Abstract
To many readers Genesis 38 seems incongruous with the Joseph story that envelops it. Yet structural and thematic elements shared between both stories reveal a type-scene connection that renders the stories' adjacent placement meaningful. In its concentrated plot replete with irony, Genesis 38 operates as a lens through which its audience might better understand the longer—but similarly shaped and irony-filled—plot of the Joseph story. In this study a preparatory review of relevant methodological concerns—including the narrative phenomena of irony, peripeteia (reversal), and anagnorisis (recognition)—facilitates in providing a basic illustration of the type-scene to which both stories adhere. This ‘counter-deceiver’ type-scene consists primarily of the following chain of events: an act of deception, an act of counter-deception, a confession or acknowledgment of wrongdoing, and a final anagnorisis. Because irony represents an ingredient integral to these events, tracing its presence in the two stories confirms as well as clarifies the contours of the type-scene.
Introduction
From the perspective of many readers and listeners, both ancient and contemporary, the story of Tamar in Genesis 38 sits rather uncomfortably in the midst of the Joseph story (Gen. 37–50). 1 Apart from the character of Judah, the entire cast differs from that of the Joseph novella, and the setting too is unique. Furthermore, the story itself makes few overt connections with the surrounding Joseph story, and its outcome has seemingly little, if any, bearing on the direction of the Joseph novella. Why then would the narrator include the story of Tamar amid the apparently unrelated events that comprise the story of Joseph?
While, on the surface, the story of Tamar does seem incongruous with the Joseph novella, one should not dismiss its relevance too hastily. 2 Two ostensibly unrelated stories might actually have more in common than it seems at first, provided that one's eyes are open to seeing a connecting piece. In 2 Samuel 12, Nathan relates to King David a simple anecdote that, to David's first glance, has little relevance to the story of his own life. Only after Nathan draws the explicit connection between the sinful man in his story and David—‘You are the man’—can David perceive the relevance and import of Nathan's story.
Because Genesis 38 does not plainly resound with similarities to the Joseph story, one must look beyond the surface of its immediate consistency, that comprised of a different cast and a different setting. Like the connection between Nathan's anecdote and King David's life, the association between Genesis 38 and the Joseph novella may have less to do with the specific characters and the setting, and more to do with the shape of the plot and the themes couched within that trajectory. Indeed, in both stories one confronts a dramatic reversal of circumstances through which a host of ironies emerge. Roles are reversed, positions of authority are exchanged, expectations are confounded, and resolution for all parties is achieved in most unexpected ways.
Based on the two stories' shared structural and thematic elements, this study will seek to demonstrate that the plot of Genesis 38 constitutes a particular type-scene to which the surrounding Joseph story also adheres. In its concentrated plot replete with irony, Genesis 38 may thus operate as a lens through which its audience might better understand the longer—but similarly shaped and irony-filled—plot of the Joseph novella. 3 Consequently, the two stories do not sit independently of each other. On the contrary, they comprise one integral narrative.
Method
Before exploring the stories' type-scene connection as well as the ironic tone intrinsic to the shared type-scene, a few notes should be made concerning this study's method of literary analysis—particularly with regard to the narrative concepts of irony, peripeteia, and anagnorisis.
Irony: Basic Characteristics and Types
To discuss in any detail the slippery slope that constitutes irony, one must first define it. But as D.C. Muecke observes, there is ‘no brief and simple definition that will include all kinds of irony while excluding all that is not irony’. 4 Or, as Edwin M. Good artfully explains: ‘Irony, like love, is more readily recognized than defined’. 5 Irony represents so vast a concept, spanning centuries and a wide variety of contexts, that it resists simple categorization.
While irony appears itself in a myriad of different forms, a few basic characteristics prove common to many of its recognized expressions. Perhaps Muecke best encapsulates irony's common characteristics in his succinct yet thorough definition of irony, according to which: (1) irony is double-layered; (2) it involves some sort of opposition between the two layers; and (3) it includes within it an element of unawareness. 6
Just as any definition of irony risks neglecting some of its less common traits, so too the classification of its types risks omitting some of its more unusual forms. Nonetheless, a basic classification of types will undoubtedly assist in this study's assessment of irony, specifically with regard to the patterns of irony shared between both stories' plot progressions.
Situational irony and verbal irony represent perhaps the two most fundamental categories of irony. Situational irony entails an incongruity in the way things are. It most often involves a contrast between expectation and reality, or between appearance and reality. The example of 2 Sam. 11.1 would qualify as situational irony, because the reality of David's behavior differs from what one would expect of a king. Verbal irony entails an incongruity in what one says. It transpires when the literal meaning of a statement contrasts with the meaning implied by the speaker. 7 Ehud's statement to King Eglon just prior to his assassination of the king represents an excellent example of verbal irony. 8 When Ehud informs Eglon that he has a רתם־רבד for him, Eglon likely interprets the phrase literally, expecting a ‘secret word’ (Judg. 3.19). 9 But as the narrator has already alerted the audience to the presence of Ehud's dagger, the audience knows that Ehud intends a different meaning. 10 His רתם־רבד refers not to a bit of conversation but to a dagger. In addition to these two fundamental types of irony, it is also useful to distinguish a third type, dramatic irony, which actually resides within the confines of situational irony. 11 Dramatic irony refers to a specific sort of situational irony in which the audience knows what a character or group of characters does not. Abraham's preparations for the sacrifice of Isaac qualify as an instance of dramatic irony. While Isaac mistakenly believes that Abraham makes preparations for the burnt offering of a sheep, the audience possesses the privileged knowledge that Abraham actually makes the preparations for him. 12
The Conception of Irony in Antiquity and the Issue of Authorial Intention
One should recognize that the theoretical terms of irony discussed in this study did not comprise part of the biblical audience's mindset. 13 Like many of the theoretical constructs employed in biblical scholarship, they are ‘only heuristic [and] serve to open up possibilities of interpretation rather than having some essential reality in themselves’. 14 Indeed, in antiquity, irony as a narrative construct remained ‘unnamed, unconceptualized’. 15 But by no means did it remain unused. It featured frequently throughout ancient narrative—biblical and nonbiblical—especially in stories that involved some sort of reversal of situation.
This popular scene of reversal occurred regularly enough that its audience in antiquity recognized and appreciated its distinct features. Aristotle classifies it as peripeteia, a turning point. Forming the basis of many ancient tragedies and comedies, peripeteia consists mainly of a sudden turn of events that reverses the existing circumstances. 16 The biblical audience would likely have been familiar with such scenes, for the broader strokes of Hebrew narrative seem to revel in this sort of reversal: the younger brother eclipses the older, ostensibly barren women conceive and give birth, the enslaved and oppressed achieve freedom, and so on.
Thus it seems rather conceivable that, while the ancient Hebrew audience may not have recognized irony in the same terms that modern scholarship does, it acknowledged and valued those instances of reversal that sprinkle the narratives. One should not limit, however, irony's presence in the Old Testament narrative to these instances of situational reversal. The ancient Hebrew narrative style suits the presentation of irony not only in situations of peripeteia but also in more subtle incongruities. In line with what has been labeled the ‘law of thrift’, ancient Hebrew narrative only presents what it deems essential to the story. 17 Such a style of communication accords with the covert manner in which irony makes its appearance. As Duke claims, 'For ironic communication to happen, some degree of silence must be kept by the author'. 18 So the way by which ancient Hebrew narrative operates, keeping silent and sometimes employing an ‘indeterminacy of meaning’, naturally lends itself to the communication of irony. 19 Just as irony functions through suggestion rather than direct expression, so Old Testament narrative often communicates suggestively through the elements of restraint and ambiguity. 20 That such a proclivity for indeterminacy and ambiguity should lend itself so well to the employment of irony one can witness in Ehud's message to Eglon. The polyvalence of the two words רתם־רבד (Judg. 3.19) allows for the verbal irony that the narrator likely intends.
One last note may prove helpful in distinguishing between the terms ‘author’ and ‘narrator’. In discussing the narrative that includes the Joseph novella and the story of Tamar, this study will primarily refer to the narrator. While narrative in the Old Testament undeniably divides its authorship among a host of writers from different times and places, it ‘posits a narrator who has first-hand knowledge of events from creation to exile and signals no change of narrator (except where Moses takes on an extended first-person narration) from beginning to end’. 21 In examining the narrative and the instances of irony therein, this study chooses not to listen so much to the voices of the authors behind the text as to the one voice within the text—the voice of the narrator, which weaves the stories of Tamar and Joseph into the coherent, irony-filled pattern of events representative of their type-scene.
Anagnorisis
In addition to irony, another significant narrative device features in both the Joseph novella and the story of Tamar: anagnorisis. 22 Anagnorisis refers to the moment when one character comes to recognize the true identity of another character. The audience of antiquity appreciated its distinct characteristics, much in the same way it did the attributes of irony. Indeed, anagnorisis often entails an instance of peripeteia, as it involves a particular situation of reversal: a character moving from a position of ignorance to a position of knowledge. Accordingly, anagnorisis never strays far from the territory of irony: preceding the actual scene of recognition, the ignorant character mistakes the deceptive appearance of reality for reality itself. The subsequent scene of recognition then functions as a sort of denouement, resolving the ironic tension. 23
Regardless of how anagnorisis transpires, its consequences often follow a particular pattern. Aristotle explains that anagnorisis typically leads to a change in character relations, ‘tending either to affection or to enmity’, and that it ‘determines in the direction of good or ill fortune the fates of the people involved’. 24 In the story of Odysseus, the recognition scene results in his affection toward those who remained faithful to him and enmity toward those who have schemed to exploit the situation of his absence; good and ill fortune result for these various characters according to Odysseus' disposition toward them.
The Type-Scene Connection between the Stories of Tamar and Joseph
Irony features frequently enough throughout Old Testament narrative that its mere presence in the adjacent stories of Joseph and Tamar does not suffice to demonstrate that the stories comprise one integral narrative. A corresponding ironic tone cannot itself confirm the stories' connection but rather can only reflect it. Only a more fundamental link between the stories—from which may indeed emerge a corresponding climate of irony—can prove that they belong together as two components of one narrative.
The primary obstacle to finding an essential link between the stories is the fact that the story of Tamar seems to stand as a disconnected event in the otherwise meaningful sequence of events comprising the Joseph story. Nevertheless, while the audience of any narrative appreciates a causally oriented chronological ordering of related events—indeed, chronology proves essential to the existence of a plot 25 —there are moments when flashbacks, digressions, prolepses, and other unchronological events, as well as events unrelated to the main plot sequence, may impart special meaning to a narrative. 26 As Gunn and Fewell claim: ‘Meaning is not always the product of cause and effect or of chronological ordering. Meaning sometimes emerges through association.’ 27 In other words, two causally unrelated or unchronological events may become more comprehensible through association.
A similar plot progression constitutes the basic association between the Joseph novella and the seemingly disconnected Tamar story. Of course the Joseph story may seem coherent enough in itself without the interruption of Genesis 38. But perhaps where it resonates with the story of Tamar its thematic shape becomes even more intelligible.
The narrator alerts the audience early on to a potential association between the stories through a slice of repeated dialogue. Since the time of the rabbinic midrash, readers have noted a more-than-coincidental repetition in Genesis 38. 28 Just as Joseph's brothers present their father with Joseph's tunic and say, אנ־רכה ‘Recognize please’, at which point the narrator explains הריכיז, ‘and he recognized it’ (Gen. 37.32–33), so too Tamar presents Judah with his items of surety, saying, אנ־רכה, ‘Recognize please’, at which point the narrator again explains רכיז, ‘and he recognized’ (Gen. 38.25–26). 29 Occurring before the majority of the Joseph story's events have transpired, this repetition may serve to raise the audience's awareness to a possible connection between the two stories—that is, to alert the audience to further parallels that might take shape in the remaining portion of the Joseph story.
Borrowed respectively from cognitive psychology and Homeric scholarship, the concepts of ‘knowledge structure’ and ‘type-scene’ assist in further explaining this association between the two stories. As Jean-Marc Heimerdinger explains, a knowledge structure ‘can be broadly defined as a mental representation of a typical situation, which includes sets of expectations, and inferences’. 30 It serves as a model for the way in which a person understands a particular type of situation. A type-scene is a narrative convention which employs a ‘repetitive compositional pattern’ in the narration of ‘certain fixed situations’. 31 Some commonly recognized type-scenes in biblical narrative include the betrothal at the well, the birth of a hero to a seemingly barren mother, and the epiphany in the field. 32 The story of Joseph may have employed parts of type-scenes familiar to its original audience—hence invoking some of its common knowledge structures—for it includes elements that resemble some of the typical situations presented elsewhere in biblical narrative: conflict among brothers, displacement to Egypt, interaction with a foreign ruler. 33 But, despite some minor similarities, the Joseph novella does not extensively resemble the pattern of any one type-scene; it adheres closely to no repetitive compositional pattern manifest elsewhere in biblical narrative.
Or does it? Like the Joseph novella, the story of Tamar seems to have employed parts of type-scenes familiar to its original audience—conflict among brothers, a woman's recourse to deception, preservation of the family line amid unfavorable circumstances 34 —without corresponding completely to any one biblical type-scene. But perhaps Genesis 38 represents a type-scene of its own. Perhaps it reflects a particular knowledge structure. If so, its parallels with the Joseph novella may qualify as more than mere coincidence. The story of Tamar may actually establish a type-scene immediately realized again in the encompassing Joseph story. As such, it would indeed function as a preparing and clarifying lens—a knowledge structure—through which the audience more fully understands the Joseph novella.
That Genesis 38 models a type-scene of its own, immediately repeated by the Joseph story, finds support in the pattern of plot progression shared between both stories. In its most basic conception, the proposed type-scene includes an act of deception, an act of counter-deception, 35 some sort of confession or acknowledgment of wrongdoing, and a final anagnorisis. For convention's sake, this study will henceforth refer to the proposed type-scene as the ‘counter-deceiver’ type-scene, for special focus will rest on the parallels between the counter-deceiving characters of Tamar and Joseph.
In the story of Tamar, the conflict becomes apparent rather quickly through two iterations of a key inciting moment, 36 Tamar's husband's dying. This repeated occurrence, however, does not recur a third time; for the plot then progresses to the stage of complication, 37 when the antagonist, Judah, attempts to solve the conflict through an act of deception. 38 Rather than risk his third and final son's death, Judah commands his daughter-in-law Tamar to live in her father's house as a widow until his son has grown up. But he deceitfully omits his intention to withhold his third son from her even after his third son has grown up (v. 11). 39
The story then reaches its climax—the ‘moment of highest tension’, 40 and more than coincidentally the moment of peripeteia—at which point Tamar, previously the deceived, becomes the deceiver. Putting on the clothes of a prostitute, she deceives Judah, who mistakes her for a prostitute (v. 15).
The story's resolution includes the remaining two components of the counter-deceiver type-scene: the acknowledgment of wrongdoing and the scene of anagnorisis. In Genesis 38, the narrative suffuses both events into one, though one may still infer that a distinct acknowledgment of his wrongdoing precedes Judah's recognition of Tamar's full identity. Indeed, Tamar demands that Judah recognize not her, but rather himself—and implicitly his own wrongdoing: 'Recognize please to whom… these [belong]' (v. 25). In recognizing his own offense, Judah then vocalizes a confession that makes clear he now recognizes the full identity of Tamar: ‘She is more in the right than I, inasmuch as I did not give her to my son Shelah’ (v. 26 JPS).
Over the course of the Joseph story, a distinct correspondence between its plot and the characteristic events of the proposed counter-deceiver type-scene emerges. Like Genesis 38, the Joseph story introduces its conflict through two iterations of an inciting moment, namely, Joseph telling his brothers about a recent dream of his, which arouses his brothers' hate and jealousy against him. Then, at the stage of complication, Joseph's brothers attempt to solve their conflict through an act of deception. Before Joseph meets his brothers in Dothan where they are pasturing, they conspire to kill him (Gen. 37.18). They then extend their act of deception toward their father Jacob when they present him with Joseph's bloodied tunic, leading him to believe Joseph is dead.
The plot then progresses to its climax: tension reaches its peak as Joseph and his unsuspecting brothers reunite (Gen. 42.8). And in a plot twist reminiscent of the Tamar story, peripeteia ensues as Joseph, the deceived, takes full advantage of the situation and becomes the deceiver. Like Tamar, he initiates his own act of counter-deception (Gen. 42.7).
One may find it intriguing to observe that, in both stories, the act of deception alienates while the act of counter-deception (coupled with its resultant anagnorisis) reconciles. Judah sends Tamar home as a widow, never planning to recall her for Shelah; Joseph's brothers sell him into slavery, never expecting to see him again. Tamar's deception of Judah concludes with her conceiving his child, thus reconciling (instead of destroying) the bond between her and his family; Joseph's deception of his brothers ends with his reuniting the entire family in Egypt.
Unlike Genesis 38, the Joseph novella does not conflate the antagonist's confession of wrongdoing with the anagnorisis. Though both scenes exhibit similarities to the related scene in Genesis 38, they remain separate events: the confession constitutes a turning-point, 41 and the moment of anagnorisis provides the resolution. The first event of confession in the Joseph novella occurs when the brothers acknowledge their wrongdoing in front of Joseph (whom they mistake for an Egyptian man incapable of understanding their language): ‘And they said, each to his brother, “Surely we are guilty concerning our brother, whose life's distress we saw when he sought our favor; but we did not listen. Therefore this distress has come upon us”’ (Gen. 42.21–22). Like Judah in Genesis 38, the brothers come to a recognition of their previous wrongful conduct. Judah's humbled confession before Joseph later in the story seems to reflect the same sentiment: ‘And how can we justify ourselves? God has found the guilt of your servants’ (Gen. 44.16). 42
The moment of anagnorisis completes the counter-deceiver type-scene. In a progression of events comparable to those of Genesis 38, the antagonists come to recognize the true identity of the person whom they wronged only after they have come to acknowledge their own wrongdoing. Having already acknowledged their wrongful act against Joseph (Gen. 42.21–22), Joseph's brothers finally receive Joseph's self-disclosure: ‘I am Joseph, your brother, whom you sold to Egypt’ (Gen. 45.4). One may find it interesting to observe how both stories' scenes of anagnorisis invoke a reminder of the past wrongdoing. Just as Tamar's indication of her identity immediately prompts Judah to remember his wrongful deed, so too Joseph's self-disclosure appends a recollection of his brothers' unjust act against him.
To summarize: the repeated dialogue—אנ־רכה—at the end of Genesis 38 provides an initial indicator that the story of Tamar has a more enduring association with the Joseph story than its cast and setting would suggest. Indeed, it ultimately alerts one to the introduction of a new type-scene, for type-scenes do consist of ‘repetitive compositional patterns’. 43 As the Joseph novella plays out, a plot progression similar to that of ch. 38 emerges, thus confirming the institution of a particular type-scene (here referred to as the counter-deceiver type-scene). This type-scene connection may serve as a lens—a knowledge structure—that informs how an audience comprehends the events of the Joseph story as they unfold.
Confirming the Contours of the Counter-Deceiver Type-Scene by Tracing Irony's Presence
Although irony does not constitute the fundamental connection between the Joseph and Tamar stories, it does feature heavily as an ingredient intrinsic to the counter-deceiver type-scene. Close attention to its presence in the two stories may thus both confirm and clarify even further the contours of the counter-deceiver type-scene. Readily recognizable in the compact plot of Genesis 38, irony may serve to introduce and highlight the basic components of the counter-deceiver type-scene in order to provide the audience with a framework for understanding the extended—though similarly shaped and irony-filled—plot of the Joseph novella.
Deception
The first major event of the counter-deceiver type-scene, the act of deception, consists of a distinct pattern of dramatic and situational irony. In both stories, dramatic irony showcases the ignorance of the antagonist, whose self-seeking motives lead him to an unjust act of deception. Situational irony highlights the misfortune of the protagonist and the seeming absence of God.
The biblical narrator does not relinquish internal perspective or evaluative detail profusely. Rather, the narrator more commonly conveys the characters' motives and moral nature suggestively through the characters' own actions and speech, leaving the audience to interpret the characters' inner lives as best it can. 44 Therefore insight into a character's perspective or any direct evaluative comment should alert the audience to its potentially significant role in the story's plot. 45 In Genesis 38, the narrator reveals a few key details which foreground the dramatic irony that stems from Judah's ignorance. The narrator's first evaluative comment, mediated through the Lord's perspective, details the wicked moral stature of Judah's first son, Er. Er dies because he is ‘evil in the eyes of the Lord’ (v. 7). The narrator's next noteworthy intrusion in the plot's narration provides the audience access to the internal perspective of Onan, Judah's second son. Obligated to fulfill his levirate duty to his deceased brother, Onan nonetheless attempts to evade it, for ‘Onan knew that the seed would not be his’ (v. 9). Immediately following this direct insight into Onan's thinking comes an evaluative comment, again mediated through the Lord's perspective: ‘And what he did was evil in the eyes of the Lord, so he killed him also’ (v. 10). Through select evaluative comments and a brief glimpse of internal perspective, the narrator has made clear the evil moral nature of Judah's first two sons as well as the selfish intention of Onan in his endeavor to avoid his levirate duty. These details prove vital to the ensuing dramatic irony involving Judah's perception of reality and his consequent action.
These details also prove significant in constructing a pattern into which Judah's own behavior fits. Biblical narrative, like many other narrative traditions, often utilizes repetition ‘to structure the story’ or ‘to construct a character or a theme’. 46 Repetition can create expectations for the plot's progression, later confirmed or rejected. 47 After the narrator's repeated evaluation of the first two sons—who are, or do what is, הזהי יניעב ער, ‘evil in the eyes of the Lord’ (v. 7)—the audience may anticipate a third scenario in which another character is הזהי יניעב ער. So, even though the narrator does not explicitly label Judah's subsequent actions as evil, the echo of the previous repeated evaluation remains, suggesting the possibility that Judah's actions follow suit with the precedent set by his sons.
Herein lies the dramatic irony. The narrator's select use of evaluation and internal perspective (into Onan's viewpoint) presents the audience with privileged knowledge concerning why Judah's first two sons have died. Another telling use of internal perspective reveals that Judah does not share this privileged knowledge (v. 11). Rather, he believes that his two sons' deaths transpired because of their union with Tamar. So the audience knows ‘what Judah does not, namely, that Er and Onan have died as a result of their own evil’. 48 As a victim of this dramatic irony, Judah reacts in a manner inappropriate to the reality of the situation. Believing union with Tamar to result in death, he perpetrates his act of deception, sending her home to her father as a widow while misleading her to believe that Shelah (his third son) will perform his levirate duty when he grows up. The dramatic irony is compounded by the fact that Judah is unknowingly following in the footsteps of his first two sons. The verdict accorded them—that they were הזהי יניעב ער—implicitly translates to Judah's behavior, which follows the precedent set by his sons. Rather than ridding himself of the true cause of his first two sons' deaths, he unwittingly perpetuates their manner of behavior. And while he does not die like his sons as a result of his selfish, unrighteous behavior, the audience may well recognize that he has not yet dispelled his troubles.
A further irony emerges upon the foundation of this dramatic irony. Having thus far played only a passive role in the story, Tamar endures misfortune that results not from her own actions, but from the selfish and deceptive actions of others. In a world where characters seem to reap what they sow, as do Er and Onan, Tamar receives what she, to all appearances, does not deserve. First, Onan acts unjustly toward her (and his deceased brother) by deceptively avoiding his levirate duty. Tamar, therefore, does not receive the customary security afforded by levirate marriage to a widow, namely, a husband and offspring. 49 Judah's response to the situation then parallels Onan's, in the sense that he too refuses Tamar that to which she is entitled. Sending her home as a widow to her father, Judah essentially disowns her, and permanently so according to his undisclosed intentions. 50 At the conclusion of the first scene, Tamar finds herself a victim of others' deceptive acts.
The situational irony that victimizes Tamar only deepens when one considers the seemingly absent role of God. Through the deaths of Er and Onan, the narrator establishes God's presence. Yet when Judah acts unjustly, God does not interfere in the same manner. Before Judah's interaction with Tamar, God's repeated and consistent response to evil establishes a pattern; it builds expectation for another similar response to Judah's act of deception. But here expectation and reality contrast. God's presence, so manifest in the cases of Er and Onan, seems alarmingly absent from the situation involving Judah and Tamar.
The story of Tamar exhibits ironies with striking parallels to those present in the preceding scene—in which Joseph's brothers sell him into slavery. In this first scene of the Joseph story, dramatic irony reveals the ignorance of the antagonists, Joseph's brothers, whose selfish intentions lead them to an act of deception. Situational irony then emphasizes the misfortune of Joseph and the seeming absence of God.
Just as in Genesis 38, the narrator employs internal perspective on select occasions to facilitate the exposition of dramatic irony. Because the biblical narrator tends to relate only outward appearances and actions—leaving the audience to infer the inner workings of the characters' minds—the repeated phrase explicitly relating the feelings of Joseph's brothers should alert the audience to its significance. First, concerning Joseph's privileged status, the narrator explains, ‘And they hated him’ (Gen. 37.4). Then, concerning Joseph's provocative dreams, the narrator reiterates, on two separate occasions, ‘And they hated him even more’ (Gen. 37.5, 8 JPS). The ominous repetition instills in the attentive audience an expectation for brotherly conflict. That Joseph's brothers will act out their hate against him becomes obvious. But one should note also that the narrator invites the audience to a position of privileged knowledge. While Joseph's brothers ignore the intimation of Joseph's dreams—indeed, they think that their act of deception will thwart the dreams' realization (Gen. 37.20)—the audience should know well that dreams (in biblical narrative) often serve as divine portents. 51 The audience, therefore, knows the reality of which Joseph's brothers remain ignorant: Joseph will indeed eventually come into a position of power over his brothers.
From this dramatic irony emerges a situational irony that parallels that of Tamar's misfortune. Although the narrator only provides sparse detail regarding the relationship between Joseph and his brothers, one receives the impression that, like Tamar, Joseph has done nothing himself to merit his brothers' deceptive betrayal. The brothers reportedly hate him not because of anything he himself has done but rather because Jacob favors him. A victim of circumstance, Joseph is a son of Jacob's old age: thus Jacob ‘loved him [Joseph] more than all his brothers’ (Gen. 37.4). Of course, Joseph's decision to tell his brothers about his provocative dreams seems rather injudicious, and one can understand how it could kindle further anger. Even his loving father rebukes him (Gen. 37.10). Nonetheless, it alone does not deserve as hostile a response as that of his brothers, whose savage acts must qualify as wicked. Indeed, when Joseph's brothers first intend to kill him, they plan on explaining, ‘A wicked beast has devoured him’ (Gen. 37.20). Such a report ironically resembles the truth more than the brothers know, for they themselves resemble ‘a wicked beast’ in their inhuman act against their brother. That they later decide to sell him instead of leaving him for dead is of little consolation, for their decision stems only from their selfishness. As Judah reasons when a caravan of Ishmaelites carrying goods passes through: ‘What is there to gain if we kill our brother?’ (Gen. 37.26).
The unfortunate victim of circumstance—that he should be the son of his father's old age, the one whom his father loves the most—Joseph encounters undeserved adversity, a situational irony by itself. But again, the irony intensifies when one considers God's place in the story. Joseph's two related dreams suggest to the knowing audience God's presence, just as the deaths of Er and Onan reveal to the audience God's involvement in the story of Tamar. Yet, in a situation similar to Tamar's helpless subjection to injustice, Joseph finds himself acted against with no intervention from the divine—whose presence brought about the troublesome dreams in the first place.
Counter-deception
The act of counter-deception represents the second major component of the counter-deceiver type-scene. As the primary instance of peripeteia in the story, it also qualifies as the climax, or the moment of highest tension. The two main characters (or sets of characters), separated in the first scene by an act of deception, reunite unexpectedly, and dramatic tension culminates as their roles of agency reverse. 52 Over the course of the counter-deception scene, dramatic irony plays a fundamental role in illustrating to even greater effect the ignorance of the antagonist. At the same time, situational irony abounds with the peripeteia of the deceiver and the deceived exchanging roles, a reversal further highlighted by the instances of verbal irony in which the deceived-turn-deceiver delicately discloses his/her superior knowledge and authority.
In the first scene of Genesis 38, Tamar remains an object of other characters' actions and whims. 53 Judah and his sons, deceivers in more than one way, act as the primary agents of the plot's progression. But in the second scene, when Tamar and Judah cross paths again, Tamar recognizes the reality of her situation and resorts to deceptive behavior of her own. Taking off the clothes of widowhood, she covers her face with a veil and sits down םיניע חתפב, ‘at the entrance of Enaim’ (v. 14). One may more literally render the Hebrew here as ‘the opening of the eyes’—a pun depicting Tamar's newfound awareness of the situation. And as the narrator relates in a choice employment of internal perspective, התאר, ‘she saw’, that Shelah had grown up and yet she had not been given to him (v. 14). The narrator also recounts that Judah sees: הךזהי האריז, ‘And Judah saw her’ (v. 15). The dramatic irony emerges here as the audience comes to recognize that, while Tamar's open eyes see the truth of the situation, Judah sees only what he wants—a prostitute. Victimized by his own ignorance, Judah behaves in a manner completely inappropriate for the situation, as he joins in a sexual union not only unlawful but also undesired (v. 16). 54 While the narrator does not narrate the sexual union with the root עךי, ‘to know’, as is common in Biblical Hebrew, 55 the audience may well recognize here an additional layer to the irony. Judah does not know, עךי, his daughter-in-law when he sees her, but moments later he knows her sexually. Just as Judah sees Tamar but does not really see (i.e. recognize) her, so also he ‘knows’ Tamar while not really knowing who she is and what he has done to her.
The dramatic irony surrounding Judah's ignorance and inappropriate behavior forms the basis for the story's peripeteia. Because the levels of knowledge between Judah and Tamar have reversed, so too have their roles of agency; with knowledge comes power. Tamar, previously a passive object of her in-laws, becomes active in both her initiating the deceptive act and, further, in her demands of Judah; Judah, initially the commanding patriarch, 56 now follows the lead of his daughter-in-law. The role reversal becomes apparent quickly, before Tamar even says a word, when Judah chooses to employ the cohortative instead of the previously preferred imperative: ךי לא אזבא, ‘Let me come in to you’ (v. 16). Then, in their negotiation of payment, Tamar sets the terms for a satisfactory transaction of payment: ‘Only if you give a pledge until you send [your payment]’ (v. 17). In his role of subservience, Judah asks what will suffice as a pledge, and Tamar answers with her terms, which include Judah's personal items: ‘Your seal, and your cord, and your staff which is in your hand’ (v. 18). The occasion of peripeteia then reaches its peak when Judah gives, זחנ, her his personal items—of which the staff in Judah's hands may serve as an innuendo for Judah's phallus, by which she conceives. The circumstances have reversed fully as Judah gives Tamar what he had previously refused her. 57 And within this peripeteia emerges a further situational irony. Judah will not give, זתנ, his daughter-in-law what the levirate custom demands of him, 58 but he will give a seemingly anonymous prostitute valued extensions of his identity. 59
The climactic instance of peripeteia does not manifest itself only through situational irony. Verbal irony serves to highlight further the reversal of roles that has taken place. When Judah asks what pledge will suffice for the delay in his payment, Tamar answers, ‘Your seal, and your cord, and your staff which is in your hand’ (v. 18). On the surface, Tamar's response only conveys the price that Judah must pay. But, as noted above, Tamar likely intends more than this surface level meaning. When Tamar indicates that she desires Judah's staff, she speaks more truth than Judah can comprehend: she wants a child, and by Judah's ‘staff’ she will conceive. That Tamar acts as the ironist—playing around with words that Judah does not fully comprehend—only solidifies the reality of their role reversal, for it indicates that she has become the agent who acts with superior knowledge. She knows exactly what is happening—and exactly what she means—while Judah, in his ignorance, can see no further than the ‘prostitute’ who stands before him.
The event of Joseph and his brothers' unanticipated reunion traces a plot progression similar to the act of counter-deception in Genesis 38. They meet, ‘and Joseph recognized his brothers, but they did not recognize him’ (Gen. 42.8). Like Tamar, Joseph sees more clearly than do the ignorant antagonists. And in such a situation, Joseph chooses to employ deception: ‘And he acted as a stranger toward them, and he spoke with them harshly’ (Gen. 42.7). The dramatic irony then takes shape as the audience, in its superior knowledge, observes the brothers act in a manner incongruent with their previous disposition. 60 They who earlier had sold Joseph into slavery now refer to him as ‘my lord’ and to themselves as ‘your servants’ (Gen. 42.10). Ensconced within the dramatic irony of the brothers' ignorance lies the situational irony of their role reversal with Joseph, which becomes even clearer as Joseph exercises his agency and authority over his brothers, tormenting them three times with the accusation: ‘You are spies’ (Gen. 42.9, 14, 16). He then proposes a test in which all but one of the brothers present will be bound: זרםאה םתאז (Gen. 42.16). Joseph's words indicate that the tables have turned completely, for earlier his brothers had sold him into slavery, where he himself had experienced life among those who were םירזסא, ‘bound’ (Gen. 39.20). Joseph now aims to bind those ultimately responsible for his life in prison. Although Joseph chooses not to follow through with his initial plan, 61 it remains evident that, like Tamar in her counter-deceiver role, he sets the terms for how his interaction with his brothers will proceed.
If the situational irony does not illustrate clearly enough the ignorance of Joseph's brothers—as well as the gap between their level of knowledge and Joseph's level of knowledge—a dialogue capped with verbal irony confirms it. When Joseph first accuses his brothers of spying on the land, they respond to the contrary and assert their innocence: ‘We are honest’ (Gen. 42.11). Already one senses Joseph's upper hand, for he knows his brothers' background and thus knows that they have not always acted honestly. His second accusation yields a slightly different answer from his brothers. No longer do they maintain their honest character. Instead they edge closer to honesty themselves, now relaying some truth concerning one of their brothers, namely Joseph himself, saying, ‘He is no more’ (Gen. 42.13). Dramatic irony may nearly overwhelm the audience at this point, for they know well what Joseph's brothers do not—Joseph is alive, and even more, he is the one who speaks to them. Joseph persists once more with his accusation against them, but by now one may assume that his words reflect a meaning deeper than the immediate one his brothers hear. When he says, ‘Your words will be tested [whether there is] truth with you’ (Gen. 42.16), his brothers hear only of a trial of their purpose in coming to Egypt. Now acting as ironist, however, Joseph speaks of more than a mere test of his brothers' motivation for coming to Egypt. His words insinuate rather, on a deeper level, his concern with the overall integrity of the brothers whose deceptive betrayal had sent him to Egypt in the first place.
Acknowledgment of Wrongdoing
Whereas the initial act of deception in both stories leads to an estrangement between the main characters, the act of counter-deception conversely functions toward eventually effecting reconciliation. The protagonist counter-deceives the antagonist in such a way as to prompt in him a recognition of past wrongdoing, hence preparing the way for reunion. In coming to terms with his prior misconduct, the antagonist comes to shed the ignorance that had previously blinded him to his wrongful behavior. The dramatic irony of the previous scenes finds partial resolution as the antagonist finally acknowledges what he has done.
In the story of Tamar and Judah, the counter-deceiver type-scene conflates the antagonist's recognition of wrongdoing with his recognition of the counter-deceiver's true identity. Despite the interweaving of these two instances of recognition, one may nonetheless distinguish narratival elements particular to each. Before Judah comes to acknowledge his wrongdoing, he remains unconcerned with Tamar's plight. Indeed, after receiving the information that Tamar has played the harlot and conceived a child in her harlotry, he responds with a judgment: ‘Then let her be burned’ (v. 24). Judah remains enmeshed in his ignorance. Still not recognizing that his own daughter-in-law has played the harlot with him, he behaves in a manner completely inappropriate to the reality of the situation. Through Tamar he actually has a valid heir—the likelihood of which seemed slim when, with one son left, he relegated Tamar to widowhood—and yet, in his ignorance, he chooses the course of action that will rid him of both Tamar and the continuation of his name. Furthermore, his actions toward Tamar constitute an ironic double standard that exemplifies even further his ignorance, or, perhaps better put, his lack of concern. First, Judah wrongly condemns Tamar to death. Judah himself had previously labeled her a widow (v. 11), and as a widow, Tamar would have no sexual obligation to any male. Her status would effectively legitimate harlotry. 62 Second, when Judah exercises authority in proclaiming a punishment for Tamar, he claims a familial position of authority that he had apparently discarded when he sent Tamar home to her father's house as a widow. 63
But Tamar's previous act of counter-deception comes to full fruition when she goads Judah to recognize the reality of the past. Just before her burning, she sends a message to Judah, saying: 'Recognize please (אנרכה) to whom these [belong], the seal and the cord and the staff' (v. 25). Tamar's words recall Judah's words a chapter earlier, when in his own act of deception he called for his father to אנרכה the tunic of Joseph. Regardless of whether or not these words spark in Judah a guilty conscience—if they do so, then they only add to the overall effect of Tamar's scheme—they prompt Judah to confront the reality of his past actions. One should note that Tamar's message does not invite Judah to recognize first who she is, but rather who he is: הלאה…ימל אנ־רכה, 'Recognize please to whom … these [belong]' (v. 25). By coming to terms with his own identity and past behavior, of course, Judah cannot avoid then recognizing her whom he has wronged. The dramatic irony from the previous scene, when Judah remained carelessly unaware of Tamar's situation, finally dissipates.
One should note, furthermore, that Judah does not merely acquit because he now knows what happened on that road to Timnah where his daughter-in-law posed purposefully as a prostitute for him. Moving beyond the selfish stance he had taken when he advised his friend to stop seeking to complete his payment to the prostitute—‘lest we come to be shamed’ (v. 23)—Judah now takes responsibility for his shameful actions. He directly acknowledges his fault in not giving Tamar to Shelah: ‘She is more in the right than I, inasmuch as I did not give her to my son Shelah’ (v. 26 JPS).
Although in the story of Joseph the brothers' recognition of their wrongdoing does not correspond directly with the scene of anagnorisis, it nonetheless resolves a measure of the dramatic irony to which the brothers first play victim. Indeed, they initially plead with Joseph (whom they do not recognize), ‘We are honest’ (Gen. 42.11). They do not show any direct remorse for how they had previously acted against their brother Joseph. But like Tamar, who presents Judah with evidence to open his eyes to the reality of the situation, Joseph propels his brothers to consider the truthfulness of their actions with the suggestive clause, ‘If you are honest’ (Gen. 42.19). And indeed, with these words still in their ears and with a distressing task at hand, they come to acknowledge the wrong-fulness of their own deception of Joseph, saying to each other, ‘Surely we are guilty concerning our brother whose life's distress we saw when he sought our favor but we did not listen; therefore this distress has come to us’ (Gen. 42.21).
It is worth noting that Judah later comes to confirm their guilt personally when he pleads for leniency after Joseph's goblet is found in Benjamin's bag: ‘And how can we justify ourselves? God has found the guilt of your servants’ (Gen. 44.16). 64 Judah's use of the root קדצ should catch the audience's attention, for this root last appeared in the story of Tamar when Judah admitted Tamar's righteousness in contrast to his own unrighteousness (v. 26). Judah's choice of words in the Joseph story suggests, then, that he has again come to acknowledge his wrongdoing. Furthermore, while he and his brothers still do not recognize their brother Joseph—and thus a degree of dramatic irony remains—Judah's use of the root קדצ foreshadows the imminent anagnorisis, which in the case of its precedent in Genesis 38 occurred nearly simultaneously with Judah's recognition of himself, and, accordingly, his unrighteousness.
Anagnorisis
The antagonist's recognition of his wrongdoing does not conclude the counter-deceiver type-scene but instead leads into one last event of recognition—the recognition of the protagonist's true identity. This concluding anagnorisis resolves any lingering dramatic irony, as all the characters come to a point of level knowledge. No longer does the audience hold a privileged perspective of the story's reality. Even as the dramatic irony dissolves, however, situational irony surfaces one last time: effecting a dramatic change in character relations, anagnorisis leads the parties who have stood against one another throughout the story to reconcile. Enemies become friends; outcasts become family. In both the Joseph and Tamar stories, anagnorisis helps bind together the familial ties that had come undone.
In Genesis 38, Judah recognizes Tamar almost at the same time that he recognizes his wrongdoing. Tamar reveals his seal, cord, and staff, prompting Judah to come to terms with himself, and thus also with her: ‘Judah recognized and said, “She is more right than I am …”’ (v. 26). The Hebrew here allows for an indeterminacy of meaning, as no direct object specifies what or whom Judah recognizes. Does he recognize himself, or his items, or what he has done, or Tamar? Tamar's own directive suggests that he first recognize himself, 65 though this initial recognition would presumably prompt him to recognize more clearly both what he has done and the person to whom he has done it.
After Judah has come to recognize whatever exactly he recognizes, the narrator then makes clear: ‘And he did not know her again’ (v. 26). At Tamar's prompting, Judah has finally acknowledged his guilt and shed his ignorance. No longer does he see Tamar as a prostitute—with whom he may have sex or whom he may burn. Now Judah truly knows Tamar as she really is. She is his daughter-in-law, whom he has wronged and whom he should never again ‘know’ as he once did. 66 Judah's recognition of wrongdoing results in his recognition of the real Tamar and achieves a familial reconciliation that ends positively for all involved. Tamar bears twins—perhaps an indication of divine blessing—directly providing Judah, whose chances of procuring any grandchildren seemed progressively slim, with heirs.
The anagnorisis in the Joseph story differs from the recognition scene in Genesis 38 in one notable detail. Whereas Judah recognizes Tamar on his own accord—albeit after some strong prompting on Tamar's part—the brothers only recognize Joseph after he makes a direct self-disclosure. Despite this one discrepancy between the stories' anagnorises, the events precipitating both stories' anagnorises correspond, as do both stories' reconciliatory conclusions.
Just as Judah's recognition of his own wrongdoing yields his further recognition of Tamar's true identity, so too the brothers'—and more specifically, Judah's—recognition of their offense against Joseph leads to the anagnorisis whereby they learn of his true identity. Indeed, the fact that Joseph reveals his true identity directly following Judah's lengthy supplication to Joseph proves telling. While Judah does not confess specifically to the brothers' crime against Joseph, he does imply his and his brothers' guilt when he states: ‘How can we justify ourselves? God has found the guilt of your servants’ (Gen. 44.16). 67 His extensive plea then reveals further his recognition of wrongdoing. Detailing the sorrow that his father has already endured, Judah explains that he has offered himself as a pledge for the return of Benjamin (Gen. 44.32). Judah's self-pledging alludes to his penitent attitude: whereas Judah earlier had selfishly neglected to fulfill his pledge to a prostitute (Gen. 38.23), he now selflessly offers up himself as a pledge. 68
Through a touch of irony, the narrator provides further indication that anagnorisis occurs not randomly but as a result of the antagonist's repentant disposition linked with his confession. Judah explains to Jacob that the brothers will not be able to see “the face of the man [Joseph]” again unless Benjamin comes with them (Gen. 44.26). Through Judah's words, the audience can perceive a deeper truth of which Judah is unaware. If he and his brothers return to Joseph with Benjamin, thus passing Joseph's test of their honesty—and, moreover, proving that they have turned from the wickedness of their original offense against him—then they will see the true face of Joseph. And indeed, after they return with Benjamin, and after Judah confesses their wrongdoing (Gen. 44.16) and makes his drawn-out plea, Joseph can no longer keep up the façade (Gen. 45.1). Revealing himself to his dumbfounded brothers (Gen. 45.3), he then seeks to reconcile with them: ‘Come forward to me’, he says, 'I am Joseph, your brother, whom you sold' (Gen. 45.4). Joseph declares himself a part of the family despite what his brothers have done. The antagonistic stance between the brothers and Joseph dissipates in this final anagnorisis, as Joseph kisses his brothers and weeps upon them. Jacob's subsequent arrival in Egypt effects the family's full reconciliation.
Conclusion
At first glance, the story of Tamar seems disconnected with the enveloping Joseph novella. But underneath the surface disparities of a largely different cast and setting, one detects some resounding similarities in plot pattern and ironic tone. Highlighting these structural and thematic parallels, this study has sought to demonstrate that the plot of Genesis 38 introduces a particular type-scene to which the surrounding Joseph story also adheres. In its compact plot rich with irony, Genesis 38 may operate as a lens through which its audience might better understand the longer—but similarly shaped and irony-filled—plot of the Joseph novella.
Footnotes
1.
Judah Goldin, ‘Youngest Son or Where Does Genesis 38 Belong?’, JBL 96 (1977), pp. 27–44 (27), notes that, as long ago as the second century BCE, readers of Genesis have wrestled with the placement of Gen. 38 in the middle of the Joseph story. The author of Jubilees, for instance, shifts the story of Tamar to a later point in the narrative, ostensibly to maintain the continuity of the story detailing Joseph's captivity.
Rabbinic literature also recognizes discontinuity between Gen. 38 and the rest of the narrative. Gen. R. 85.2, in Jacob Neusner, Genesis Rabbah (6 vols.; Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1997), IV, p. 86. Observing that the end of Gen. 37 concerns Joseph's descent to Egypt, the midrash from Genesis Rabbah concludes that Gen. 38 is not an essential part of the Joseph story: ‘The Scripture needed only to state, “And Joseph was brought down to Egypt” [Gen. 39.1]’. Apart from this dismissive conclusion, the rabbis can only speculate as to how Gen. 38 relates to the rest of the Joseph story.
Contemporary scholarship has also observed the apparent narrative disconnect between the story of Joseph and that of Tamar. Gerhard von Rad, Genesis: A Commentary (trans. John H. Marks; Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1972), p. 356, claims: ‘Every attentive reader can see that the story of Judah and Tamar has no connection at all with the strictly organized Joseph story at whose beginning it is now inserted’. E.A. Speiser, Genesis (AB, 1; Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1964), p. 299, concurs: ‘It has no connection with the drama of Joseph, which it interrupts at the conclusion of Act I’.
2.
Richard J. Clifford, ‘Genesis 38: Its Contribution to the Jacob Story’, CBQ 66 (2004), pp. 519–32 (521), points out that modern scholarship has increasingly taken into serious consideration the ‘impressive thematic and linguistic connections’ between the two stories (many of which have documentation in ‘traditional Jewish exegesis’).
3.
W. Lee Humphreys, ‘Novella’, in George W. Coats (ed.), Saga, Legend, Tale, Novella, Fable: Narrative Forms in Old Testament Literature (JSOTSup, 35; Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1985), pp. 82–96 (84–86), outlines the various features of the novella. Discussing how the Old Testament novella compares to other narrative forms in the Old Testament, Humphreys says, ‘These units are longer than the short stories, and they depict the clear development of central characters or situations rather than simply reveal them’. Thus, one may imagine that, over the span of an extended story that traces dynamic characters and events, the audience naturally may fail to pick up on all the thematic elements intended by the narrator for its consideration.
4.
D.C. Muecke, The Compass of Irony (London: Methuen, 1969), p. 14, quoted in Paul D. Duke, Irony in the Fourth Gospel (Atlanta: John Knox Press, 1985), p. 13.
5.
Edwin M. Good, Irony in the Old Testament (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1965), p. 13.
6.
Muecke, The Compass, pp. 19–20, cited by Duke, Irony, p. 13.
7.
Duke, Irony, p. 21, notes: ‘Verbal irony is one of those terms that is not used with consistency’. Like Duke, this study will restrict the label of verbal irony to those instances in which a speaker—for our purposes, a character, as opposed to the narrator—means to communicate something different from what the literal content of his/her message conveys.
8.
Good, Irony, p. 33.
9.
Unless otherwise noted, all translations are mine.
10.
The narrator mentions that Ehud's dagger itself has תזיפ ינש (‘two mouths’, v. 16), perhaps intimating the two-mouthed nature of Ehud's message to the king.
11.
Duke, Irony, p. 26, observes that ‘dramatic irony is one form of ironic situation’.
12.
Duke, Irony, p. 26, remarks that, beyond this first irony, there exists a second dramatic irony at work, at least for an audience already familiar with the story. While Abraham expects that he will actually sacrifice his son, a familiar audience will know that in reality God will provide a ram in his place.
13.
Subsequent to the completion of this study, I became aware of a couple of works, in addition to Good's Irony in the Old Testament, which engage irony in the biblical text on a broad scale and deserve recommendation here. Carolyn J. Sharp, Irony and Meaning in the Hebrew Bible (Indiana Studies in Biblical Literature; Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2009) helps to define and confront the issues that attend reading irony in the biblical text. Sharp both explores local ironies in the text and entertains their broader rhetorical implications. Glenn S. Holland, Divine Irony (Selinsgrove, PA: Susquehanna University Press, 2000) theorizes the concept of divine irony and applies it specifically to interpretation of 2 Cor. 10–13. In the process, Holland offers a helpful survey of irony not only in contemporary scholarship but in antiquity as well—especially in ancient Greek conceptions.
14.
David M. Gunn and Danna Nolan Fewell, Narrative in the Hebrew Bible (New York: Oxford University Press, 1993), p. 3.
15.
Duke, Irony, p. 10.
16.
Elizabeth Belfiore, π∊ριπέτ∊ια as Discontinuous Action: Aristotle “Poetics” 11.1452a22–29', Classical Philology 83 (1988), pp. 183–94, offers a meticulous analysis of the more specific connotations of peripeteia as understood by Aristotle.
17.
Jean Louis Ska, ‘Our Fathers Have Told Us’: Introduction to the Analysis of Hebrew Narratives (Rome: Editrice Pontificio Instituto Biblico, 2000), p. 70, explains that the ‘law of thrift’, employed frequently in ancient narrative, is ‘well-known in the world of oral traditions and traditional literature’. While the narrator commonly possesses a position of omniscience, he/she eschews presenting this knowledge ‘when it is not necessary’.
18.
Duke, Irony, p. 20. This assertion falls in line with one of Muecke's three basic characteristics of irony, namely that irony must contain an element of hiddenness or unawareness.
19.
Robert Alter, The Art of Biblical Narrative (New York: Basic Books, 1981), p. 12. While Alter does not draw an explicit connection between the style of ancient Hebrew narrative and the communication of irony, he does explain the narrative technique which lends itself quite well to the communication of irony: ‘An essential aim of the innovative technique of fiction worked out by the ancient Hebrew writers was to produce a certain indeterminacy of meaning, especially in regard to motive, moral character, and psychology’.
20.
Consider 2 Sam. 11.1. The narrator does not spell out the irony that David remains in Jerusalem at the time when kings go out. If anything, the narrator obscures the irony by dropping David's kingly title.
21.
Gunn and Fewell, Narrative, p. 52.
22.
While most scholarship on anagnorisis in ancient narrative draws from traditions other than ancient Hebrew narrative, the terms with which it discusses anagnorisis prove helpfully heuristic in exploring instances of anagnorisis in the Old Testament. Therefore, this study will bear in mind these terms as it evaluates the anagnorises in the stories of Tamar and Joseph, paying particular attention to their role in the stories' plot progressions.
23.
R. Alan Culpepper, The Gospel and Letters of John (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1998), p. 72.
24.
Aristotle, Poetics 1452a, quoted by Culpepper, The Gospel, p. 72.
25.
Aristotle, Poetics 6, quoted by Ska, Our Fathers, p. 17: ‘The ordered arrangement of the incidents is what I mean by plot’.
26.
Ska, Our Fathers, pp. 9–12, outlines the various ways in which chronology may be interrupted and provides further references for examples of such interruptions in biblical narrative.
27.
Gunn and Fewell, Narrative, p. 107.
28.
Gen. R. 84.19, in Jacob Neusner, Genesis, VI, p. 81.
29.
Alter, The Art, p. 10.
30.
Jean-Marc Heimerdinger, Topic, Focus, and Foreground in Ancient Hebrew Narratives (JSOTSup, 295; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1999), p. 227.
31.
Alter, The Art, p. 50.
32.
Ska, Our Fathers, p. 37, highlights Alter, The Art, pp. 47–62, as ‘the classical study’ on type-scenes in ‘the field of Biblical narrative’. Examples of the above-mentioned type-scenes include, respectively, the betrothal of Rebekah to Isaac (Gen. 24), the birth of Isaac (Gen. 21), and Jacob's dream at Bethel (Gen. 28).
33.
Examples of these type-scenes include, respectively, the story of Cain and Abel (Gen. 4), Abram's sojourn in Egypt as a result of famine (Gen. 12), and Isaac's dealings with King Abimelech (Gen. 26).
34.
Rachel's deception of her father Laban (Gen. 31) and the endangered ancestress stories (Gen. 12; 20; and 26) exemplify the latter two type-scenes referenced here.
35.
See Susan Niditch, Underdogs and Tricksters: A Prelude to Biblical Folklore (San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1987); Mary E. Shields, ‘“More Righteous than I”: The Comeuppance of the Trickster in Genesis 38’, in Athalya Brenner (ed.), Are We Amused: Humour about Women in the Biblical Worlds (JSOTSup, 383; London: T&T Clark International, 2003), pp. 31–51; and Melissa Jackson, ‘Lot's Daughters and Tamar as Tricksters and the Patriarchal Narratives as Feminist Theology’, JSOT 26 (2002), pp. 29–46. These works reflect biblical scholarship's rich exploration of the trickster type. While a discussion of the trickster type lies beyond the scope of this study, one should be aware that it shares several points of contact with the first two plot events of this study's proposed type-scene—the acts of deception and counter-deception.
36.
Ska, Our Fathers, p. 25: ‘The inciting moment is the moment in which the conflict or problem appears for the first time and arouses the interest of the reader’.
37.
Ska, Our Fathers, p. 25: ‘In the complication one usually finds the different attempts to solve the problem or the conflict’.
38.
While the labels ‘protagonist’ and ‘antagonist’ may be considered arbitrary, this study's focus on the parallels between the characters of Joseph and Tamar leads it to acknowledge these characters as protagonists and their opponents as antagonists.
39.
While it may not be entirely clear at this point that Judah intends to withhold his son from Tamar even after his son has grown up, such becomes evident later in the story when Tamar recognizes that Shelah has grown up and still she has not been given to him (v. 14).
40.
Ska, Our Fathers, pp. 27–28, notes that varying definitions of climax abound. This study adheres to the understanding that the ‘moment of highest tension’ represents the climax.
41.
Ska, Our Fathers, p. 27: ‘The turning point normally inaugurates the falling action [at which point] an element appears that will lead the movement of the narrative to its conclusion’.
42.
This confession follows the accusation that Judah and his brothers have stolen Joseph's cup, so one may initially judge Judah's plea to be a supplication for mercy based not on an honest evaluation of the situation but rather on an attempt to appease Joseph. Within the context of regret previously established (by the brothers' confession in Gen. 42.21–22), however, one may discern undertones of a similar confession in Judah's speech here.
43.
Alter, The Art, p. 50.
44.
Meir Sternberg, The Poetics of Biblical Narrative: Ideological Literature and the Drama of Reading (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1987), p. 438: ‘The two areas about which the narrator is most reticent [are] the inner life of the agents and the ethical value of their acts’.
45.
Heimerdinger, Topic, Focus, and Foreground, pp. 240–60, discusses evaluation as a technique for narrative foregrounding. Alter, The Art, pp. 116–17, discusses the differing levels of certainty at which the narrative relays knowledge, and his observations inform how evaluation—and, we might add, internal perspective—may serve as a foregrounding technique. He explains that direct ‘statements by the narrator’ represent the surest means of conveying ‘information about the motives, the attitudes, [and] the moral nature of characters’. One may infer from this remark that the narrator's evaluative comments as well as insights into characters' internal perspective merit special attention because of their dependability (in contrast to the less reliable evaluations and perspectives suggested by the characters in their dialogue and conduct).
46.
Gunn and Newell, Narrative, p. 148.
47.
Consider the story of the wolf and the three little pigs. One comes to expect that the wolf will ‘huff and puff’ and blow down the house of each little pig. The contrast between expectation and reality in the last scenario highlights the pigs' successful outwitting of the wolf.
48.
Gunn and Newell, Narrative, p. 36.
49.
Susan Niditch, ‘The Wronged Woman Righted: An Analysis of Genesis 38’, HTR 72 (1979), pp. 143–49 (145–46), asserts that a ‘young childless widow’ is a ‘sociological misfit’, because she does not fit into any of ancient Israelite society's prescribed categories for women. She is ‘without patriarchal protection’, for she has neither a husband nor a son. The levirate custom thus greatly aids her situation by ensuring her (at least theoretically) both husband and son.
50.
Niditch, ‘The Wronged Woman Righted’, p. 145, explores the place of the woman in the ancient Israelite social structure and concludes that after a woman is no longer a virgin, she does not belong to her father. That Judah decides to send Tamar home does not represent a solution agreeable to all parties but rather constitutes a rejection of his family's obligation: primarily to raise an heir for the deceased, as legislated in Deut. 25.5–10, but also implicitly to keep the widow within his family as long as a levirate candidate exists. Dvora E. Weisberg, ‘The Widow of Our Discontent: Levirate Marriage in the Bible and Ancient Israel’, JSOT 28 (2004), pp. 403–29 (415), further observes that the story of Gen. 38, considered as an illustration of the levirate union in practice, supports the notion that ‘a levirate union with a kinsman other than a brother is preferable to no levirate union’. Should one entertain this thought, one may then conjecture that, among other ends, the levirate institution indeed functions to keep the deceased's wife within the family; even if all the deceased's brothers are dead, a levirate union is still sought, albeit with another family member.
51.
Nahum H. Sarna, Genesis (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1989), p. 256, asserts that ‘the predictive aspect of dreams was universally assumed in the ancient world’ and that ‘everywhere the dream was recognized as a means of divine communication’. Several biblical examples precede Joseph in demonstrating divine communication through dreams: Abimelech (Gen. 20.3), Jacob (Gen. 28.10–22), and Laban (Gen. 31.24).
52.
Heimerdinger, Topic, Focus, and Foreground, pp. 116–19, employs Russell S. Tomlin's model for topicality to show that a ‘topical peak’ occurs whenever two main topical participants (often filling the roles of ‘Actor’ and ‘Undergoer’) come into direct contact with one another. In the counter-deceiver type-scene, then, the topical peak corresponds with the reuniting of the protagonist and antagonist. One could further conjecture that these characters' reversal of roles only heightens the topical peak and confirms its qualification as the story's climax.
53.
In the first twelve verses of Gen. 38, Tamar is only once the subject of an action. In this one instance, she hardly qualifies as an agent in the narrative's progression, for she only obeys the directive of her father-in-law (v. 11).
54.
Judah perceives the deaths of his first two sons as being a result of their sexual union with Tamar and thus decides to withhold Shelah from her (v. 11). Sexual union with Tamar entails, in Judah's mind, certain death.
55.
The root עדי does appear, however, in v. 26. There the narrator reveals that Judah did not ‘know’ Tamar again.
56.
He issues imperatives not only to his daughter-in-law, Tamar (v. 11), but also to his son, Onan (v. 8).
57.
By withholding her from Shelah, Judah had refused her, among other things, an opportunity to conceive and bear a child.
58.
‘She [Tamar] had not been given to him [Shelah]’ (v. 14). In other words, Judah has not given Tamar to Shelah. Despite the narrator's understandably patriarchal choice of wording, one may understand (for practical purposes) that the inverse is equally true: Judah has not given Shelah to Tamar.
59.
Sarna, Genesis, pp. 268–69, emphasizes the nature of one's seal and cord as ‘a kind of extension of the personality’.
60.
Recall that earlier, in their own act of deception, the brothers mockingly proclaimed to one another, ‘Then we shall see what his dreams become’ (Gen. 37.20).
61.
Nonetheless, Joseph does bind up one of the brothers (Gen. 42.24).
62.
Morimura Nobuko, ‘The Story of Tamar: A Feminist Interpretation of Genesis 38’, Japan Christian Review 59 (1993), pp. 55–67 (61). Nobuko nonetheless acknowledges the possibility that Judah condemns Tamar for adultery but points out that, ‘if she is guilty of adultery, her partner should also be executed according to the law [Deut 22.22–24]’. Thus Judah's condemnation would remain unjust in the sense that it turns a blind eye to Tamar's equally culpable partner in the unlawful act.
63.
Nobuko, ‘The Story of Tamar’, p. 61, asserts that, in her father's house, Tamar is ‘subject to her own father’. Thus: ‘Judah, by exercising authority over Tamar, violates another man's rights’.
64.
Here Judah seems to admit the brothers' guilt for an act which they did not commit: they did not steal the goblet that was found in Benjamin's bag. Nonetheless, one may consider that Judah's words represent more than a self-deprecating, ingratiating plea for mercy. Given the brothers' previous confessional disposition (Gen. 42.21) and the lexical connection (קדצ) to Judah's previous confession in Gen. 38.26, one may reasonably assume that Judah speaks in a genuinely confessional tone here as well. The iniquity to which he confesses, however, presumably would not be that of which he is accused, but rather that which he and his brothers incurred when they sold Joseph.
65.
Recall that Tamar's message does not invite Judah to recognize first who she is, but rather who he is: 'Recognize please to whom … these [belong]' (v. 25).
66.
Gunn and Fewell, Narrative, p. 44, comment artfully on Judah's dual recognition of Tamar's identity and his own wrongdoing: ‘Judah did not know her when he sent her away to her father's house, and he did not know her when he lay with her. When he does come to know her it is more than he cares to know, and he has no wish to know her further, for she has forced him to know himself.’
67.
See n. 64 above.
68.
The lexical connection (ברע) between these two pledging incidents suggests the narrator's intentional comparison between Judah's actions in both events. Indeed, ברע only appears in Genesis (with this meaning) at Gen. 38.17, 18, 20 and Gen. 44.32.