Excerpt from
Style and Structure in Biblical Hebrew Narrative
by Jerome T. Walsh
© The Order of St. Benedict, Inc., Collegeville, Minnesota. All rights reserved. No part of this may be reproduced by any means, without the written permission of The Liturgical Press, Collegeville, Minnesota 56321.
Contents
Introduction
Part I: Structures of Organization
Symmetry and asymmetry
Repeated elements
Organizing elements and organized units
Balance of subunits
Interpretation
1. Reverse Symmetry
B. Chiastic symmetry
2. Forward Symmetry
3. Alternating Repetition
4. Partial symmetry
B. Framing inclusion
C. External inclusion
D. Complex inclusion
E. Introductory epitome
F. Concluding epitome
5. Multiple Symmetry
B. Complex symmetry
C. Compound symmetry
6. Asymmetry
B. Non-correspondence
C. Transposition
Part II: Structures of Disjunction
7. Narrative components
A. Change in characters
5. 1 Kings 18:21-40
B. Change in setting: locale
C. Change in setting: time
D. Change in narrative voice
8. Repetition
A. Repetition of information
B. Repetition of subject nouns
9. Narrative Sequence
Narrative tense and simple past
Breaks in narrative sequence
The verb "to be" and verbless clauses
A. Broken narrative sequence beginning a unit
B. Broken narrative sequence ending a unit
C. Broken narrative sequence interrupting a unit
Part III: Structures of Conjunction
A. Threads
B. Links
C. Linked threads
D. Hinges
E. Double-duty hinges
Conclusion
Selected Bibliography
Introduction
Everyone likes a good story. In every culture and in every age, from childhood bedtime stories to the reminiscences of elders, we capture our world in words and distill it in story. Storytelling—the urge to narrative—is a human universal. Yet individual stories are inexorably particular. They are the product of a particular time and a particular culture. Only the very greatest narratives travel on their own merits across the deep cultural and temporal chasms of the world. And even when they do, they arrive in the form of translations that are admixtures of faithful transmission and creative achievement.
Above all else, an individual story is the product of a particular language. A narrative is, in the last analysis, words: storytelling builds worlds, and characters, and actions, out of vocabulary and syntax—nothing more, nothing less. To appreciate any story in its wholeness, we must fathom its words—their sounds, their meanings, their connotations, their collocations, their allusions. And when we read a story in translation, we are utterly dependent upon the translator, whose perceptiveness and penetration of the verbal weave is the limiting precondition of our own access to the original. This book is intended primarily for people who read the Hebrew Bible in translation (though I hope that even those who read it in Hebrew may find something of interest here as well). It is an attempt to explore a few of the ways in which the creators of biblical Hebrew narrative use words, in order to highlight for the English Bible reader significant literary elements of biblical narratives that may otherwise be obscured in translation.
Well-built, compelling narrative worlds arise from well-constructed tales. We shall study a few of the construction techniques, so to speak, of the ancient Hebrew authors. Specifically, we shall look at the ways in which biblical Hebrew handles the building blocks—the literary units and subunits—out of which it constructs its narratives. How does it mark the boundaries between those units? This is an important question, since literary units and subunits (like paragraphs, episodes, scenes, or chapters in modern English literature) are usually thematic units and subunits as well. How does it establish continuity and connection between contiguous units? Without such connections, a narrative lacks coherent flow and compelling momentum, and risks disintegration and loss of reader interest. Most importantly, how does biblical Hebrew narrative organize its literary units and subunits internally? Here we will enter unfamiliar territory, for the techniques used by biblical Hebrew narrative are quite different from those we are accustomed to in English literature. We shall see that discerning the inner shape of a literary unit often starts us on the road to insightful interpretation.
We will begin with this last question, since its unfamiliarity will require the lengthiest treatment. Part I of our study will examine a wide variety of symmetrical patterns biblical Hebrew narrative uses to organize its units and subunits, and the interpretive dynamics those patterns can imply. In each case we will begin with a brief description of the pattern and its characteristics, and follow this with analyses of extensive examples of the pattern. Part II will address the question of boundaries between literary units. The treatment here will be shorter, since in many cases biblical Hebrew marks boundaries in ways similar to English narrative. There are, however, one or two peculiarly Hebrew ways of marking boundaries, and we will have to dabble a bit in the Hebrew language to appreciate them. As in Part I, brief treatments of the technique in general terms will precede several examples. I hope that the examples will clarify the discussion of the arcana of Hebrew grammar—or at least earn me the readers' forgiveness for forcing them to slog through it! Finally, and briefest of all, Part III will examine devices that biblical Hebrew narrative uses to connect consecutive literary units and subunits. Somewhat similar devices occur in English literature, although they are not commonly discussed; consequently, once they are described and illustrated, the reader will discern them relatively easily. The approach here will remain the same: brief explanations in general terms followed by a number of examples.
I would be remiss if I did not acknowledge a scholar whose ideas, many years ago, started me on the road that has led eventually to this book: H. Van Dyke Parunak. For a brief time our paths crossed at the University of Michigan. Articles that he wrote at that time stimulated my thinking enormously, and this book has been in gestation ever since. For inspiration, as well as for continued support and friendship over the years, I am grateful to him. What I have done with that inspiration, for better or worse, is my own responsibility. But the originating insights are his.
I am also grateful to the University of Botswana and to Union Theological Seminary in New York. Mr. Drew Kadel of the UTS library graciously extended guest privileges to me during my research stays in New York, and the interlibrary loan staff at UB went beyond the call of duty in procuring otherwise unavailable material for me from all over southern Africa.
Finally, I dedicate this study of story to the memory of one whose study, and whose story, were cut tragically too short