Biblical Hebrew Forum

["B. M. Rocine" <brocine AT twcny.rr.com>]

Dear Clay,

I think Alter is not defining poetic texts by the presence of restrained
diction or even a concentration of figurative language.  I think his
definition of poetic passages requires parallelism.  Furthermore,
parallelism to him requires more than repetition.  It requires that a
parallel verset advances somehow the idea in the antecedent verset.  But if
he cannot use his definition to set the boundaries between poetry and prose
in a convincing or consistent way, it may lend credence to your point below,
that the distinction between poetry and prose is not, in general, as
important as Alter seems to want it to be and that the economy in diction in
Genesis as a whole makes the entire text "literary" or sort of "poetic."

So here's a case where I wonder if Alter has succeeded in pointing out a
convincing boundary between poetry and prose (I will maintain Alter's
lineation in the poetic section, and I will only give his translation.
Folks will have to look up the Hebrew on their own.):

Gen 31:36b-40 (POETRY):

What is my crime, what is my guilt
that you should race after me?

Though you rummaged through all my things,
What have you found of all your household things?

Set it here before my kin and yours
and they shall determine between us two.

These twenty years I have been with you,
your ewes and your she-goats did not lose their young,
the rams of your flock I have not eaten

What was torn up by beasts I've not brought you,
I bore the loss, from my hand you could seek it--
what was stolen by day and stolen by night.

Often--by day the parching heat ate me up
and frost in the night,
and sleep was a stranger to my eyes.

Gen 31:41-42 (PROSE):
These twenty years in your household I served you, fourteen years for your
two daughters, and six years for your flocks, and you switched my wages ten
times over.  Were it not that the God of my father, the God of Abraham and
the Terror of Isaac, was with me, you would have sent me off empty handed.
My suffering and the toil of my hands God has seen, and last night He
determined in my favor.

It seems to me that vv. 41-42 have a good deal of repetition in them
of words and even phrases from elsewhere in the episode.  Note:

years
house/household
served
switched my wages ten times over
sent
flocks
determined (Hb. YKX)

However, as Alter seems to have observed,  they lack the
*parallelism* that would enable them to scan well.  What do you think?

Shalom, Bryan

You wrote:

> 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.
>



B. M. Rocine
Living Word Church
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