“The pen is mightier than the sword,” an adage popularized by Edward Bulwer-Lytton, affirms the potential might of intentional literatures. The Bible that bears both the thoughts of God and its writers is a masterpiece that intimates the reality of human lives, the truth of God, and the perplexity between destiny and freedom. Robert Alter, a biblical scholar and a professor of Hebrew and Comparative Literature at the University of California, Berkeley has produced excellent studies on extracting the essence of biblical writings through a literary approach that closely adopts the Jewish thought. His publications like The Five Books of Moses, The Art of Biblical Poetry, and The Art of Biblical Narrative have garnered various awards and positive reviews. In his book, The Art of Biblical Narrative, Alter convincingly posits that the application of literary analysis can illuminate the original idea of the Scripture, specifically the Hebrew Bible. In contrast to critical methodology and revelatory acceptation, literary exploration views the Bible as a rich literature and focuses scrupulously on “the artful use of language [and] the shifting play of ideas, conventions, tone, sound, imagery, syntax, narrative viewpoint, compositional units, and much else” (p12).
The first notable thought in this book is the idea of type-scenes and conventions, or in a simpler term, “patterns.” According to Alter, certain type of stories would almost consistently incorporate ingeminated elements that can be observed in different episodes. The encounter of a protagonist with the future affianced, for example, is marked regularly with an instauration at a well. More than just mere landmarks, these features with certain omissions, suppressions, elaborations, and variations signify motifs that would be part of the hero’s later tales. For instance, Isaac’s absence in proposing Rebekah, Moses’ heroic rescue for Zipporah and her sisters, and Ruth’s migration to
The subsequent important discourse is the distinctive functions of narration and dialogue. When a narrator zooms in to a specific substantive event, there is a deliberate deceleration in the pace as the account unfolds. A storyteller, who is intemperately informed and shaped by his theological perception, predominantly relays his message more through dialogues than through narration. With dialogues, the writer averts glossing the stories with his assessment and opinions. Consequently, speech-act presentation allows readers to scrutinize more forthrightly the actor’s inner thought and conscious because in the Jewish paradigm, words underlie reality. On the other hand, narration is sparingly utilized only for the purpose of “confirming assertions made in dialogue” (p65) or shifting the central subject. Hence, through direct verbal articulation, the writer expresses more easily the strain between “creaturely uncertainty [and] the Creator’s intermittently revealed design” (p69). The Hebrew God, whom the biblical narrators attempt to imitate and asseverate, is fundamentally an unfathomable and ethical God who does not impose His dominion dictatorially, but rather allows everyone freedom to grapple “with his destiny through his own words and actions” (p87).
One of the more cogent arguments from Alter is the significance of repetition techniques. In contrast to what commonly perceived, repetition in the biblical narrative is not an archaic and undeveloped literature style. Alter impressively demonstrates how the biblical authors perspicaciously employ replication with strategic variation for the “purposes of commentary, analysis, foreshadowing, [and] thematic assertion” (p91). The spectrum of repetition ranges from the persistence of broad ideas to the uninterrupted echoes of word. More pervasively, however, is the recurrence of key-words that often hold up definite theme and institute linkage between scenes. Other than verbal wielding, repetition can also be expressed through images, sensory quality, and actions. When the reiteration is capsulated in speeches, the biblical authors invite their audience to envision the speaker’s moral, psychological, and spiritual complexity, which may subsequently formalize into reality. As repetition in biblical narrative is often unapparent, modern readers are urged to be acute in order to access these concealed insights.
The authors of biblical stories seldom characterize their cast explicitly, but more frequently the characters are revealed through actions, appearances, and speeches. While actions and appearances are fairly ambiguous, conversations and inner articulations provide more clarity to the characteristics of the players. The narrators’ explicit and most reliable explanation of the true state of the actors is imparted rather economically and unjustifiably. As an outcome, personages are not fixed in a static mold and possess capacity for changes. Furthermore, such cunning characterization obviates perceiving individual as single-faceted identity. Hence, the biblical chroniclers adhere to the conception of human nature in biblical monotheism, which understands the immeasurable freedom and even the incomprehensible nature of man. More than just illuminating the ideals, biblical narratives spotlight the veridical paradoxes in God’s ultimate creation. Thus, readers who have been accustomed to receive predictable and stable character specification need to readjust their habits to the rather different maneuvers in the Hebrew bible.
One of the most exciting Alter’s propositions is the argument on composite artistry, which essentially explains the reasons for ostensibly conflicting episodes of the same subject and clumsy arrangement of tautology. In contrast to the traditional studies, which either clamber to harmonize the contradictions or deflect to maintain the unity, Alter suggests that it is actually the intention of the narrator or redactor not to reconcile these differences, such that he may represent the multifaceted dimension of truth. Such garbled contravention and discombobulating incoherence is logical and justified for the sake of describing his subject more wholly and realistically. It is the prerogative of the writer who would not compromise his theological understanding that his subjects cannot be distilled into a simple unitary concept.
Alter is courageous and brilliant in rendering this stimulating approach of biblical studies, which in many ways open new ground for exploration. Some of his proposals, however, cannot be accepted without fastidious contemplation due to their debatable nature. His categorization of Scripture as fiction, for example, is an uncomfortable notion because fiction is an outcome of imaginative invention, but the Scripture is a composition of God’s message to His beloved creation. The Bible bears more than just a temporal purpose of retelling history as it articulates an eternal plan of God’s salvation. Finally, The Art of Biblical Narrative is a worthy and insightful book with its unique and complementing suggestions. Therefore, it can be utilized together with regular Hermeneutic textbooks for Master level study.
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