Reading Biblical Narratives

Reading Biblical Narratives PDF Author: Yaira Amit
Publisher: Fortress Press
ISBN: 9781451420449
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 210

Book Description
Based on a series of lectures given in Israel, Amit introduces the reader to the subtle ways of the biblical narrators. Covering issues of character, plot development, catchword association, narration, and dialog, she brings the biblical text to life, helping the reader enter the stories from new vantage points.

Reading Hebrew Bible Narratives

Reading Hebrew Bible Narratives PDF Author: J. Andrew Dearman
Publisher:
ISBN: 0190246480
Category : Bible
Languages : en
Pages : 233

Book Description
Reading Hebrew Bible Narratives introduces readers to narrative traditions of the Old Testament and to methods of interpreting them. Part of the Essentials of Biblical Studies series, this volume presents readers with an overview of exegesis by mainly focusing on a self-contained narrative tobe read alongside the text. Through sustained interaction with the book of Ruth, readers have opportunities to engage a biblical book from multiple perspectives, while taking note of the wider implications of such perspectives for other biblical narratives. Other select texts from Hebrew Biblenarratives, related by theme or content to matters in Ruth, are also examined, not only to assist in illustrating this method of approach, but also to offer reinforcement of reading skills and connections among different narrative traditions. Considering literary analysis, words and texts incontext, and reception history, this brief introduction gives students an overview of how exegesis illuminates stories in the Bible.

Reading Biblical Narrative

Reading Biblical Narrative PDF Author: J. P. Fokkelman
Publisher: Westminster John Knox Press
ISBN: 1611644429
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 221

Book Description
Narrator, characters, action, hero, quest, plot, time and space, entrances and exits--these are the essential components of all narrative literature. This authoritative and engaging introduction to the literary features of biblical narrative and poetry will help the reader grasp the full significance of these components, allowing them to enter more perceptively into the narrative worlds created by the great writers of the Bible.

The Hebrew Bible as Literature: A Very Short Introduction

The Hebrew Bible as Literature: A Very Short Introduction PDF Author: Tod Linafelt
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0199910472
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 116

Book Description
The Hebrew Bible, or Christian Old Testament, contains some of the finest literature that we have. This biblical literature has a place not only in the synagogue or the church but also among the classics of world literature. The stories of Jacob and David, for instance, present the earliest surviving examples of literary characters whose development the reader follows over the length of a lifetime. Elsewhere, as in the books of Esther or Ruth, readers find a snapshot of a particular, fraught moment that will define the character. The Hebrew Bible also provides quite a few high points of lyric poetry, from the praise and lament of the Psalms to the double entendres in the love of poetry of the Song of Songs. In short, the Bible can be celebrated not only as religious literature but, quite simply, as literature. This book offers a thorough and lively introduction to the Bible's two primary literary modes, narrative and poetry, foregrounding the nuances of plot, character, metaphor, structure and design, and intertextual allusions. Tod Linafelt thus gives readers the tools to fully experience and appreciate the Old Testament's literary achievement. ABOUT THE SERIES: The Very Short Introductions series from Oxford University Press contains hundreds of titles in almost every subject area. These pocket-sized books are the perfect way to get ahead in a new subject quickly. Our expert authors combine facts, analysis, perspective, new ideas, and enthusiasm to make interesting and challenging topics highly readable.

Narrative in the Hebrew Bible

Narrative in the Hebrew Bible PDF Author: David M. Gunn
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
ISBN:
Category : Bible
Languages : en
Pages : 288

Book Description
After almost two centuries of historical criticism, biblical scholarship has recently taken major shifts in direction, most notably toward literary study of the Bible. Much germinal criticism has taken as its primary focus narrative texts of the Hebrew Bible (the "Old Testament"). This study provides a lucid guide to the interpretive possibilities of this movement. Attempting to be both theoretical and practical, it combines discussion of methods and the business of reading in general with numerous illustrations through readings of particular texts. Gunn and Fewell discuss how literary criticism is related to other dominant ways of reading the text over the last two thousand years. In addition, they address characters, including the narrator and God; plot, modifying recent theory to accommodate the peculiar complexity of biblical narratives; and the play of language through repetition, ambiguity, multivalence, metaphor, and intertextuality. Finally, the authors discuss readers and responsibility, exploring the ideological dimension of narrative interpretation. An extensive bibliography completes the book, arranged by subject and biblical text.

Stories in Scripture and Inscriptions

Stories in Scripture and Inscriptions PDF Author: Simon B. Parker
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
ISBN: 0195116208
Category : Bible
Languages : en
Pages : 206

Book Description
The recovery of numerous narratives of many types from throughout the Near East has encouraged scholars to compare these texts with those found in scripture. Most such comparisons have set biblical stories up against various Near Eastern mythic-epic poems.

The Illustrated Hebrew Bible

The Illustrated Hebrew Bible PDF Author: Ellen Frankel
Publisher: Harry N. Abrams
ISBN: 9780810982246
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 0

Book Description
Designed to bring the wisdom of centuries to a wide audience, this illustrated Hebrew Bible includes 40 selections from the Torah and 35 from Prophets and Writings. It collects compelling stories from this ancient text which are retold in lyrical, accessible language. The volume is illustrated with reproductions of illuminated manuscripts, ancient artefacts, synagogue mosaics and paintings by Renaissance masters an others, including William Blake and Marc Chagall.

Narrative Analogy in the Hebrew Bible

Narrative Analogy in the Hebrew Bible PDF Author: Joshua Berman
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9047413687
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 260

Book Description
This volume sheds fresh light upon the phenomenon of narrative doubling in the Hebrew Bible. Through an innovative interdisciplinary model the author defines the notion of narrative analogy in relation to other literatures where it has been studied such as English Renaissance drama and makes extensive critical use of contemporary literary theory, particularly that of the Russian formalist Vladimir Propp. His exploitation of narrative doubling, with a focus upon the metaphorical, reorients our reading by uncovering a major dynamic in biblical literature. The author examines several battle reports and demonstrates how each could be interpreted as an oblique commentary and metaphor for the non-battle account that immediately precedes it. Battle scenes are revealed to stand in metaphoric analogy with, among others, accounts of a trial, a rape, a drinking feast, and a court-deliberation. Joshua Berman offers new insights to the ever-growing concern with the relationship between historiography and literary strategies, and succeeds in articulating a new aspect of biblical ideology concerning human and divine relationship.

Uncovering Violence

Uncovering Violence PDF Author: Amy Cottrill
Publisher: Westminster John Knox Press
ISBN: 1646982185
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 188

Book Description
It is no surprise that the Bible is filled with stories of violence, having come into being through the crucible of trauma, cultural conflict, and warfare. But the more obvious acts of physical or sexual violence in the Hebrew Bible often overshadow its subtler forms throughout Scripture and belie the variety of perspectives on violence embedded in biblical narratives. This hinders readers' ability to recognize the full spectrum of human engagement with violence, both in texts and in their lived experiences. Uncovering Violence: Reading Biblical Narratives as an Ethical Project seeks to provide a theoretical vocabulary for the various forms that violence can take—including textual violence, interpretive violence, moral injury, and slow violence—and to offer a fresh ethical reading of violence in the biblical text. Focusing on four narratives from the Hebrew Bible, Cottrill uses the approach of narrative ethics to lay out the many ways that stories can make moral claims on readers, not by delivering a discrete "lesson" or takeaway but by making transformative contact with readers and involving them in a more embodied dialogue with the text. Exploring the narratives of Jael’s killing of Sisera, the toxic masculinity of Samson, environmental devastation and failures of legal systems in Ruth, and Abigail’s mediation with King David, Uncovering Violence presents strategies for reading that allow for this close encounter. In doing so, it helps prepare readers to better recognize, interpret, and even respond to violence and its many effects within and beyond the text.

Reading Biblical Narrative

Reading Biblical Narrative PDF Author: Jan P. Fokkelman
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9004397485
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 216

Book Description
This is an enormously instructive and practical hands-on introduction for students of the Bible as literature, by one of the world’s leading exponents of Hebrew narrative technique. Issues covered include: introduction to the art of reading, the narrator and his characters, narrative structure, narrative devices.