The Art of Biblical Narrative

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The Art of Biblical Narrative ("Biblical Narrative") is a book published in 1981 by the Hebraist and literary scholar Robert Alter . The Bible is understood here as the Hebrew Bible (Tanakh). Six of the nine chapters had already appeared between 1975 and 1980 as articles in the journals Commentary , Poetics today and Critical Inquiry ; However, Alter revised it in such a way that it became a coherent book.

With The Art of Biblical Narrative , narrative exegesis established itself in the English-speaking world; but there were some authors who had taken similar positions before, for example:

  • Erich Auerbach : Mimesis: Depicted Reality in Western Literature (Bern 1946);
  • Martin Buber , Franz Rosenzweig : The writing and its Germanization (Cologne / Olten 1954–1962);
  • Jan Fokkelman : Narrative Art in Genesis (Assen 1975);
  • Shimon Bar-Efrat : As the Bible tells: Understanding Old Testament texts as literary works of art (Hebrew: Tel Aviv 1979; German translation: Gütersloh 2006)

content

A literary approach to the Bible

Gen 37.32  EU : The father is presented with the forged evidence of Joseph's death ( Ford Madox Brown , The Coat of Many Colors , before 1866, Walker Art Gallery )

Robert Alter's object of investigation is the present Hebrew final text. As a literary scholar, he is critical of Old Testament exegesis. Diachronic methods, which he characterizes as "archeology", could selectively contribute information to the understanding of the text. But all in all, exegesis is more concerned with the question of how the hypothetical preliminary form of a psalm was used in a hypothetical temple ritual than how the psalm present today can be understood as poetry. From the entire Bible, z. If, for example, a biblical anthropology or eschatology was raised, such religious questions are in the tradition of treating the Bible as holy scripture. In contrast to ancient authors, there is hardly any literary consideration of biblical texts.

What the synchronous method he favored achieves for text understanding is illustrated by Alter using an example from the Joseph novella in the book of Genesis . The historical-critical exegesis regards chapter 38 as a disturbing insertion. Previously, Josef had been sold as a slave by his brothers, the brothers presented the father with a bogus piece of evidence, and he mourned Joseph as dead and refused to be comforted. This is how chapter 37 ends. In chapter 38 (Judah and his daughter-in-law Tamar ) the reader loses sight of Joseph, which obviously increases the tension, before chapter 39 tells us what happens to the slave boy in Egypt. Alter analyzes how chapters 37 and 38 are artfully related; an example: With the same phrase “Look carefully!” ( Hebrew הַכֶּר־נׇא haker-na ), with which the bogus piece of evidence is presented in Gen 37.32 EU , Tamar presents Judah with real proof of  paternity in Gen 38.25  EU . "The first formula is used for the act of deception, the second for the act of unmasking."

The Midrash had already discovered such references : “The Holy One, praised be he, said to Judah: You said haker-na to your father . In your life, Tamar will also say haker-na to you. ”There are two differences between traditional Jewish exegesis and the Alter Literary Approach : The midrash has little sense of the narrative continuum and emphasizes individual observations without being able to place them in the narrative context . Second, the midrash imposes its own interpretation on the text; in the example quoted from Bereschit Rabba , God's voice formulates moral criticism of Judah, who sins twice. In contrast, Alter emphasizes that the narrative art of the Hebrew Bible consists precisely in the fact that the meaning of the event is only gradually revealed and the gaps can be filled in by the reader in various ways.

Fictional prose

Robert Alter characterizes biblical narratives as historicized fictional prose , in contrast to the epics of the ancient world. “What the Bible offers us is an uneven continuum and a constant interweaving of details of historical facts ... and purely legendary history, occasional enigmatic traces of mythological lore, etiological sagas , archetypal fictions of the nation's founding fathers, folk tales of heroes and miraculous men of God, probably free fictionalized fictional characters associated with the course of national history and fictionalized versions of well-known historical characters. All of these narratives are presented as a story, as actually happened and with significant consequences for the fate of mankind or the Israelites. ”But there are considerable differences between the individual biblical books: The main characters in the book of Ruth are fictional, but Ruth, Naomi and Boaz are drawn as individual characters and therefore have a kind of credibility that the characters in the Book of Esther - a kind of fairy tale with pseudo-historical material - lack.

Robert Alter believes it possible that the ascension and succession stories of David by and large contain reliable historical information, and that many of the people appearing in the books of Samuel bear the names of historical individuals. “Nevertheless, these stories are not historical in the actual sense, but rather an imaginative re-enactment of the historical processes by a talented author who arranged his material according to certain topics and according to his own remarkable psychological intuition.” The author invents inner monologues for his characters, knows their feelings or motives, write them dialogues that are spoken in situations where no witness could have conveyed them. All of this shows, according to Alter, that the author of the Samuel books on Israelite history had the same relationship as William Shakespeare had with English history.

Ri 3,21  EU : The left-handed Ehud stabs ( Speculum Humanae Salvationis , Westphalia or Cologne, around 1360. ULB Darmstadt, Hs 2505, fol. 55r)

As an example of fictional prose, Alter chooses the story of Ehud and Eglon from the Book of Judges , Chapter 3. It is about a political murder, and the author describes in great detail how the assassin prepares himself, how he gains access to the king of Moabites and stabs the corpulent ruler to death as soon as he is alone with him. Ehud is left-handed, which is why Eglon recognizes the hilt of the sword too late as a danger. Since the door is locked and Eglon's servants do not dare to disturb him, the murder is only discovered after Ehud has long since made himself safe. Not only is an enemy king ridiculed as a plump fat man, the story also plays with sexual motives. All this interests the biblical narrator more than the possible historical fact (from an old age) of an Israelite revolt against the Moabites led by Ehud.

Typical scenes and narrative conventions

Walter Arend ( The Typical Scenes in Homer , 1933) observed that certain scenes occur repeatedly in the Homeric epics: the arrival, the message, the journey, the gathering, the oracle, the arming of the hero, and others. A visit e.g. B. is described in the following way: The guest approaches, someone notices him, gets up, hurries to greet him, leads him by the hand into the house, where he is offered the place of honor. A description of the feast and dishes follows. When Robert Alter identifies such typical scenes in the Hebrew Bible, it bears a resemblance to the genres named by Hermann Gunkel , but unlike the criticism of form , Alter is not interested in speculating about a place in life . A narrative convention could be a reflex of social or cultural realities in a society, but it creates an indirect and idealized picture of these realities. Gunkel used the term "variant" to describe something similar to the typical scene:

“Everyone, however faithful they may be, tells the traditional story a little differently. The most important variants of Genesis are the two Ishmael stories (16, 21, 8 ff.), Then the legend of the danger of the patriarch's wife , which has been handed down in three reviews, 12 13 ff., 20, 26), furthermore the related saga of the treaty to Beerseba, also in three reviews ... The researcher may make his first observations on these doubly told stories; once he has sharpened his eyes and found certain lines of development, he may also compare the legends that have only been reported once with each other. "

A typical scene in the Hebrew Bible is courtship: the prospective groom or his representative travels to a foreign country. There he meets one or more girls at a well. Sometimes it matters that water is drawn from the well. The girl rushes home and reports that a stranger has arrived. The engagement is agreed, which is usually combined with a feast. The audience, familiar with the narrative convention, followed with particular interest where the narrator deviated from the usual. In the courtship for Rebekah (Book of Genesis, Chapter 24), Isaac, the bridegroom, is represented by a servant, which fits in with the generally passive character of this biblical patriarch. The beginning of Saul's career ( 1 Sam 9.11–12 EU ) is told in such a way that the audience expects courtship  and is surprised at the different turn the story takes up to the anointing of Saul as king. The art of storytelling is therefore playing with the typical scene, its variation or even a violation of convention.

Narration and dialogue

Often longer dialogues are embedded in a narrative text of the Bible, which could seem redundant for the modern reader. “The biblical writers… are often less interested in actions than in how the individual characters react to them or bring them about themselves. Direct speech is used as the primary tool in revealing the changing and sometimes nuanced relationships between people and the actions in which they are involved. ”The Hebrew Bible's predilection for direct speech goes so far as to include a person's thoughts like to be designed as “speech in your heart”, e.g. B. 1 Sam 27.1  EU . In 2 Sam 2,1  EU David asks an oracle what one should imagine as throwing lots or the like; however, the narrator “translates” the results into God's speech and uses them to create a dialogue between David and God. Since all actors use stylized Hebrew and have no personal language peculiarities, the narrator prefers to characterize them through contrasting dialogue. Examples:

  • Gen 25,29–33  EU : Esau is impulsive and linguistically awkward, Jakob, on the other hand, plans the future;
  • Gen 39.7–9  EU : Potiphar's wife makes a sexual offer (two words), Joseph reacts with a tortuous moral consideration;
  • 1 Sam 24:10–17  EU : Saul produces only a few emotional words after David's artful speech.

Repetitions, keyword style

One of the peculiarities of the Hebrew Bible that irritates a modern reader is its frequent repetitions. Robert Alter thinks that the phenomenon can be partly explained by the fact that these texts were written for an oral presentation in front of an audience. Anyone who had not understood something acoustically or in terms of content did not have the chance to pause or turn the page; a repetition therefore gave the opportunity to convey material that was considered particularly important to the audience in full.

Ri 15.4–5  EU : Simson plays with fire (World Chronicle of Rudolf von Ems, 14th century. University and State Library Fulda, Codex Aa 88, fol 193r)

With reference to Martin Buber , Alter explains the biblical “headword style”, which can only be imitated to a limited extent in a translation. An example is the confrontation between Samuel and Saul in 1 Sam 15, which is designed with variations of three words: Hebrew שׁמע sh-m-ʿ “hear, obey”, Hebrew קוֹל ḳōl "voice, sound, noise" and Hebrew דָּבָר dāvār "word, thing".

The hero of the Simsong stories ( Book of Judges , Chapters 14-16) is always associated with fire. When the story reaches its climax and the imprisoned, blind Samson pulls thousands of people with him to death, Samson himself has become a metonymy for fire: “a blind, uncontrolled violence that leaves a terrible trail of devastation behind and finds itself on End itself consumed, together with everything that stands in its way. "

One can rank structuring elements in the Hebrew Bible:

  1. Key words, e.g. B. “go” and “return” in the book of Ruth;
  2. Motif, e.g. B. Fire in the Simson's stories, water in the Moses cycle;
  3. Subject, e.g. B. Transfer of the birthright to the younger in the Book of Genesis;
  4. Action sequence, e.g. B. three calamities in the book of Job which destroy the property of the main character, followed by a fourth in which his children die;
  5. Typical scene, e.g. B. Courtship at the well.

Restrained characterization

There is an omniscient narrator , but he uses this knowledge selectively. In 1 Sam 18, King Saul lures young David by promising him that he could become his son-in-law through military success. He hopes that David will be killed by the Philistines and that he will not have to get his hands dirty by eliminating a potential rival ( 1 Sam 18.17  EU ). Saul's motives are revealed by the narrator, and we also learn that Michal , Saul's daughter, is in love with David; but David's own motives remain in the dark. He does have his own say with modest speeches, but whether he recognizes the trap and why he is still getting involved in the game, and what feelings he has for Michal: All of this remains open and will not be clarified in the further course. The story of the rise of David is characterized by the fact that David always appears as a politician even in private situations and apart from that his personality does not have any coloring. That changes when the child, who comes from his adultery with Bathsheba , falls ill and dies ( 2 Sam 12 : 15–23  EU ). From now on the reader becomes involved in David's emotional conflict with his family members.

reception

The Art of Biblical Narrative became a classic of the literary interpretation of the Bible and helped the literary approach to a breakthrough in exegesis, so that the specialist magazine Prooftexts 2007 titled a special edition as "Before and after The Art of Biblical Narrative ". Steven Weitzman certified the book a success story: "By the most conventional standards, such as sales figures, positive reviews, frequent citation, it is difficult to name an academic work that would be more successful than The Art of Biblical Narrative of Age."

Robert Alter received the National Jewish Book Award (for Modern Jewish Thought & Experience) for The Art of Biblical Narrative in 1982 .

Text output

literature

  • Amelia Devin Freedman: God as an Absent Character in Biblical Hebrew Narrative: A Literary-Theoretical Study (= Studies in Biblical Literature . Volume 82). Peter Lang, New York et al. 2005, ISBN 0-8204-7828-8 . Pp. 7-10.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ JW Rogerson: Reviewed Work: The Art of Biblical Narrative by Robert Alter . In: The Journal of Theological Studies New Series , Volume 34, No. 1 (April 1983), pp. 194-196, here p. 194.
  2. ↑ Karolien Vermeulen: Some Thoughts on Ancient Jewish text and the 'Literary' . In: Klaas Smelik, Karolien Vermeulen (ed.): Approaches to Literary Readings of Ancient Jewish Writings , Brill, Leiden / Boston 2014, pp. 1–18, here p. 1.
  3. ^ Robert Alter: The Art of Biblical Narrative , New York 2011, p. 27.
  4. ^ A b Robert Alter: The Art of Biblical Narrative , New York 2011, p. 10.
  5. ^ Robert Alter: The Art of Biblical Narrative , New York 2011, p. 11 f.
  6. ^ Robert Alter: The Art of Biblical Narrative , New York 2011, p. 27.
  7. ^ Robert Alter: The Art of Biblical Narrative , New York 2011, p. 37.
  8. ^ Robert Alter: The Art of Biblical Narrative , New York 2011, p. 38 f.
  9. ^ Robert Alter: The Art of Biblical Narrative , New York 2011, p. 40.
  10. ↑ Robert Alter: The Art of Biblical Narrative , New York 2011, pp. 43–47.
  11. ^ Robert Alter: The Art of Biblical Narrative , New York 2011, pp. 59 f.
  12. ^ Robert Alter: The Art of Biblical Narrative , New York 2011, p. 61.
  13. ↑ Hermann Gunkel: The sagas of Genesis . Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 1901, p. 45.
  14. ^ Robert Alter: The Art of Biblical Narrative , New York 2011, p. 61 f.
  15. ^ Robert Alter: The Art of Biblical Narrative , New York 2011, p. 64.
  16. ^ Robert Alter: The Art of Biblical Narrative , New York 2011, pp. 72 f.
  17. ^ Robert Alter: The Art of Biblical Narrative , New York 2011, p. 82.
  18. ^ Robert Alter: The Art of Biblical Narrative , New York 2011, pp. 86 f.
  19. ^ Robert Alter: The Art of Biblical Narrative , New York 2011, p. 91.
  20. ^ Robert Alter: The Art of Biblical Narrative , New York 2011, p. 114.
  21. ↑ Cf. Martin Buber: style of key words in the story of the Pentateuch . In: Writings on Bible translation (= Martin Buber Werkausgabe . Volume 14), Gütersloh 2012, pp. 95–110, here p. 95: “A headword is a word or stem that is repeated within a text ...: who this Repetitions follow, which reveals or clarifies the meaning of the text or is even more emphatically evident. "
  22. ^ Robert Alter: The Art of Biblical Narrative , New York 2011, pp. 116-118.
  23. ^ Robert Alter: The Art of Biblical Narrative , New York 2011, p. 119.
  24. ^ Robert Alter: The Art of Biblical Narrative , New York 2011, pp. 120 f.
  25. ↑ Robert Alter: The Art of Biblical Narrative , New York 2011, pp. 146–149.
  26. ^ Robert Alter: The Art of Biblical Narrative , New York 2011, p. 151 f.
  27. ↑ Robert Alter: The Art of Biblical Narrative , New York 2011, pp. 158–162.
  28. ^ Steven Weitzman: Before and After the Art of Biblical Narrative. P. 196 , accessed December 14, 2019 . See Elon Gilad: How a Literature Professor Found Himself Translating the Entire Bible From Scratch . In: HaAretz, February 8, 2019: " The Art of Biblical Narrative was a blockbuster that received rave reviews and has been reprinted continuously since its publication in 1981."
  29. ^ National Jewish Book Award. Retrieved December 14, 2019 .