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    BK Rw. Narrative Obtrusion in The Hebrew Bible by Christopher T. Paris, (Emerging Scholars Minneapolis - Fortress Press, 2014), Xiv + 215 Pp.

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    GeorgeAbhayanandOic
    This document contains a book review of "The History of Ancient Israel: A Guide for the Perplexed" by Philip R. Davies. The reviewer provides a positive assessment, stating that Davies was well equipped to guide perplexed readers through the complex issues relating to the history of ancient Israel. While acknowledging limitations due to the brief scope, the reviewer finds that Davies achieves an appropriate balance in his introduction and nudges readers towards further reading. The review provides overview of Davies' treatment of 19th and 20th century critical contributions before concluding that the book fulfills the remit of the series well.

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    BK Rw. Narrative Obtrusion in The Hebrew Bible by Christopher T. Paris, (Emerging Scholars Minneapolis - Fortress Press, 2014), Xiv + 215 Pp.

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    GeorgeAbhayanandOic
    19 views3 pages
    This document contains a book review of "The History of Ancient Israel: A Guide for the Perplexed" by Philip R. Davies. The reviewer provides a positive assessment, stating that Davies was well equipped to guide perplexed readers through the complex issues relating to the history of ancient Israel. While acknowledging limitations due to the brief scope, the reviewer finds that Davies achieves an appropriate balance in his introduction and nudges readers towards further reading. The review provides overview of Davies' treatment of 19th and 20th century critical contributions before concluding that the book fulfills the remit of the series well.

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    Bk Rw. Narrative Obtrusion in the Hebrew Bible by Christopher T. Paris, (Emerging Scholars; Minneapolis- Fortress Press, 2014), xiv + 215 pp.

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    This document contains a book review of "The History of Ancient Israel: A Guide for the Perplexed" by Philip R. Davies. The reviewer provides a positive assessment, stating that Davies was well equipped to guide perplexed readers through the complex issues relating to the history of ancient Israel. While acknowledging limitations due to the brief scope, the reviewer finds that Davies achieves an appropriate balance in his introduction and nudges readers towards further reading. The review provides overview of Davies' treatment of 19th and 20th century critical contributions before concluding that the book fulfills the remit of the series well.

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    © All Rights Reserved
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    19 views3 pages

    BK Rw. Narrative Obtrusion in The Hebrew Bible by Christopher T. Paris, (Emerging Scholars Minneapolis - Fortress Press, 2014), Xiv + 215 Pp.

    Uploaded by

    GeorgeAbhayanandOic
    This document contains a book review of "The History of Ancient Israel: A Guide for the Perplexed" by Philip R. Davies. The reviewer provides a positive assessment, stating that Davies was well equipped to guide perplexed readers through the complex issues relating to the history of ancient Israel. While acknowledging limitations due to the brief scope, the reviewer finds that Davies achieves an appropriate balance in his introduction and nudges readers towards further reading. The review provides overview of Davies' treatment of 19th and 20th century critical contributions before concluding that the book fulfills the remit of the series well.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
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    of 3

    762 Book reviews

    This stimulating volume contains a pleasing variety of contributions that


    will repay careful study.

    George G. Nicol
    [email protected]
    DOI:10.1163/15685330-12341413-03

    Christopher T. Paris, Narrative Obtrusion in the Hebrew Bible (Emerging Scholars;


    Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2014), xiv + 215 pp.

    In this revised Vanderbilt thesis (directed by Jack Sasson), Paris mainly focuses
    on interventions made by the narrator in the interest of influencing the read-
    er’s response to the text. He employs the term ‘narrative obtrusion’ for these
    interventions, which he defines in his brief ‘Introduction’ as ‘omniscient com-
    ment employed by the narrator to address potential issues in the text that will
    create problems for the reader, either because of questions the narrator be-
    lieves the reader may ask or because of the assumptions the narrator fears the
    reader may have’. Yet among those narrative critics (including Alter, Berlin, and
    Bar-Efrat) whose work he surveys in chapter one, the term is strikingly absent,
    although that does not necessarily mean that the feature has gone unnoticed,
    only that it may have been discussed under different terms and perhaps also
    with a less strenuous emphasis. That said, given the volume of scholarship that
    has focused on the literary interpretation of biblical narrative over the past fifty
    years, one questions whether this indicates that the neglect he seeks to correct
    is as significant as he believes. Moreover, his profile of the narrator (which he
    equates with ‘the narrator’s voice within the text’) who is so completely aware
    of the potential questions and actual assumptions of readers in ancient times
    is surely open to question. He is also much concerned with ‘reader response’
    and he contends that ‘the study of narrative obtrusiveness may help to bring
    these (i.e., reader response and narrative critical) approaches closer together’.
    In chapter two, Paris builds on his survey of narrative criticism, among other
    exegetical methods, to construct his methodological approach to narrative ob-
    trusion (regarded as attempts by the narrator to influence reader response),
    which he seeks to distinguish from the general omniscience of the narrator.
    Although he refers briefly to other texts, Gen. 22.1, the main example he uses
    to test his method, is discussed at length. One wonders however whether he
    has placed too much weight on the alleged obtrusive force of Gen. 22.1. Against
    Paris I would suggest that in putting Abraham to the test God remains in-
    scrutable; the test implied by the command God gives might or might not be

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    Book reviews 763

    rescinded by the counter-command that comes only at the last possible mo-
    ment and not before Abraham has plumbed every emotion that might be in-
    volved in being forced to kill his son. There is nothing in the introduction of v. 1
    or the command that follows to suggest that the story will stop short of Isaac’s
    death. The verse does not greatly defend the deity nor, one might hazard, does
    it turn the focus from the deity’s motives to Abraham’s obedience. Even if the
    test was continued until Isaac was dead, it is not impossible to imagine the
    possibility of the story continuing with an even more aged Abraham and Sarah
    receiving another son. Aside from that quibble, there is much in this chap-
    ter that is descriptive of different sorts of obtrusions, the varieties of informa-
    tion they provide, how they relate to God, and how through them the narrator
    may anticipate the questions readers might raise or the assumptions they
    might make.
    Chapter three is devoted to an examination of Judges 14.4, a verse that
    ‘breaks frame at a key structuring point in the book of Judges’, one in which
    Paris discerns both omniscience (v. 4b) and obtrusion (v. 4a). Perhaps that is so,
    and the lengthy discussion of the passage exhibits numerous telling observa-
    tions as well as a good knowledge of its treatment in the scholarly literature,
    yet the earlier failure of Samson’s parents to recognize that the messenger, both
    in the initial annunciation and its repetition, was the angel of the Lord tends
    to suggest that 14.4a shows them to be consistently dull-witted in relation to
    God and his purposes, perhaps weakening its obtrusive nature. In chapter four
    Paris’s contention that ‘the narrator employs literary strategies based on the
    type of reader envisioned’ plays a prominent part in the discussion of a num-
    ber of obtrusions that occur between Joshua and 2 Samuel. A major section of
    this chapter is concerned with the part David plays, reading events in such a
    way that the narrator exercises control over the narratives, yet he also stumbles
    into the gap Nathan leaves in the fiction he represents as a case to the king.
    In the fifth chapter, Paris surveys the narrative literature of other ancient
    Near Eastern cultures, seeking more examples of narrative obtrusion, finding
    it lacking in some and present in others. Thus ‘Hurro-Hittite scribes rely on
    their ability to effectively communicate a story to a reader’, in Ugaritic narra-
    tive poetry ‘the narrator’s voice is generally absent’, there are ‘many omniscient
    comments’ in Mesopotamian literature where intrusions ‘vary in degree’, and
    although the Egyptian literature surveyed displays considerable artistry it may
    be because their leading characters share so much of their story from a first
    person point of view that narrative obtrusion is minimal or entirely absent.
    The brief chapter six presents the author’s conclusions; two appen-
    dices list ‘Selected Obtrusions from the Hebrew Bible’ and ‘Some More
    Obtrusions Not Covered In This Study’ respectively. There follows a substantial

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    764 Book reviews

    bibliography and a general index, which unfortunately does not comprise bib-
    lical citations although it does include the main biblical characters named
    throughout the book.
    In conclusion, although this study contains much to engage the reader, it
    does not escape its origins in a doctoral thesis, not least because some aspects
    of the survey of narrative criticism in chapter one seem to provide an unnec-
    essary preliminary to the work that follows. At the same time, it might have
    strengthened Paris’s argument if he had been able to include a fuller discussion
    of some of the other obtrusions indicated so briefly in the second appendix.
    In spite of the reservations expressed above, he has made a good case that the
    narrator’s device of obtruding into biblical narrative deserves closer attention
    than it has yet received, and it may be that other scholars will in time begin to
    use the term ‘narrative obtrusion’.

    George G. Nicol
    [email protected]
    DOI:10.1163/15685330-12341413-04

    Philip R. Davies, The History of Ancient Israel: A Guide for the Perplexed (London and
    New York: Bloomsbury T&T Clark, 2015), xiii + 186 pp.

    With his wide-ranging knowledge of the subject and his several substantial
    contributions to recent debate, few guides could have been better equipped
    than the late Philip Davies to steer the perplexed through many of the thorny
    issues relating to the history of ancient Israel. The demands this series places
    on the author to produce a ‘clear, concise and accessible’ introduction to the
    subject are considerable, not least because the last four decades have given
    rise to so much debate. Arguably the field remains in such turmoil that a book
    so limited in scope could scarcely do justice to the subject, while distilling its
    every aspect for the benefit of an audience largely untutored in its complexi-
    ties. Nevertheless, aiming to achieve an appropriate balance among the past,
    present and future of the subject, and admitting that he is aware of many omis-
    sions, Davies has written an introduction that fulfils the remit of the series well
    and helpfully nudges the interested reader in the direction of further reading.
    For those who already know and admire Davies’ contributions to the subject,
    the book will provide no surprises and he sets out his material in admirable
    manner. A brief prologue is followed by a chapter that takes a broad but bal-
    anced sweep through the critical contributions of the 19th and 20th centuries,

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