Narrative Obtrusion in the Hebrew Bible

Narrative critics of the Hebrew Bible often describe the biblical narrators as laconic, terse, or economical. The narrators generally remain in the background, allowing the story to proceed while relying on characters and dialogue to provide necessary information to readers. On those occasions when these narrators add notes to their stories, scholars may characterize such interruptions as asides or redactions.

Christopher T. Paris calls attention to just these narrative interruptions, in which the storyteller breaks frame to provide information about a character or even in order to direct reader understanding and, Paris argues, to prevent undesirable construals or interpretations of the story.

After surveying the phenomenon of omniscient narration and narrative obtrusiveness in the Hebrew Bible and other ancient Near Eastern literature, Paris focuses on the Deuteronomistic History. Here the narrator occasionally obtrudes into the narrative to manage or deflect anticipated reader questions and assumptions, sometimes invoking the divine, sometimes protecting a favored character, in an interpretive stance that Paris compares with the commentary provided by later rabbis and in the Targums. Attention to narrative obtrusion offers an entry point into the world of the narrator, Paris argues, and thus promises to redefine aspects of narrative criticism.

Author: Christopher T. Paris
Publisher: Augsburg Fortress Publishing
Published: 07/01/2014
Pages: 176
Binding Type: Paperback
Weight: 0.72lbs
Size: 8.96h x 6.24w x 0.48d
ISBN: 9781451482119

About the Author
Paris, Christopher T.: -

Christopher T. Paris received his PhD in Hebrew Bible from Vanderbilt University, completing this dissertation under Jack Sasson. He is a lecturer in biblical studies at Vanderbilt Divinity School. His chief areas of interest are narrative criticism, especially of the Deuteronomistic History, and ancient Near Eastern literature.

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