Tips For Reading Hebrew Narrative

(with special attention to Genesis 22 and 21)

I. Know the General Themes and Purpose of the Book

    (Genesis: God's Promise of Progeny and Land; Blessing; Election; Strife; Providence)

II. Set the story in context. Know the plot and put story in the context of the larger plot.

Connect details with what comes before and after.  Note use of similar words in seemingly unconnected events. (Abraham’s actions; Angel’s appearing; Abraham and Hagar seeing) Note objects such as wood, fire, wells, and water.

III. Describe the major movement/structure of the story (type-scene; forms)

A.     Outline story. Note which events are crucial or peripheral.

B.     Identify other stories with similar structure.

                        (Genesis: Note parallel in two stories of Sarah rejecting Hagar)

            C. Notice what happens at the beginning, end, and middle of the story.

D. Notice repeated words or phrases and descriptive details - also puns, irony,

            symbolism, dramatic connections. (“Here I am”;  verbs of seeing, etc.)

            E. Attend to issues of causality and conflict.  Why do events happen and where are

                        the major conflicts? (God tests Abraham; Conflict between Sarah and Hagar)

IV. Identify major & minor characters

            A. Notice who has name. (Abraham, Isaac, Hagar, Ishmael???)

            B. Notice who has voice.  How does speech function?  Who talks to whom? --

                        All Hebrew narrative is drawn toward dialog.

            C. Notice who is both subject and object of action.

                        (Isaac and Ishmael as objects, almost)

            D. What do you know about characters and how do you know?  Do you know from

            the narrator, from a character, or from another character's speech or action?

E.      What don't you know?

F.      With whom do you sympathize, empathize, have antipathy for?  Why?

V. What is the narrator's point of view?  How do you know?

VI. In what setting is the text?

A.     Attend to spatial settings.  inside/outside; sacred space; (mountain/wilderness)

B.     Attend to temporal setting such as time of day or festival season.  Time can be chronological or typological; locative or durative.

            (Or perhaps intentionally out of time)

C.     Attend to social settings such as banquets; gates; wells.

VII. Notice important themes such as the role of violence, power, election, morality.

VIII. Where is God in the text?  Do we know God's point of view concerning

            the action and characters?  How?  Where is the theological/moral force?

Sources: Alter, Robert. The Art of Biblical Narrative, N.Y.: Basic, 1981.

Berlin, Adele. Poetics and Interpretation of Biblical Narrative. Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 1994.

Powell, Mark Allen. What is Narrative Criticism? Minneapolis: Fortress, 1990.

For an expanded version of “Tips for Reading Hebrew Narrative” see my webpage at http://www.luthersem.edu/djacobso/