The Art of Biblical Narrative

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Summary: A fresh perspective of the Bible
Review: I am a bilble seminary undergraduate from Hong Kong. After I read this book, I found a new perspective (and interest)to read the Bible---the narrative way. Alter helps us to analyse the underlying narrative motive of the Bible writer, which we usually missed

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Summary: A most fascinating introduction into how to read the Bible
Review: Robert Alter's The Art of Biblical Narrative is the sort of book that comes around once in a generation. For the most part, modern Biblical scholars are divided into two camps - homileticists, who tend to reduce every story in the Bible to a moral, and source critics, who chop up the text into various sources. Alter goes a third way. Alter's thesis is that the literary quality of the Bible has been sadly overlooked. To atone, so to speak, for this glaring omission, Alter sets out to show how the narratives in the Bible, even if constituted from a redacted text, nevertheless exhibit exquisite literary qualities. Alter convincingly demonstrates that if we overlook the art of how the stories are told, then we miss much of their meaning.

Alter reveals various techniques used by the Biblical writers to make the stories so compelling. One technique is the reserve of the narrator who often leaves unspoken the motives of the characters, thereby drawing us into the story by compelling us to try to supply what the narrator has withheld. Wordplay, the skillful repetition of words and phrases - so often lost in translation, connects seemingly disparate narratives into a fascinating montage. Type scenes, similar settings and stories such as meeting a future spouse at a well, play off each other, inviting the reader to compare and contrast what happens in one scene with its counterpart and to find meaning in these similarities and differences. The often laconic and subtle remarks of the narrator tend to support or undermine the words spoken and poses struck by the characters, which most of us will miss unless we learn to read the stories closely.

Perhaps the most delicious part of Alter's book is his frequent recourse to the stories themselves in order to demonstrate his points. For example, Alter begins his book by examining the story of Judah and Tamar that falls in the middle of the Joseph story. Tamar, you will recall, was Judah's daughter-in-law. His son and her husband dies and the other brothers do not fulfill their obligation by levirate marriage to carry on the dead son's name by fathering children with Tamar. Tamar ultimately rights this wrong by seducing Judah and conceiving two children by him. Alter reads the story closely and convincingly argues that the story has been woven tightly into the Joseph story by various narrative techniques so that it becomes the fulcrum upon which the stories hinge, making Judah a different person in time for his momentous meeting with Joseph in Egypt. Alter's treatment of the Judah and Tamar story alone is worth the price of the book. Buy the book and read it, you'll never regret having done so. In fact, you'll find yourself rereading it over and over.

Rating:
Summary: A most fascinating introduction into how to read the Bible
Review: Robert Alter's The Art of Biblical Narrative is the sort of book that comes around once in a generation. For the most part, modern Biblical scholars are divided into two camps - homileticists, who tend to reduce every story in the Bible to a moral, and source critics, who chop up the text into various sources. Alter goes a third way. Alter's thesis is that the literary quality of the Bible has been sadly overlooked. To atone, so to speak, for this glaring omission, Alter sets out to show how the narratives in the Bible, even if constituted from a redacted text, nevertheless exhibit exquisite literary qualities. Alter convincingly demonstrates that if we overlook the art of how the stories are told, then we miss much of their meaning.

Alter reveals various techniques used by the Biblical writers to make the stories so compelling. One technique is the reserve of the narrator who often leaves unspoken the motives of the characters, thereby drawing us into the story by compelling us to try to supply what the narrator has withheld. Wordplay, the skillful repetition of words and phrases - so often lost in translation, connects seemingly disparate narratives into a fascinating montage. Type scenes, similar settings and stories such as meeting a future spouse at a well, play off each other, inviting the reader to compare and contrast what happens in one scene with its counterpart and to find meaning in these similarities and differences. The often laconic and subtle remarks of the narrator tend to support or undermine the words spoken and poses struck by the characters, which most of us will miss unless we learn to read the stories closely.

Perhaps the most delicious part of Alter's book is his frequent recourse to the stories themselves in order to demonstrate his points. For example, Alter begins his book by examining the story of Judah and Tamar that falls in the middle of the Joseph story. Tamar, you will recall, was Judah's daughter-in-law. His son and her husband dies and the other brothers do not fulfill their obligation by levirate marriage to carry on the dead son's name by fathering children with Tamar. Tamar ultimately rights this wrong by seducing Judah and conceiving two children by him. Alter reads the story closely and convincingly argues that the story has been woven tightly into the Joseph story by various narrative techniques so that it becomes the fulcrum upon which the stories hinge, making Judah a different person in time for his momentous meeting with Joseph in Egypt. Alter's treatment of the Judah and Tamar story alone is worth the price of the book. Buy the book and read it, you'll never regret having done so. In fact, you'll find yourself rereading it over and over.

Rating:
Summary: The literary approach deepens our understanding of the Bible
Review: This is a pioneering work. Robert Alter uses the techniques of literary criticism to deepen our understanding of the Biblical text. He shows us methods and themes which illuminate the text in a way we have not seen before. This is not in my opinion a question of his having found the right interpretation, but rather of revealing yet another of the ' panem' the various faces, seventy, traditionally through which the Biblical text is interpreted.
Alter interprets the text in a clear non- jargoned language that is refreshing .
Here he explains something about his approach," This sort of critical discussion, I would contend far from neglecting the Bible's religious character, focuses attention on it in a more nuanced way. The implicit theology of the Hebrew Bible dictates a complex moral and psychological realism in biblical narrative because God's purposes are always entrammelled in history, dependent on the acts of individual men and women for their continuing realization. To scrutinize Biblical personages as fictional characters is to see them more sharply in the multi- faceted , contradictory aspects of their human individuality, whichis the biblical God's chosen medium for His experiment with Israel and history. Such scrutiny, however, as I hope I have shown , cannot be based merely on an imaginative impression fo the story but must be undertaken through minute critical attention to the biblical writer's articulations of narrative form. " p. 12
This work as Alter makes clear is intended for both students of narrative, and students of the Bible. There is much to learn here.

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Summary: Art of Biblical Narrative by Alter
Review: This work begins with connecting archaeological discoveries to
important biblical perspectives. It teaches that the Bible is
sacred history and that the 3rd person narrative is a bridge to
future meanings/interpretations. The author shows where there
is much verbatim repetition in Biblical stories/themes. The
book anticipates a more meaningful theological purpose with the
passage of time and experience with Biblical themes. This is
a wonderfful work for biblical scholars, theologians, historians
and a wide constituency of academicians of all faiths.