Discourse Analysis of Biblical Literature: What it Is and What it Offers (SBL Semeia Studies # 27)

• Publisher:   Scholars Press
• Number Of Pages:   274
• Publication Date:   1995
• ISBN-10 / ASIN:   0788500104
• ISBN-13 / EAN:   9780788500107

This collection introduces the linguistic field of discourse analysis and its application to the study of the Hebrew Bible. Departing from an earlier emphasis on the analysis of sentences and parts of sentences, linguistics have more recently broadened their approach to include an examination of entire texts and discourse units. Applying this approach to biblical texts offers hope of resolving several long-standing persistent literary questions.

“Introduction: Discourse Analysis of Biblical Literature: What It Is and What It Offers”
— Walter R. Bodine

“Building for the Worship of God: Exodus 25:1–30:10”
— Robert E. Longacre

“Isaiah 40:1–11 in the Context of the Macrostructure of Second Isaiah”
— David McLain Carr

“Functional Grammar, Hebrew and Aramaic: An Integrated, Textlinguistic Approach to Syntax”
— Randall Buth

“The Theoretical Foundations of Hebrew Discourse Grammar”
— Kirk E. Lowery

“Stylistics for the Study of Ancient Texts: Wandering in the Borderlands”
— Tova Meltzer

“Discourse Functions of Quotative Frames in Biblical Hebrew Narrative”
— Cynthia L. Miller

“Progress and Cohesion in Biblical Narrative: The Function of ke/be + the Infinitive Construct”
— Douglas M. Gropp “Bibliography: A Classified Discourse Analysis Bibliography”
— Kirk E. Lowery

The studies in this volume seek to show how the linguistic discipline of discourse analysis (also called text linguistics) can aid in understanding biblical literature, specifically the Hebrew Bible. In his opening essay, Bodine briefly introduces discourse analysis. It presupposes that linguistic investigation must focus on units larger than the sentence, the traditional object of linguistic analysis; such larger units are termed discourses (or texts). Bodine summarizes the theories of several leading practitioners. There is some jargon to decipher, as in the discussion of discourse levels beyond background and foreground, where Bodine illustrates with examples from Totonac. Jargon aside, when he outlines "Tasks That Require a Discourse Approach" within biblical studies (pp. 10-11), he offers no rationale for why discourse analysis might prove helpful in the analysis of, e.g., "the use of locative and temporal expressions." Nevertheless, Bodine illuminates the conditions within biblical studies that now make the discipline appealing. Literary critical methods have become prominent, as atomistic analytic methods (e.g., source and redaction criticism) yield to concerns with the text as it stands. Discourse analysis is similarly oriented (also see Lowery, pp. 103-7).

Robert Longacre identifies Exod. 25:1-30:10 as an "instructional discourse." A pioneer in discourse analysis, Longacre argues that "instruction" is a distinct discourse type. This thesis depends on his earlier generic analyses of discourse types. There is also some unwieldy jargon, as when he says that "the peak" of Exod. 29:38-46 - a "discourse" - is "not necessarily a discrete area, but rather a zone of turbulence and excitement" (p. 34). The greatest potential for application of discourse methods may be in the analysis of verb sequences: Longacre argues that the onset of major sections in Exod 25:1-30:10 is signaled by an imperative and/or what he calls a "cleft sentence" (zeh/ elleh [null] [null verb in nominal clause] X aser verb). Attention to the syntax of the verb in discourses is a common and productive concern of several of the papers in this volume.

David Carr argues that Isa. 40:1-2 and 6-8 are "meta-communicative statements" that "play a critical role in setting the stage for the text in 40:9ff." (p. 62). His observations build on traditional critical research and he concludes that while there is a "fundamental break" between vv. 1-8 and 9-11, both are integral to the oracle. The conclusion that Isaiah 40-48 "are designed to elicit a certain kind of behavior from the audience through emphasis on the prophet's critical role in the chain of divine authority" does not startle. Cart does raise a nagging problem that will certainly occur to biblicists: the methods of discourse analysis "developed from modern 'integrated' texts must be applied with care to the products of redaction" (i.e., all biblical texts). This is surely true, and not sufficiently emphasized in the above studies.

Three papers analyze aspects of discourse "theory" in its possible application to the Hebrew Bible. Randall Buth discusses the application of discourse linguistics within the framework of a functional grammar. One of his interesting conclusions is that waw-conversive verb forms (with verb-subject word order) function within discourses to make continuity-foreground, while verb second structures mark discontinuity-background. Kirk Lowery's essay on selecting the most useful approach to discourse analysis for Hebraists gives the volume's best overview of major theoretical approaches. He advocates adoption of a grammatical approach to discourse (not a cognitive or anthropological one), offering a provisional outline of a discourse grammar. Here, however, the analysis is removed from actual Hebrew textual phenomena, and the reader is adrift. Tova Meltzer's discussion focuses on style, a "slippery and elusive concept" (p. 131). After a discussion of the history of linguistic scholarship on style, Meltzer notes that "the notion of style depends upon consideration of text, that is, language as discourse. The trend is toward more unified analyses" (p. 137). In a discourse context, thus, style cannot serve as the category into which anomalous grammatical usages fall. Despite this argument, Meltzer's refusal to offer a definition of style handicaps the presentation.

Two studies under the heading "Grammar" may be of most interest to Hebraists. Cynthia Miller analyzes quotative frames - the speech of a reporting speaker - and the use of the infinitive construct [Hebrew Text Omitted]. She challenges the traditional view that [Hebrew Text Omitted] is the marker of direct speech, and the recent view that it represents an extension of the gerundive use of infinitives. Miller suggests instead that quotative frames with [Hebrew Text Omitted] signal a context that does not purport to mirror a real, two-party speech situation. Also, quotative frames with [Hebrew Text Omitted] function to introduce speech of unknown or anonymous persons in a narrative, or to relate a series of embedded quotations from the perspective of the principal speaker. All of these functional observations depend on analysis of the larger discourses in which reported speech occurs, and Miller's study is one of the best examples in the volume of how discourse analysis can go beyond traditional linguistic definitions. Douglas Gropp insists that to understand the function of the ke-/be infinitive construct in biblical narrative also requires a syntactic framework larger than the sentence. To limit his discussion, he analyzes the occurrences of the ke-/be infinitive construct introduced by wayhi. This construction is used in narrative discourses to achieve cohesion through "backreference" - recalling previous information. Several other conclusions emerge from his analysis of common backreferencing techniques that employ these infinitives: when the main verb (usually wayyiqtol) follows the ke- infinitive construct, it is temporally contingent, when it follows be-, there is temporal overlap. Also, the ke- infinitive construct usually precedes the main verb, while the be- infinitive construct has a freer distribution. Gropp's analysis is very well illustrated, and represents a step forward in the study of Hebrew narrative syntax, again through analysis of units larger than the sentence.

This collection of essays will be valuable for Hebraists who are aware of discourse analysis; but it would also repay study for biblicists hoping to become familiar with newer linguistic trends (here Lowery's concluding bibliography is excellent). In this case, the linguistic trend closely mirrors literary critical tendencies that analyze the text as it stands. Even those wary of such approaches will find value in the grammatical analyses, which make a strong case for linguistic study of discourses. It remains less clear how the exegetical concerns of most biblicists will be enhanced by discourse analysis.

DAVID VANDERHOOFT BOSTON COLLEGE

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