II.

RESPONSE
W. Malcolm Clark
Butler University
0. Modern criticism has not exhausted the meanings of biblical narratives. Interpreters
before the era of higher criticism grasped meanings which are untouched by modern
interpretation. There is a need for new approaches, but to supplement rather than to replace
traditional approaches. Of interest to me is where these articles go beyond traditional methods
and what is their relationship to them. Among newer approaches not represented here are
efforts to deal linguistically with the style, grammar, and semantics of narrative.
1. Several of the articles reflect the growing awareness of the need to look at the narrative
on its own terms and not be impatient to arrive somewhere else (kerygma, etc.). McEvenues
stylistic analysis increases ones amazement that Old Testament interpretation has so long
ignored so basic a task. McEvenue makes clear that stylistic analysis is relevant to
understanding the authors intent. This approach is not in opposition to other ways of
analyzing a narrative. Indeed, McEvenues willingness first to determine the text of a specific
author rather than accept the received text as an autonomous entity would be objectionable to
some stylistic (rhetorical) critics. Of course, stylistic analysis is also properly applied to the
received text.
1.1 Gunn provides a thematic analysis of the succession narrative. But does the theme of
gift result in a more persuasive reading than other possible themes such as life and death?
How do we answer this question? If gift is a central theme, is it part of this narratives unique
statement rather than intrinsic to the subject and the cultural code by which the subject is
treated? Attention to anthropological studies of gifts could have broadened the appreciation of
gift in this text. Gunns article does indirectly raise the question of the relationship between
different readings of the succession narrative. Is only one reading valid and intended? How
does the reading shift according to the context in relation to which we interpret it
(anthropological, historical, literary, theological)? By arguing for the text as an artistic
product, Gunn has opted for reading in one context. But he rightly emphasizes that the text
does not only utilize the relationship of actor to actor. It also manipulates our relationship to
the actors. Without discussing the audience (extrinsic criticism) how do we know the authors
audience read David in the way Gunn suggests we read him? Additionally, does the artist in
Israel take up pen with only artistic intent any more than the historian or propagandist takes
up pen with no artistic concern? The tradition of New Criticism emphasizes the interpretation
of the text apart from biography, history, sociology, etc. Anthropologists say that in order to
receive the message (communication) of a text produced in another culture, we must know
that cultural context as fully as possible. To recognize the theme, to determine what is a
symbol and of what, to know where and if there is irony and ambiguity as part of the
communication, we must grasp the underlying code which enables the text to produce
meaning. This is the concern of semiology and of Barthes poetics.
2. Longs study of prophetic miracle stories points out a little exploited resource of special
significance to form-critics. Form-criticism emphasizes the social setting of the genre.
Anthropologists have devoted much attention to how legal, religious, and other institutions
function and interrelate. Long recognizes the danger of inappropriate comparisons in drawing
on this information. Yet the anthropologist must spend seven to ten seasons in a society to
understand how the myths and rituals of that society function. Can the Old Testament scholar
hope to reconstruct adequately the social setting of a genre on the basis of two or twenty
texts?

2.1 As regards Longs proposed setting for the prophetic miracle narratives, we do not
know whether such shaman stories were told before the institution became decadent and if so
whether they were different in content or form. Long asks how the belief or story elements
are related to the social context (the traditional anthropological question). The question must
also be turned around: how does the social context function in relation to the belief/story
aspect?
3. Both Polzins and Whites papers strenghthen my conviction that structuralism has
something to contribute, especially to the analysis of the final text. In Polzins analysis of
transformations within a paradigmatic group of narratives, I am not clear whether the texts
were put together for the effect he describes, or whether that effect was the result of their
having been put together for other reasons. Either way, the stories are so similar that the
reader in reading one is affected by the other two. Something similar happens to the reader of
Chronicles who knows the picture of David in the Deuteronomic History. Polzin illustrates
another potential benefit of a structuralistic approach in discussing (6.21) the interaction of
different levels of the text (analogous to different levels of linguistic analysis). Further, Polzin
tries to tie the meaning of the text to a code which enables the text to have meaning when
he discusses the relationship between three modes of revelation.
3.1 I have some unanswered questions concerning the relation of Polzins two sets of
transformations to each other. Also I do not find adequately explained the order of the
sequence from the second to the third story. And despite Polzins criticism of Koch, I see
nothing incompatible between this type of analysis and diachronic studies of source, tradition
history, etc.
3.2 Culleys approach illustrates what folklore studies can contribute to the study of Old
Testament narratives. The abstracting of the sequential elements produces a pattern. Stories of
similar pattern form a group. But what is the status and nature of the group, especially in
comparison to the groups of genre analysis? Structural linguistics emphasizes that its groups
are not convenient taxonomic groups. They are real groups. On the recognition of these
groups depends the successful analysis of the language code. The genres of form-criticism are
also real groups. Their distinction in linguistic terms is marked rather than unmarked. Do
the readers perceive Culleys groups as marked? We need more information on the nature of
the group and its effect as group upon the reader.
3.3 Finally, adding to my previous comments on Barthes (Whites article), I appreciate
Barthes focus on the multiple levels (often in tension) and overlaping codes of a text. This
may provide a clue for integrating different approaches to a text. Also welcome is Barthes
discussion of ambiguity, the possibility of multiple meanings in contrast to a single kerygma,
and the emergence of new meaning in new readings of the text. However, when finished I
have a lurking question in my mind whether Barthes is helping me to reconstruct the
meaning(s) of the narrative for previous readers including the ancient Hebrews, or whether he
is using the story to create a new variant and a new meaning whose relationship to previous
readings remains unclarified.
1

1Robert C. Culley, ed ; Robert C. Culley, ed ; Society of Biblical Literature:

Semeia. Semeia 3. Missoula, MT : Society of Biblical Literature, 1975 (Semeia 3),
S. 133