Biblical Hebrew Forum

[CS Bartholomew <jacksonpollock AT earthlink.net>]

On 8/14/03 5:25 AM, "B. M. Rocine" <brocine AT twcny.rr.com> wrote:

> I think one of the most powerful arguments that Alter offers for translating
> the Hebrew somewhat literally or "woodenly" is his observation that the
> narrative of the Bible is achieved with such a limited Hebrew lexicon.  The
> creators of the Biblical narrative worked within the constraint of a
> literary convention that esteemed economy in diction.  It seems sometimes
> that the variety of stories are expressed by the same words and structures
> re-used.  ...

Bryan, 

"... narrative of the Bible is achieved with such a limited Hebrew lexicon."

Alter's argument seems to hang a lot of weight on the distinction between
narrative and poetry. I am beginning to wonder if this distinction is really
important to his thesis.

Frank H. Polak** identifies lexical and syntactical features that
distinguish poetic material from prose. Based on his criteria the Gen. 1
creation account fails to fit into either category. Using Polak's criteria a
refrain such as:  wyr) )lhym ky +wb is poetic.

But in Gen: 1:4  wyr) )lhyM )t h)wr ky +wb

we run into a definite article and the use of )wr which according to Alter
(p. xxxvi) marks a narrative text. The use of )wr and m)wr being an example
of "... narrative of the Bible ... achieved with such a limited Hebrew
lexicon." 

So in my rather confused state of mind, I suspect that the narrative/poetry
distinction which seems to be employed as kind of a Saussurain binary
opposition in these discussions is really a burden that could be cast aside.
Alter's observations about limited lexical stock and repitition could be
made just as well without getting embroiled in sticky problem of defining
the boundaries between Biblical Hebrew narrative and poetry.

Thanks for your concise and clear summary of Alter's approach.


greetings,
Clay Bartholomew 
 
**page 6, Poetic style and parallelism in the creation account (Genesis
1.1-2.3) / Frank H. Polak   In Creation in Jewish and Christian tradition /
edited by Henning Graf Reventlow and Yair Hoffman. London : Sheffield
Academic Press, c2002.