Tragedy and Biblical Narrative: Arrows of the Almighty

by J. Cheryl Exum

Overview

Using insights about ancient and modern tragedy, this study offers challenging and provocative new readings of selected Biblical narratives: the story of Israel's first king, Saul, rejected for his disobedience to God and driven to madness; the story of Jephthah's sacrifice of his daughter in fulfillment of his vow to offer God a sacrifice in return for military victory; and the story of Israel's most famous king, David, whose tragedy lies in the burden of divine judgement that falls on his house as a consequence of his sins. The book discusses how these narratives handle such perennial tragic issues as guilt, suffering and evil.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780521565066
Publisher:	Cambridge University Press
Publication date:	05/16/1996
Series:	Arrows of the Almighty
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	224
Product dimensions:	5.98(w) x 8.98(h) x 0.59(d)

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements; About translations and transliterations; Part I. Biblical Narrative and the Tragic Vision; Part II. Saul: the Hostility of God: Excursus: hostile transcendence in the Samson story; Part III. Jephthah: the Absence of God: Excursus 1: The awful and sustaining power of words; Excursus 2: Jephthah and his daughter: a feminist reading; Part IV. The Fate of the House of Saul: Michal and Jonathan; Jonathan; Michal; Abner and Ishbosheth; Rizpah's vigil and the tragic end of the House of Saul; Part V. David: the Judgement of God; Afterword; Notes; Bibliography; Index of authors; Index of proper names; Index of citations.

Editorial Reviews

Two aspects of Exum's work make it particularly noteworthy and rewarding. The first is the inclusion of gender as a category of analysis, and the second is the provocative analysis of the role of the deity in the tragic vision....Exum has expanded and reworked the material into an engaging and nuanced whole that will reward and challenge readers to reconsider comfortable readings that deny the possibility of divine injustice and indifference about the human condition." Pamela J. Milne, Critical Review

"Exum's work is broadly in line with that of others, yet her reading of Saul's story in interplay with Samson's, her focus on the character of God in this story, and the relation between God and the tragic Saul enrich our understanding of this narrative." W. Lee Humphreys, Hebrew Studies

"When this wide-ranging survey of Western literature is coupled with Exum's discussions of the theory of tragedy, the result is a work of impressive erudition." Susan Ackerman, Interpretation

"...she proves by the superb quality of her readings that tragedy offers an illuminating perspective on her texts and in doing so expands and alters generic definition....Everywhere one has the impression of critical, personal engagement with the text." David Jobling, The Journal of Religion

"Using insights about tragedy, ancient and modern, the book offers new readings of texts whose unsettling and recalcitrant features cannot be adequately accounted for." Shofar

"She [Exum] fleshes out the characters and the forces that cause them to act in cetain ways, very much as a good biographer or novelist would do. The difference is, Exum is a scholar and this work, which also incorporates the interpretations of other commentators, is a more valid, albeit secular reading of what might really have happened, than a midrash which is religion-based.' Marcia W. Posner

"Exum correctly concludes that tragedy does not exhaust the meaning of these narratives but it opens an array of deeper questions about the human condition and its limits....Exum demonstrates a remarkable literary sensitivity that delights the reader with a well-crafted work of deep insight." Camilla Burns, Catholic Biblical Quarterly

"In this exceptional book, J. Cheryl Exum explores the Bible's tragic dimension through a series of rich and provocative readings....Exum's focus on the tragic dimension of selected biblical texts brings their ambiguity into sharper focus and enables the reader to apprehend aspects of the stories (and of Hebrew narrative in general) that have gone unnoticed—a considerable feat, considering the plethora of readings on Saul, David, and Jephthah. No one seriously interested in the Bible's tragic vision can afford to pass it by." L. Daniel Hawk, Ashland Theological Journal

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