The Ontology of Space in Biblical Hebrew Narrative: The Determinate Function of Narrative Space within the Biblical Hebrew Aesthetic

137 Pages·2014·1.11 MB·English

by  Luke Gärtner-Brereton

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The central premise of this book is that biblical Hebrew narrative, in terms of b
its structure, tends to operate under similar mechanical constraints to those of a re
stage-play; wherein “space” is central, characters are fluid, and “objects” within the w

narrative tend to take on a deep internal significance. The smaller episodic narrative N
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units within the Hebrew aesthetic tend to grant primacy to space, both ideologically r
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and at the mechanical level of the text itself. However “space,” as a determinate a
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structural category, has been all but overlooked in the field of biblical studies to date; i
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reflecting perhaps our own inability, as modern readers, to see beyond the dominant e
“cinematic” aesthetic of our times. The book is divided into two major sections, each
beginning with a more theoretical approach to the function of narrative space,
and ending with a practical application of the previous discussion; using Genesis
28:10-22 (the Bethel narrative) and the book of Ruth respectively, as test cases.
Luke Gärtner-Brereton completed his undergraduate degree through the Australian
College of Theology in 2003 and lectured in biblical Hebrew studies for a time before
co-founding The Centre for Theology and Politics, a political think tank established
in 2005.
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Cover image: photography and artwork by Michael Bullo
Cover design by Mark Lee www.hisandhersdesign.co.uk
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www.routledge.com e
The Ontology of Space in Biblical Hebrew Narrative
BibleWorld
Series Editor: Philip R. Davies and James G. Crossley, University of Sheffield
BibleWorld shares the fruits of modern (and postmodern) biblical scholarship not only
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of the bible’s role in the history of our civilization and the many perspectives – not just
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biblical scholarship.
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Jerusalem of Biblical Interpretation
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John Rogerson Lowell K. Handy
The Morality of Paul’s Converts Redrawing the Boundaries
Edwin D. Freed The Date of Early Christian Literature
J.V.M. Sturdy, edited by Jonathan Knight
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Mark and its Subalterns : A Hermeneutical Hugh Pyper
Paradigm for a Postcolonial Context From Babylon to Eternity: The Exile
David Joy Remembered and Constructed in Text and
Linguistic Dating of Biblical Texts: An Tradition
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Ian Young and Robert Rezetko der Poll and Anne-Mareike Wetter
Vive Memor Mortis Charismatic Killers :Reading the Hebrew
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Julie Kelso
Tradition
Edited by James G. Crossley
THE ONTOLOGY OF SPACE IN
BIBLICAL HEBREW NARRATIVE
The Determinate Function of Narrative “Space”
within the Biblical Hebrew Aesthetic
Luke Gärtner-Brereton
iv The Ontology of Space in Biblical Hebrew Narrative
First published 2008 by Equinox, an imprint of Acumen
Published 2014 by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN

711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017, USA
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© Luke Gärtner-Brereton 2008

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form
or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including
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Notices
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In using such information or methods they should be mindful of their own safety and the safety of
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British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
ISBN-13 978 1 84553 313 7 (hardback)
978 1 84553 314 4 (paperback)
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Gärtner-Brereton, Luke.
The ontology of space in biblical Hebrew narrative : the determinate function of narrative
space within the biblical Hebrew aesthetic / Luke
Gärtner-Brereton.
p. cm. — (Bibleworld)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 13 978-1-84553-313-7 (hb) — ISBN 978-1-84553-314-4 (pbk.)
1. Bible. O.T. Genesis—Criticism, Narrative. 2. Bible. O.T. Ruth—Criticism, Narrative. 3.
Place (Philosophy) in the Bible. I. Title.
BS1238.P53G37 2007
221.6’6—dc22
2007000747
Typeset by S.J.I. Services, New Delhi
To Coral,
for all that you mean to me
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Firstly, I would like to express my thanks and appreciation to my wife,
Coral, for her support and encouragement throughout the process of
writing this book; to José Moya for proof reading the manuscript and being
ever willing to discuss the ideas presented in it. I must also express my
thorough indebtedness to a dear friend and colleague, Scott Stephens, for
his guidance and input throughout the process of preparing the book, and
for all that he has taught me over the years.
CONTENTS
Introduction 1
Toward an Aesthetics of Biblical Hebrew Narrative 1
Chapter 1. “A Cudgel by Itself Kills” 6
A Proppian Critique of Biblical Narratology 6
The Emergence of Russian Formalism 7
Vladimir Propp and his Morphology of a Folktale 9
Proppian Analysis and the Hebrew Bible 12
Louis Althusser and the Notion of “Interdisciplinarity” 18
Chapter 2. Determining Space in Biblical Hebrew Narrative 25
Aesthetic Difference within the Hebrew Bible 26
Biblical Literature and the Birth of Fiction 30
Biblical Criticism and the Category of “Space” 36
Chapter 3. “How Awesome Is This Place!” 41
Jacob at Bethel – Genesis 28:10-22 42
Chapter 4. The Hebrew Weltanschauung 46
Behind the Smoke and Mirrors 47
The Hebrew Bible as Historical Literature 49
The Hebrew Bible as Religious Literature 53
viii The Ontology of Space in Biblical Hebrew Narrative
“Identity Formation” and the Violence of Biblical
Monotheism 55
Structures of Scarcity 61
Chapter 5 Narrative Space and the Structure of Creation 67
Genesis 1 – Primordial Divisions 68
The Ontology of “the Field(s)”: From Eden to Moab 73
Genesis 25 – Sibling Rivalry 78
Chapter 6 Determining Space in the Book of Ruth 84
Stories within Stories 85
Narrative Space and the Structure of Ruth 86
Narrative Space and the Plot of Ruth 91
Narrative Space and Characterization in Ruth 96
“Overcoming Moab”: A Spatial Reading of the Book
of Ruth 103
Conclusion 106
Determinate “Space” within the Hebrew Aesthetic 106
Endnotes 109
References 118
Index of Authors 125
Index of References 127
INTRODUCTION
Toward an Aesthetics of Biblical Hebrew Narrative
One of the more productive fields of enquiry to have impressed itself upon
contemporary biblical studies in the last thirty years or so, is the discipline
of “Narratology”; namely the branch of narrative criticism which, owing to
its dependence on Saussurean linguistics, views its object as a unified and
coherent whole and seeks to identify and analyse the constitutive elements
of a diverse range of narrative units, specifically in their interrelatedness.
Though it has now fallen somewhat out of theoretical fashion,1 the great
contribution of Narratology,2 as a field of study, was undoubtedly the close
attention it paid to those rhetorical strategies within a text which draw the
reader, at least implicitly, into the story; in other words, the manner in
which the text itself transforms the actual reader (any contingent, empirical
person who happens to pick up the text) into the implied reader (the
implicit reflection of the author, a kind of “reader supposed to know”).3
Through this process, the ideal reader and omniscient author come to
share the same epistemological elements – access to a specific pool of
knowledge, to which characters within the narrative gain only limited or
gradual awareness. The reader is, to a large extent, moulded by the text
itself. Drawn into the narrative, the reader begins to occupy a similar (though
not identical) space as the author himself, somehow above the text but not
beyond it. The recent appropriation of narratological theory by biblical
critics has proven invaluable for the interpretation of biblical texts, while
concomitantly offering biblical critics an effective point of entry into the
broader field of “literary theory.” It is particularly telling, however, that one
of the more conspicuous “narratological” traits to emerge out of this
“literary” approach to the Hebrew Bible (HB henceforth) – the notion of
characterological depth – has been granted almost unparalleled status by
many contemporary biblical critics; a fact which reflects the dominant
presumption that the mode of character representation in the HB is highly