The Poetics of Biblical Narrative - Part 3

We are reading through Meir Sternberg’s The Poetics of Biblical Narrative, page by page. It is one of the most important books to read if you want to understand how to read the Bible in its literary depths. We are still in the preface, so let us jump right in.

Sternberg writes:

In emphasis and arrangement more generally, this book differs from the book that I might write—indeed, from the drafts I did write—without benefit of hindsight. For its thrust reflects the experience gained from the reception and fortunes of my published work on the Bible over the last fifteen years, starting from the serious repercussions of the very first essay in the series, “The King Through Ironic Eyes.” The need for a poetics offering a new language and a sense of purpose has turned out even deeper, certainly more widespread, than one familiar with the happy state of the field might expect.

Remember what he means by the need for a poetics. He means we need a list of tools and techniques to understand how the biblical authors communicate their message—their ideology. And once again, ideology is not used in a negative sense here. It simply means their worldview, their vision. The biblical text is layered. There are layers of meaning; it is not just a simple, moralistic work. That complexity is precisely why you need a poetics. If the text were simple, you would not need an entire poetics, or your poetics would be very small.

Sternberg continues:

Even the antagonism evoked, often to be silently revoked in time, would appear only differently revealing from the more common welcome and acceptance. By a process too recent and multiple to trace, but clearly gaining momentum, the situation has changed for the better since.

So the reception has improved, specifically regarding the recognition that the Bible consists of deep literary texts. I would add that this appreciation has actually been intrinsic to the history of interpretation all the way through, even if we did not historically describe it in these modern terms.

The Toolkit of Poetics

Sternberg then gives a list of these conceptual tools:

Gaps, ambiguity, redundancy, exposition, temporal ordering, omniscient viewpoint, reader process, patterns of analogy, alternate forms of reference, indirect characterization, and rhetoric—such concepts, among the most productive so far, show signs of generating a powerful discourse about the Bible, which traditional scholarship must come to terms with.

This is a major sentence. Sternberg frequently provides these lists of poetic devices, and they are wonderful. Make sure to note them down and understand what they mean. In the book, there are entire chapters or substantial sections devoted to each one.

I remember the first time I encountered terms like these; I had no idea what they meant. But in hindsight, after studying them, you realize they are beautiful little morsels. You begin to grasp how authors use gaps and ambiguity, or temporal ordering—how they order and reorder events that occur in real life. It is fascinating, and you want to keep these concepts in the back of your mind. If you do not understand them, you miss the depths of biblical poetics.

These are the specific tools the author uses. Take gaps, for example: the author spaces out time between when a promise is made, when it is fulfilled, when something is merely hinted at, and when the full story is finally disclosed. Sternberg is arguing that the tools in this list have generated a powerful discourse capable of uncovering the depths of what is happening in the Scriptures.

He notes that “traditional scholarship must come to terms with” this development. As I reflected earlier, most of the professors I studied under had not really come to terms with it. There might be a passing reference to Sternberg or Robert Alter, but in their actual interpretive practice, it was clear they had not truly ingested it.

Sternberg then writes:

I for one am now more convinced than ever that here lies the future of biblical studies as a whole.

I completely agree.

Boundaries and False Equivalence

Yet Sternberg sounds an important note of caution:

Yet time has also revealed some covert, perhaps not even conscious, variations within this evolving discourse, uniformly oriented though it seems to the text itself as object and to literary study as a discipline. Of course, the new approaches need no more speak with one voice than the old; but nor must terminological pass for conceptual unity, or reaction for reorientation.

Within the broader movement of literary interpretation, there are many different schools. Sternberg recognizes that variety is natural, but that does not mean anything and everything calling itself literary interpretation genuinely qualifies. Terminological agreement should not be mistaken for conceptual coherence. There are extremes on both sides.

Sternberg explains how this affected the book:

Ironically enough, it is on such matters that I have increasingly found it necessary to enlarge from one version of the book to another, with a view to sorting out the lines of inquiry as well as in pure self-defense against the good intentions of fellow inquirers in Israel and elsewhere. Hence the care taken as early as the opening chapter to spell out the business of biblical poetics, historical dimension included; to dissociate it from some assumptions about text and context recently made and attributed to me by the “literary approach”; and to suggest how far the relationship between literary theory and biblical analysis is from the one-way traffic called “application.”

Sternberg felt compelled to address this directly. In the opening chapter, he explores how literary analysis fits alongside other disciplines, particularly its relationship to the historical dimension of the text. In some quarters of literary studies, it became fashionable to treat literary interpretation as a completely sequestered world with no relationship to what actually happened in history. Sternberg rejects that view as obviously false.

He adds:

If anything, it still needs to be repeated: doing justice to the Bible’s intricate art requires a theory—and for that matter, a history—of narrative considerably more developed than the best now available. Even such questions of method and theory, however, are not in heaven. On the contrary, since the Bible takes measures to render its story accessible to all, here lies much of its originality and my theme.

The Genius of the Simple Surface

This touches on a characteristic feature of the genius of Scripture: it possesses a remarkably simple surface. The vocabulary and syntax are typically straightforward and uncomplicated. The fact that the biblical authors achieve such artistic and theological depth through such a simple surface is a hallmark of true genius.

I think this characterizes genius across the greatest works of art, whether in Plato or Shakespeare. They possess the capacity to communicate profound depth through a clear, accessible surface.

Consider an illustration I have used before. Suppose a brilliant scientist publishes an advanced paper. If you were to ask them to rewrite that paper so that a middle schooler could understand it, they would likely reply that doing so is far too difficult. There is an accurate intuition that rendering complex realities simple is exceptionally demanding. Doing so successfully is the mark of high genius.

Sternberg remarks:

It is only appropriate that a work in biblical poetics should follow suit. This book is addressed to all students of the Bible, professional and other; also to comparatists, narratologists, and lovers of narrative at large. No special expertise in literary or biblical studies is assumed. My translations are literal enough and the transliteration simple enough to enable even non-Hebraist readers to follow textural analyses as well as the drift of my argument.

He then pauses to express gratitude to colleagues, audiences, and students:

This is a good opportunity to thank the many scholars, academic audiences, schoolteachers, common readers, and not least my students, who have responded and questioned. Perhaps their most important contribution has been the evidence that it still greatly matters how we make sense of the Bible.

He acknowledges his specific debts:

I owe a special debt to Menakhem Perry, with whom I made the first step and with whom I met the first wave of attack on the way to this book. Thanks are also due to my other colleagues, Benjamin Hrushovski and Itamar Even-Zohar, for opening the columns of the literary quarterly Ha-Sifrut to the adventures of biblical poetics at a time when editors might well hesitate. The final version of this book would probably still be in the making were it not for Robert Polzin’s encouragement and support—support far beyond the call of editorial duty. His vision and friendship have made all the difference.

Robert Polzin is another major figure in biblical literary studies. Sternberg concludes his acknowledgments with his wife:

To give an idea of my debt to Tamar Yacobi, Proverbs 31 might well serve well enough, except that it says nothing about the wife’s being a professional helpmeet, and one as worth listening to as ready to listen.

Looking Up to the Ancients

Sternberg concludes the preface with a striking reflection:

I want to end where my schooling began and my affections still linger: with a tribute to the great tradition of Jewish exegesis, originating and to me also culminating in the ancient rabbis. My admiration for their interpretive genius—and I do not use such terms lightly—is only equaled by my variance from their premises and licenses.

Let us pause over this tribute to the ancient rabbis. This touches on a principle I learned years ago from Russell Kirk, the great conservative thinker. One of the dividing lines between a conservative disposition and a progressive one is a person’s comportment toward the past. It includes the proposition that certain aspects of human life and thought may have reached a zenith long ago. We should never simply assume that our present moment is the most advanced.

When you adopt that posture, opening an old book becomes transformative: you recognize that the author may be higher than you.

One of the great pathologies of modern education is what I call transgression treasure hunting. In that environment, the goal is no longer to expound a text in its depth, but rather to hunt for where the author went wrong—cataloging every transgression regarding modern social categories. That small ideological shift represents a catastrophic reversal of education. Figures like Shakespeare or the biblical authors are supposed to be the masters, and we are the students. Turning that relationship upside down has made much of modern higher academia a dumpster fire.

Sternberg, however, approaches the ancient rabbis with profound respect:

At a higher level than method, deeper than the ready-made opposition of the scholarly to the creative, their way with biblical language remains exhilarating and liberating. However wild by normal standards of interpretation, their readings do at least practice all the time what Humpty Dumpty, with his footling glosses on his opaque text, merely preaches: that if you make words do your will, you must pay them extra. Whether and how a poetics can improve upon that balance—whether a sense of a system at work can keep the interpreter’s will on a tighter rein while offering the Bible’s words comparable, if not higher, pay—this is the question.

That is beautifully put. The central question is whether a systematic poetics can discipline the interpreter’s will while still doing full justice to the rich, living words of the text. Next time, we will begin with chapter one.

Watch the original episode.