David J A Clines Philip R Davies Department of Biblical Studies The University of Sheffield Sheffield S10 2TN England This page intentionally left blank Second Edition THE SENSE OF BIBLICAL NARRATIVE": Structural Analyses in the Hebrew Bible c David Jobling Journal for the Study of the Old Testament Supplement Series 7 Copyright © 1986 JSOT Press Published by JSOT Press Department of Biblical Studies The University of Sheffield Sheffield S10 2TN England Typeset by JSOT Press and Printed in Great Britain by Redwood Burn Ltd Trowbridge, Wiltshire British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data Jobling, David The sense of the biblical narrative : structural analyses in the Hebrew Bible. —2nd ed.—(Journal for the study of the Old Testament supplement series, ISSN 0309-0787; 7) 1 1. Bible. O.T.—Commentaries I. Title II. Series 221.6 BS1171.2 ISBN 1-85075-046-7 CONTENTS Preface to the New Edition 7 Introduction 9 Chapter 1 JONATHAN: A STRUCTURAL STUDY IN 1 SAMUEL 0. Introduction 12 1. The theological problematic of 1 Sam. 13-31 13 2. The character Jonathan in 1 Sam. 13-31 14 3. Approaches to the character Jonathan 22 4. Conclusions 29 Chapter 2 A STRUCTURAL ANALYSIS OF NUMBERS 11-12 0. Introduction 31 1. Narrative analysis 33 2. Semantic analysis 45 3. The 'myth' and its versions 61 4. The extension of the analysis to other sections 63 Chapter 3 AHAB'S QUEST FOR RAIN: TEXT AND CONTEXT IN 1 KINGS 17-18 0. Introduction 66 1. The drought 70 2. The combat on Mt Carmel 73 3. The two stories as one unit 79 4. Appendices 83 Postscript 1. Retrospect 89 2. Prospect 90 Notes 93 Works Consulted 98 Indexes 102 This page intentionally left blank PREFACE TO THE NEW EDITION This book, being out of print in the original edition (1978), reappears as Volume 1 simultaneously with the new Volume 2 (Journal for the Study of the Old Testament Supplement Series, 39). Only minor corrections have been made. The largest change is that, in the subtitle and throughout, 'Old Testament' has been replaced with 'Hebrew Bible'. This is in line with the trend to terminology which we can use in common with a growing number of Jewish colleagues. Manchester September, 1985 This page intentionally left blank INTRODUCTION II est extremement difficile de parler du sens et d'en dire quelque chose du sense ('It is extremely difficult to talk of meaning and say anything meaningful about it'; Greimas, 1970: 7). 1. The three pieces included in this volume are in many ways different. They consider quite separate sections of Hebrew Bible narrative. They were prepared for different scholarly audiences; respectively a working-group on narrative analysis (not necessarily structuralist), a working-group on structural exegesis, and an occa- sional seminar on the Hebrew Bible as a whole. Only the third has been substantially rewritten for inclusion with the other two; all three retain many of the characteristics of occasional papers. Yet they share an outlook, and broadly a methodology, and may appro- priately be presented together. They appear in the order in which they were written. 2. It is usual for a book on structural exegesis to contain a substantial theoretical introduction. Such introductions tend to cover the same ground, and I do not offer yet another one here. Each analysis sufficiently explains, I hope, the theory that it employs. The larger theoretical system behind these analyses (with the exception of 1 §3.3, which employs a broader literary method) is found in Propp, Levi-Strauss (especially 1963: 206-231), and Greimas (especially 1966: 172-213; 1970: 157-183; 1971 a), and it has been discussed in the context of biblical exegesis by Patte and Calloud (1976b: 1-46). For the reader who wishes to investigate these matters more deeply, Patte (86-88) provides an excellent starting bibliography. But none of these pieces was written as a demonstration of a method. I thought of each, first of all, as a piece of practical exegesis. Methodology seeks generality, but method must remain ad hoc. The object of analysis dictates the tactics for analysis, within one's larger interpretive strategy. Thus it is that, out of one methodological matrix, three such different analyses have been born. I have tried to allow each of the

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