Abstract
Bridging together literary and historical approaches, this monograph explores the question of how Old Testament narratives would have been understood by their ancient Israelite audiences. Esler examines eight texts (Gen 38; 1 Sam 1–2; 8–31; 17:1–18:5; 19:1–2 Sam 5:5; Judith; 2 Sam 10–12; 13) by both attending to narrative shape and illuminating the social systems of the first millennium BCE with comparative anthropological data. The result is a sophisticated reading of key story elements and their connections to the socio-cultural values or conventions often misunderstood by modern readers from the north Atlantic.
Two chapters at the start are devoted to issues of method, and Esler argues for an approach that integrates the historical and literary/aesthetic dimensions of texts. First he outlines his literary approach, where he surveys a range of ethnologists and elects to use Christopher Booker’s seven basic categories of folktale plots: ‘Overcoming the Monster’, ‘Rags to Riches’, ‘The Quest’, ‘Voyage and Return’, ‘Comedy’, ‘Tragedy’, and ‘Rebirth’ (The Seven Basic Plots: Why We Tell Stories, Continuum, 2004). Then, in a dense survey of the development of cultural anthropological analyses of Mediterranean life, he outlines the crucial social factors for understanding Old Testament narratives (‘Group Orientation’, ‘Honor and Shame’, ‘Limited Good’, ‘Patrilineality, Patrilocality, and Polygyny’, etc).
The first section, ‘Women’, uses the work of Finnish anthropologist Hilma Granqvist to unpack issues related to childbirth and conflict between wives in the stories of Judah and Tamar, and Hannah, Peninnah and Elkanah. In section two, ‘Warriors’, Esler analyses Saul’s portrayal in 1 Sam 8-31 as a decline in mental health, the theme of ‘Challenge and Response’ in the story of David and Goliath, David’s ‘Quest’ to become king in 1 Sam 19:1–2 Sam 5:5, and narrative connections between Judith’s defeat of Holofernes and David’s defeat of Goliath. Finally, the section ‘Sex’ has two chapters: first, issues of ‘Patron/Client Relationships’ between David, Nathan, and Uriah and the ‘Challenge and Response’ theme of the Ammonite war is discussed; second, the themes of ‘Honor and Shame’ and ‘Limited Good’ are highlighted in the narrative of Amnon, Tamar, and Absalom.
Esler’s analysis of social and cultural themes in these texts is consistently fresh and perceptive, but Booker’s categories can seem overgeneralised in contrast. In the end, they are thought provoking more often than not. Unfortunately, the book contains a number of errors, from spelling and grammar (‘the secondary century BCE’ p. 261, or ‘she bares him a son’ p. 316), to regrettable mishaps (‘having sold David to Potiphar’ p. 81, and ‘it is David—carrying Saul’s head in his hand’ p. 211). Nevertheless, the book is filled with valuable insight. A wide range of readers will benefit from Esler’s distillation of anthropological research and from his fresh reading of familiar texts.