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Literacy Forms and Strategies in the Bible

LITERARY FORMS IN THE BIBLE ALLEGORY

LITERARY STRATEGIES IN THE BIBLE PERSONIFICATION

HYPERBOLE IRONY

METAPHOR WORDPLAY

SYMBOLISM POETRY

The Bible is an anthology, to the making of which many hands con­ tributed over centuries of human history. Some of the contributors were original authors, their identities for the most part lost in the mists of the past, and some—even more completely removed from our view— were redactors, who patched and revised and combined literary mate­ rials to form the whole documents that ultimately became the biblical books we now have. Some aspects of this process are strange to us now, especially the process of redaction, because Western literary traditions have evolved along different lines. Yet there is a great deal in the process of biblical writing that we can recognize, feel at home with, and treat in the terms that modern literary critics apply to literature of their own time.

Every piece of writing is a kind of some­ thing. It takes its place within a partic-

L·Iterary forms in n|.n- formai tradition and in itself exem- I the bible plifies that tradition. This was no less

true during biblical times than it is now. : There are of course innovators, pioneers, who seek to do things in a I way that no one has ever done before—particularly in the past hundred

years, a period in which so much value is placed on originality. But even in the twentieth century the innovations have succeeded only in stretch-

15

IÓ THE BIBLE AS LITERATURE

ing the boundaries of the traditional forms, not in doing away with them altogether. James Joyce’s Ulysses is still recognizably a novel and cannot be approached without a strong sense of what the traditional novel has already led us to expect as appropriate to that form. Before the modern period, and certainly in biblical times, writers who had some conception of a subject they wished to give expression to would turn naturally and as a matter of course to a traditional literary form as a vehicle for doing so. (Not that the two—conception and vehicle— were necessarily separate in writers’ minds; it is more likely that even as writers thought of a subject, these thoughts themselves took form in

' a traditional way.) It follows that the modern reader of the Bible can­ not hope to make sense of it as literature without knowing something about these forms. Though the Bible in a general sense is literature, just as the products of modern writers are literature, its literary forms are different enough from ours to require particular study.

All literary forms quickly become public property. Even in our own age—the age of innovation—successful forms are quickly absorbed into the general culture and become available to anyone who wants to use them. This was the case in biblical times—but with one important dif­ ference: Biblical writers seem, for the most part, to have wanted to sub­ merge their individuality in the chosen form and made no effort to give the result a personal stamp. Surely there were writers who spoke out of deep personal feelings, but they tend to disappear as persons. For example, the author of Psalm 22 (“My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”) may well have written out of a personal crisis, perhaps a serious illness. But the author’s feelings of estrangement and despair are nevertheless traditionally expressed, utilizing a form that modern scholars call the “lament/’ of which there are nearly forty other in­ stances in the book of Psalms, thus making it by far the most common type of psalm. As a comparison of lament psalms will show, they tend to follow' a stereotyped pattern: The speakers invoke God, describe their trouble (which often includes persecution by enemies), assert faith in God, petition for help (sometimes offering a vow), and thank God for

: the rescue tirat they foresee. Psalm 13, a less famous lament, offers in miniature a particularly clear specimen of the form.

If the forms of biblical writing were the property of the whole cul­ ture, we must go on to ask why they were popular—in other words, what general significance, what role or function in the fife of the na­ tion did they have? For example, why would anyone have composed a psalm? If anyone did so, how would it have been used? The prevalent

i theory now is that most (if not all) of the poems in the psalmbook were used in ceremonies at the Second Temple—sung or chanted with mu­

Literary Forms and Strategies in the Bible 17

sical accompaniment at various points in the ritual. Not all the poems were used all the time. But as with om modern hymnbooks, there were no doubt old favorites that did extra duty. Also, as with our modern hymnbooks, the collection included poems from different periods of time, written under varying circumstances but all in the same tradition. Indeed, the analogy of the book of Psalms with our own hymnbooks— its lineal descendants—is quite exact. Although most modern hymns bear the names of authors, we do not normally pay much attention to who wrote what, and few worshippers would be able to name the per­ sons responsible for the words of even their most beloved hymns. Much as we honor the genius of an Isaac Watts or a Martin Luther or a Thomas of Celano, the hymn form itself transcends them. The proper place to begin studying the hymn is with that form, not with the indi­ vidual authors who used it.

Liturgical forms, dictated by the needs of public worship cere­ monies, are by no means limited to the psalms. Once we learn how to look for such forms, we find them to be abundant in the Jewish scrip­ tures. Numbers 6:24-26 is a blessing that essentially consists of the threefold repetition of the name of Yahweh. It is inserted into the nar­ rative of the law-giving at Sinai, but its actual source is much more likely to have been in the services at Solomon’s Temple before the Ex­ ile. The language of the covenant-renewal ceremony in Joshua 24:14-24 seems to have come from an annual ceremony of that sort held at Shechem. This is preceded in 24:2-13 by a historicaLmital, itself a tra­ ditional form, as we can see by looking at Deuteronomy 6:20-25 or 1 Samuel 12:6-15. The historical recital (to which we have already re­ ferred) is an expanded version of the prologue that traditionally began a pact or covenant, known technically as a “suzerainty treaty,” between a ruler and his people. The Decalogue is a condensed version of such a treaty, with many analogues in other Near Eastern cultures older than that of the Bible (see chapter 3). To have the treaty affirmed or reaf­ firmed in public would be a natural practice not only because the peo­ ple collectively were signatories but also because in the ancient world no agreement was valid without witnesses. The more witnesses there were, the more secure the treaty would be (see, for example, Exodus 24:3-8).

Although the “literary” prophets in the Old Testament operated in­ dependently of the national cult and frequently in direct opposition to it, their speech was public and it took traditional forms. They did not see themselves as individuals but as vehicles for the word of God. Al­ ready in Amos, the first of such vehicles, prophetic_oracles are a highly stereotyped literary composition. Many of these oracles can be identi­

THE BIBLE AS LITERATURE18

fied in the works of Amos and those who followed him. They are marked by having certain standard functions (denouncing the people for their sins, promising punishment from Yahweh), utilizing a more-or-less co­ herent set of central images (for example, Israel as a disobedient child and Yahweh as the parent), and including linguistic formulas (“These are the very words of Yahweh”). We like to believe that the best of these oracles bear distinctive marks of the individual prophet’s think­ ing and literary style; but many of them could be moved from one prophetic book to another without creating any problems—some were, in fact, moved during the redaction of these books (for example, Isaiah 2:2-4 is almost identical with Micah 4:1-3). It takes no credit away from the original prophetic authors to point out that their forms can easily be imitated or parodied by a modern reader. The result would at best be a kind of curiosity with no real relevance, but it would still demon­ strate something important about the usefulness of traditional forms.

The Old Testament is also the repository for several specimens of ancient patriotic poetry: the victory songs of Moses in Exodus 15, Mosg£_bl^sing on Israel in Deuteronomy 28, Jacob’s blessing of his sons in Genesis 49, the Song.,o£Deborah. in Judges 5. Ẅe know noth­ ing about the setting of these compositions—how they were used or what part they played in the life of the people—but of their character as public speech there is no doubt. Even the magnificent lament of David forSaul and Jonathan (2 Sam. 1:19-27), which shows all the signs of being an original composition frill of personal grief, speaks as much of the loss to Israel as it does of the loss to David himself. And, though the meaning of the Hebrew text of 2 Samuel t:i8 is not clear, the in­ dication is that the lament for Saul and Jonathan was to be taught to and recited by the people on certain occasions.

Two other significant Old Testament literary forms, the wisdom saying and the apocalypse, will receive chapters of their own. It remains to add a few words about the commonest of aU Old Testament foxms, the narrative. There is no single literary form that can be called “Old Testament narrative,” for the narratives in the Old Testament are quite diverse in nature—as well they might be, coming from so many differ­ ent authors writing in such different times. About the only thing they have in common is that none of them was ever composed in the first place merely to preserve knowledge that certain things happened. All the Old Testament stories are tendentious, that is, they serve to up­ hold a theological point or to illustrate a significant theme in the un- folding drama of the covenanted people. This is obvious enough in the Deuteronomic History (roughly, Joshua through Kings), which is con­ tinuously and openly biased, but it is also true of the ancient stories in

Literary 'Forms and Strategies in the Bible 19

Genesis, which we are in the habit of reading today for their local color and narrative skill, forgetting that it took more than qualities like these to ensure their preservation.

Unfortunately, it is often difficult for modern readers to see the meaning that may have been obvious to the ancient authors and their audience. For example, the three “wife-sister” tales in Genesis (12:10-20, 20:1-18, and 26:1-11) each tell of a patriarch living temporarily in a for­ eign country who passes his wife off as his sister, thereby fooling the foreign king and, more important, saving his own neck. Twice the hero of the story is Abraham and once it is Isaac. The first of these, in chap­ar 12, is probably the earliest and the source or inspiration for the other two. But what does the story mean? Are we supposed to deplore the willingness of Abram (as he is then called) to buy security for himself by lying to the pharaoh about his wife and allowing her to be taken into the pharaoh’s harem? Are we supposed to admire Abram’s cleverness at outwitting the foreign lang and gaining material prosperity for himself through the king’s favor? Are we supposed to sympathize with Abram’s dilemma in a situation where there is no obvious right way to act? Or, perhaps, is the whole point of the story to emphasize the providential intervention of Yahweh, who stepped in and rescued the Covenant with the descendants of Abram and Sarai from imminent danger of collapse? Behind the written story is doubtless an oral tradition of considerable age, a tradition that might have been mainly directed to the celebration of the beauty of Sarai, which would have made her desirable to others (notice that it is kings who desire her) and of course put her marriage to Abram in jeopardy. In any case the author of the second version, in chapter 20, retold the story with some basic changes, presumably to sub­ stitute his own emphases; the author of the third version did the same thing in chapter 26. The final redactor who wove all three into the tex­ ture of the Genesis narrative may well have understood their meaning no better than we do, but since he could have regarded them all as his­ tory, he did not have to feel obliged to figure them out.

Among the varieties of narrative form in the Old Testament are eti­ mologies. (stories explaining the origin of something, especially names).TTrtfr narratives (which typically speak of a barren wife, a divine guest, an an­ nunciation, and a “sign”), miracle stories (such as those associated with Eli- sha), accounts of theophanies (the appearance of Yahweh in the burning bush to Aloses or to Abraham before the destruction of Sodom), and hero stories (the exploits of a Samson, a Jacob, a Daniel). Often we understand these stories better when we view them along with other examples of die same form rather than as they come to us imbedded in a context provided separately and later by a redactor. Jacob has much more in common with

20 THE BIBLE AS LITERATURE

Samson than he does with Isaac, his own father. The themes of the strong man and the trickster, which these stories share, create a formal resem­ blance between the stories that transcends their many differences.

The New Testament too is rich in traditional literary forms, but their setting is the life of a comparatively small group, .the Church, rather jhan..thj„life.pf_a nation. The four gospels were created for this Church, using written and oral sources that by then had been in exis­ tence for a full generation and more. Unquestionably, the most famous literary form in the gospels is the parable, the use of which especially characterized Jesus’ teaching (“He would not speak to them except in parables,” says Mark 4:34). Yet Jesus did not invent the parable, how­ ever much he may have stamped it with his own individuality, for there was an extensive tradition, going back to Old Testament days, of teach­ ing by such indirect means (the mash al in Hebrew).

p Other traditional forms in the gospels are the pronouncement story, 'i the story of.healing, the, “saying,” the birth narrative (in Matthew and ) Luke only), the beatitude, the “wqe,” the legal commentary (“You have / heard . . . but I say this to you . . . ”), thg allegory, the commissioning \ of apostles, the Transfiguration scene. These and other common ele­

ments are intricately modified as they are used by one or another of the gospel writers, following their individual tastes and needs. In every case the element itself originated within the Church as an oral tradi­ tion, the common property of a group of believers. But though we may be sure of the context, we cannot easily reconstruct tire use of that el­ ement within it. The Last Supper narrative is a notable exception, be-

¡ i cause a communal meal among the believers that featured a recitation j i of the words and an imitation of the actions of Jesus on that occasion

; must very soon have become standard within the Church. The earliest -- version that we have is from Paul, who claims to have received it by a

private revelation “from the Lord” (1 Còr. 11:23-26). Whatever one

LITERARY STRATEGIES IN

THE BIBLE

may think of Paul’s claim, it is clear that the Last Supper narrative ex­ isted and functioned independently of any literary context such as a gospel and that its appearance in the gospels (Matt. 26, Mark 14, Luke 22) reflects its importance to the Church.

Literary forms are large-scale struc­ tures: They reflect authors’ primary choices of means for embodying a sub­ ject, but they do not as a rule deter­ mine in any detail the strategies for do­

ing so. What kind of language should an author choose? What rhetorical devices would be helpful? Should the author proceed directly or indirectly? If the latter, by which of the possible ways? Biblical au-

Literary Forms and Strategies in the Bible 3 5

Before their transgression, Adam and Eve are “the naked ones” (aru- miny from erom, meaning “naked”), but they do not know that they are naked. The serpent, on the other hand, is knowing {arum}—but then he, too, in the view of the author and audience of this story, is naked, having neither fur nor feathers. And in Genesis 27:36, the tricked Esau cries that his brother is rightly named the supplanter, for he has stolen not only "my birthright” (bekorati) but also “my blessing” (birekati).

The most famous wordplay in the Old Testament—whether it is °vnially a pun is arguable—involves the very name of Yahweh, which in Exodus 3 is related in a complicated fashion to the verb hayab (“to be”). Another play on names, equally famous, occurs in the New Tes­ tament in Matthew 16:18, where Jesus is reported as saying to Peter, “You are Peter and on this rock I will build my community.”* This is a double pun because it works in the two original languages: It plays on the similarity of Peter’s Greek name, “Petros,” to the Greek petra (“rock”) as well as of Peter’s Aramaic name, “Kephas,” to the Aramaic kepha (also “rock”). Jesus’ actual words would have been in Aramaic, the language he spoke, but they were translated into Greek before be­ ing included in Matthew’s gospel.

*The Greek word ekklësia, here rendered “community,” is translated as “church” in most English Bibles.

It has never been a secret that the Old Testament contains poetry, but until

poetry comparatively recent times no one sus­ pected how much. (In fact, about a < third of itis poetry, and few of its books 1

contain no poetry at all.) The only portion that readers in the past ' would normally have called poetry is the book of Psalms—and this be­ cause the psalms were presented as songs to be sung, not because there were any identifying characteristics in their texts, which were (and sometimes still are) printed with lines run together as if they were prose. The problem came about because Hebrew poetry had no formal de­ vice like our rhyme to mark the ends of poetic lines and because its rhythm was too fluid to settle into patterns that unmistakably an­ nounced the presence of verse. Separated by centuries from its authors, readers and translators of this poetry had no way of recognizing it for what it was. The key to unlock this treasure store was finally provided ? by Bishop Robert Lowth in 1753 in his Lectures on the Sacred Poetry of the Hebrew's. To a large extent we still depend on Lowth’s original j insights. The key to Hebrew poetry, he found, is that it is a structure | \ of thought rather than of external form, and that a Hebrew poem is

synonymous

I look at your 1 heavens, I 1 shaped bv vour fingers, ¡

At[ the moon and the starsj ¡you set firm—|

I what are (human beings ¡

or; the child of Adam]

(that you spare a thought for them, |

[that you care for him? | synonymous

—Ps. 83-6

Blessed are [those |

those]

|who have discovered wisdom,|

I who have acquired understanding!]

Gaining her |

her yield]

I is more rewarding than silver, |

I is more valuable than gold. j

—Prov. 3:13-14

Is ¡Yahweh pleased by]

or I [is he pleased by]]

Truly, I obedience] is better

¡submiss¡veness¡

¡burnt offerings and sacrifices ]

obedience to Yahweh's voice? antithetic

than I sacrifice,]

than I the fat of rams. I synonymous

—1 Sam. 15:22

synthetic

For I Yahweh watches over] I the patii of the upright,!

I is doomed]but [the path of the wicked |

antithetic (also "chiastic")

—Ps. 1:6

synthetic

FIGURE 4. PARALLELISM IN HEBREW POETRY

Literaiy Forms and Strategies in the Bible 37

composed by balancing a series of sense units against one another ac­ cording to certain simple principles of relationship.

These sense units are formed into phrases or clauses, often com­ plete sentences, with obvious grammatical coherence. In modern ver­ sions of the Old Testament, they are arranged into lines as die mean­ ing of the original seems to require. Because we do not know how Hebrew poetry was arranged in die times when it was first written down, diese reconstructions have no real authority. But they offer something with which to work, andgj^ey do immediately signal to the eye that one is looking at a poem, not at a piece of prose.

The general term for the relationship between these units is “par­ allelism-” Of the several types of parallelism found in Hebrew poetry, the simplest consists in the repetition of the same diought in different words. From one unit to the next, the only change is that of language. Hence this type is called “synonymous.” For an example of synony­ mous parallelism, we can look to Psalm 8, two verses of which are di­ agramed in figure 4. The sense of the first line, “I look up at your heav­ ens, shaped by your fingers,” is restated in the second line by substitution: “the moon and die stars” equals “your heavens," and “you set firm” equals “shaped by your fingers.” In the second distich (the technical name for the two-line group) we find the same pattern, as fig­ ure 4 shows.

The modern reader, confronted with this sort of thing, has to make adjustments. Our own literary forms do not encourage repetition; still less are they built on it. But the Hebrew poet thought otherwise and worked within a different tradition. A modern poet, having said some­ thing, will be anxious to urge his or her composition forward to the next stage (perhaps with memories of high school or college papers handed back with “Rep” scrawled in red in die margins). The ancient Hebrew poet seems to have been in no hurry; if a thought was truly important, it could not be exhausted in one statement. Turning it in the hand and viewing it from different angles, as it were, the Hebrew poet could more fully demonstrate its latent significance.

Returning to the example from Psalm 8, we can see that the sec­ ond distich also shows synonymous parallelism, inasmuch as “human beings” is equivalent to “the child of Adam,” and “spare a thought for them” is equivalent to “care for him.” The two distichs are connected by the pronouns “your” and “you,” but we can also see that diere is a logical relationship between them, the second one supplying the thought that comes to mind as a result of looking up at the heavens: they are related as cause and effect (that is, “This is what happens when I look up at the heavens”). Units related by logic or by the forward

38 THE BIBLE AS LITERATURE

movement of the poet’s thought, like this one, are obviously parallel in a different way. The term “synthetic” has been given to this type of parallelism. In the example from Proverbs 3, the pattern seen in Psalm 8 is repeated almost exactly. Two distichs are constructed by synony­ mous parallelism, the second one related to the first by synthetic par­ allelism (it tells why wisdom makes someone blessed). The only dif­ ference is that here the key term “blessed,” which controls all that follows, stands outside the pattern as such.

The third major type of parallelism is “antithetic”; this occurs where a unit offers a thought that denies or provides an exception to the pre­ ceding one, as in the example from 1 Samuel 15:22 in figure 4. Here the overall opposition is between “sacrifices” and “obedience,” and this is set up in antithetical fashion in the first distich. The second distich, itself constructed by synonymy, answers the first one by vigorously ex­ cluding sacrifice as a means of serving the deity. Note that “obedience” functions as a sort of hinge or pivot between rhe two distichs. The ex­ ample from Psalm i;6 in figure 4 also shows antithetic parallelism. Its four elements are arranged in a chiastic pattern, which gives a little ad­ ditional emphasis to the distich because the thought is not completed until the last of the four elements falls into place. If the author had wanted to use synonymous parallelism here, he might have written for the second line something like, “Yahweh protects good men from evil.” Had he wished to use synthetic parallelism, he might have written, “And causes their enemies all to perish.”

Other types of parallelism are offshoots or variations of these basic ones. Two in particular are worth defining and illustrating. “Emblem­ atic” parallelism is a variety of synonymous parallelism in which the thought is expressed half literally and half metaphorically:

A golden ring in the snout of a pig is a lovely woman who lacks discretion. (Prov. 11:22)

Like apples of gold inlaid with silver is a word that is aptly spoken.

A golden ring, an ornament of finest gold, is a wise rebuke to an attentive ear. (Prov. 25:11-12)

“Climactic” parallelism uses the method of synonymy to build up a thought by the repetition of short phrases toward some sort of climax, for example, in the prophet Zephaniah's description of the Day of Yahweh:

That Day is a day of retribution, a day of distress and tribulation,

Literary Forms and Strategies in the Bible 39

a day of ruin and devastation, a day of darkness and gloom, a day of cloud and thick fog, a day of trumpet blast and battle cry against fortified town and high corner-tower. (Zeph. 1:15-16)

Perhaps the most famous use of climactic parallelism in the whole Bible is in Deborah’s victory song, celebrating the murder of Sisera by Jael:

She reached her hand out to seize the peg, her right hand

to seize the workman’s mallet. She hammered Sisera,

she crushed his head, she pierced his temple and shattered it. Between her feet, he crumpled,

he fell, he lay; at her feet, he crumpled, he fell. Where he crumpled,

diere he fell, destroyed. (Judg. 5:26-2.7)

The Hebrew word for “destroyed” is not only stronger than any of the words preceding it but is also not anticipated by repetition and thus makes a very effective climax.

This passage from Deborah’s song incidentally illustrates a prob­ lem that Hebrew poetic parallelism created for readers either unfamil­ iar with this device or inclined to take everything they read very liter­ ally, for the prose account of the murder in chapter 4 has Jael hammering the tent peg into Sisera’s skull as he lay sleeping'. The song more plausibly suggests that she simply hit him over the head with the heavy peg and killed him by fracturing his skull. But the author of the " > prose account, using this ancient poem as his source, assumed that the hammer and the tent peg were two separate instruments instead of po­ etic equivalents for the same one; thus he described their use in what seemed to him the logical way.

The best-known example of misreading an Old Testament passage by a New Testament writer is Matthew’s treatment (21:4-5) of Zecha­ riah 9:9, a messianic prophecy that the gospel writer drew on in his ac­ count of Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem. The prophet Zechariah describes a king entering Jerusalem as

humble and riding on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey.

40 THE BIBLE AS LITERATURE

Ignoring the parallelism (the donkey and colt are the same beast), /Matthew has the disciples bring two animals to Jesus, both of which Jesus proceeds to ride at the same time. “This was to fulfil what was spoken by the prophet: Say to the daughter of Zion: I Look your king is approaching, / humble and riding on a donkey / and on a colt, I the foal of a beast of burden. ... So the disciples . . . brought the donkey and the colt, then they laid their cloaks on their backs and he took his seat on them” (Matt. 21:4-8).

It should be evident even from these few examples that parallelism is a device of great power. What is not so evident is the range of pos­ sibility that it offers, the marvelous variety that Hebrew poets were able to create within the apparently narrow limits that it set on poetic form. One begins to see this rather slowly, only after first mastering the ba­ sic principles we have outlined. Much of the best Hebrew poetry, such as that in Job, the psalms, and the prophetic oracles, nearly escapes the patterns altogether. Reducing it to a diagram is not easy and often im­ possible. Yet_.rhe sense of underlying pattern is always there, much as it is in the playing of traditional jazz, where the unvarying foursquare beat on which the music is built may never come to the surface as such, and where the art of the performers seems often to be gauged by the extent to which they can depart from this beat without ever forgetting their way back to it. This contest between rule and freedom is a polite one, which neither side wishes to win but both strive not to lose.

REVIEW QUESTIONS

1. What are some of the traditional literary forms—types of literature— that biblical writers employed?

2. Name the most common literary’ form in the Old Testament and give some instances of it.

3. What is the difference between a literary’ form and a literary strat­ egy?

4. What is hyperbole, and why did biblical writers employ it? 5. What are the parts of a metaphor? Ó. Explain how allegory as a literary form goes beyond metaphor and

symbolism. Give an instance of biblical allegory that was intended by its author to be an allegory7.

7. Give an instance of dramatic irony in the Bible and explain how the irony works in that instance.

8. Puns are a form of wordplay vety common in the Bible. Give some instances.

Literary Forms and Strategies in the Bible 41

9. What is the structural basis of Hebrew poetry? What principal forms does this take?

SUGGESTED FURTHER READING

Leander E. Keck and Gene M. Tucker, “Literary Forms of the Bible,” pp. 12-31 in “Understanding the Bible and Its Communities,” The Oxford Study Bible: Revised English Bible with the Apocrypha (New York: Oxford University Press, 1992). Dis­ cusses literary forms in We categories: narratives, poetry, prophetic books, epis­ tles, and apocalypses.