Customer Reviews

The Poetics of Biblical Narrative: Ideological Literature and the Drama of Reading (Indiana Literary Biblical Series)

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The information in this book is excellent, and Dr. Sternberg has an engaging narrative voice; many people who don't have to buy this book as a textbook would probably find it interesting to read. In small bits, however.

Sometimes the book overwhelms me, and I feel the author tried to tackle too large a subject. Any scholar who writes about the "voice" of the Biblical narrator is being disingenuous to pretend that there is but one voice in the Bible. However, Dr. Sternberg suggests this in his opening sentence: "What goals does the biblical narrator set himself?"

The book considers parts of the Bible discretely many times, and within each discrete frame, the information and analysis is excellent, but I think the Sternberg fails to tie it all up by discussing the possibility that all of Deuteronomy and the book of Jeremiah may be one voice, Leviticus contains one, one of which is present in Exodus, but not the other, Genesis consists of two voices, one of which is present to a very small degree in Leviticus, and more in Numbers, and then goes on the write Joshua. Etc. This is common theory, though Sternberg has a right to reject it. I just wish he'd acknowledged it.

But as I said, his analysis of each topic is excellent; much of his information is startling and refreshing.