Biblical narrative and the death of the rhapsode / Robert S. Kawashima.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Kawashima, Robert S., 1966-

Series:

Indiana studies in biblical literature

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Narration in the Bible.

Bible--Criticism, Narrative.

Bible.

Physical Description:

xi, 293 pages ; 24 cm.

Place of Publication:

Bloomington, IN : Indiana University Press, [2004]

Summary:

Informed by literary theory and Homeric scholarship as well as biblical studies, Biblical Narrative and the Death of the Rhapsode sheds new light on the Hebrew Bible and, more generally, on the possibilities of narrative form. Robert S. Kawashima compares the narratives of the Hebrew Bible with Homeric and Ugaritic epic in order to account for the "novelty" of biblical prose narrative. Long before Herodotus or Homer, Israelite writers practiced an innovative narrative art, which anticipated the modern novelist's craft. Though their work is undeniably linked to the linguistic tradition of the Ugaritic narrative poems, there are substantive differences between the bodies of work. Kawashima views biblical narrative as the result of a specifically written verbal art that we should counterpose to the oral-traditional art of epic. Beyond this strictly historical thesis, the study has theoretical implications for the study of narrative, literature, and oral tradition.

Contents:

Introduction: The novelty of biblical narrative

From song to story : the Genesis of narrative in Judges 4 and 5

Narration and discourse : the linguistic dualism of biblical narrative and its literary consequences

Represented consciousness in biblical narrative

Biblical time and epic time : from grammar to narrative technique

The art of biblical narrative as technique : making strange the tradition

Conclusion: Toward an archaeology of ancient Israelite knowledge.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 269-284) and index.

ISBN:

0253344778

OCLC:

55124322