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  • From: JimStinehart AT aol.com
  • To: George.Athas AT moore.edu.au, b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] And Samuel turned back after Saul: the meaning of 1 Samuel 31
  • Date: Thu, 23 Jul 2009 10:17:51 EDT


George wrote to Karl: “I am astonished that you don't know who Robert
Alter is. He is one of the prime movers in literary criticism of biblical
literature. His two seminal works are "The Art of Biblical Narrative" and
"The Art
of Biblical Poetry".” George then further wrote to Karl: “Alter's works
are highly recommended.” If I may be permitted to make a comment that
concerns two different threads…

Prof. Robert Alter is also well known for his translation of, and
commentary on, Genesis. One nice thing about Prof. Alter’s book is that he
often
comments on the particular usage of Biblical Hebrew language (which is his
strong suit). Here is a classic example of how Prof. Alter examines the style
of Biblical Hebrew language that is being used in a particular passage:

“The seventeen-year-old Joseph reports the first of his dreams to his
brothers in the following manner: ‘And, look, we were binding sheaves in the
field, and, look, my sheaf arose and actually [wegam] stood up, and, look,
your
sheaves drew round and bowed to my sheaf.’ (37.7). The language here is
surely crafted mimetically to capture the gee-gosh wonderment of this naïve
adolescent who blithely assumes his brothers will share his sense of
amazement at his dream. The presentative hineh (‘look’) is the conventional
term
dreamers use to report the visual images of their dreams, perhaps partly
because it readily introduces a surprising new perception, but here Joseph
repeats the term three times in one breathless sentence, and the effect of
naïve
astonishment is equally expressed in his redundant ‘arose and actually stood
up’ (the Hebrew adverb gam most often means ‘also’ but fairly frequently
serves as well as a term of emphasis or intensification). The point is that
the adolescent Joseph speaking to his brothers does not at all sound like
the adult Joseph addressing Pharaoh, and a translation should not reduce
either dialogue or narrator’s language to a single dead level.” Robert
Alter, “
Genesis: Translation and Commentary” (1996), at p. xxxiv.

Although Prof. Alter himself does not quite realize it, there is no way
that the Hebrew author of the Patriarchal narratives would use that language
for Joseph’s report of his dream if the Hebrew author wanted us to think that
Joseph had witnessed 17 fall New Years. No way. The very language of
Biblical Hebrew itself is telling us that Joseph is much younger than that.

Jim Stinehart
Evanston, Illinois

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