In Num. 20.14-21, Israel requests passage to pass through Edom but is denied. Of interest are the elements that add to Israel's request (e.g. historical preamble, and self-imposed conditions to encourage Edom to accept their request). Using politeness theory, this article ¿nds these elements to be strategies of politeness, and also show that Israel has a strategy of increasing politeness during the communication with Edom. In contrast, Edom is impolite, which indicates it wishes to be superior to Israel. This is consistent with the Bible's portrayal of Edom as a 'bad brother' to Israel. The ability of politeness theory to bring out subtleties in communication in the Bible shows that it is a useful heuristic device to assist with the interpretation of biblical texts.
W hen parents are narrated in the Hebrew Bible as actively nam ing their children, m others nam ing children occurs more frequently than fathers nam ing children. W hen this phenom enon is com bined w ith those biblical texts that indicate w om en as having influence over the religious leanings or language spoken by their children, it suggests th at the authors of the Hebrew Bible texts recognized that w om en had significant standing and influence in the ancient Israelite household.
Genesis 18.17–33, Abraham's dialogue with Yahweh over the number of righteous people in Sodom, is a difficulty in exegesis and interpretation. At a literary level, there has been no agreement on the nature of Abraham's language. It is common to interpret Abraham as bargaining with God in similar fashion to haggling over the price of goods in a bazaar; but proposals have been made that Abraham uses legal-like language, ‘socratic dialogue’ and midrash. There is also no agreement on the purpose of Abraham's dialogue. An analysis of Gen. 18.17–33 using politeness theory proposes that Abraham, as portrayed in the narrative, wants to reduce the number of people as the basis for God's forgiveness of Sodom and Gomorrah. This is an audacious request and so considerable forms of polite language are used to assist the request. However, it is argued that this request is not Abraham's real intention. Rather, his intention is to have Lot spared from Yahweh's destruction of the cities. This request is ‘off-record’, the politest strategy that could be used.
A study of the Lachish letters (ostraca) that goes beyond treating conventional formulae as simply epistolary phenomena or scribal preference shows that such language, along with other forms of language expressed in the letters, reflects a culture of high politeness. However, this culture is not restrictive. The senders also feel free to express their opinion and even criticise the recipient at times, with a corresponding reduction in respectful language. Such adjustment of language use to topic and/or emotion explains the variation in both conventional and other forms of polite language. When compared to biblical narrative and prayer, the letters affirm the biblical portrayal of social relationships. That is, the biblical portrayal of generally high politeness to a social superior or deity yet freedom to express opinion and criticism, along with the reduction in politeness that naturally occurs, with it reflects social reality of the time.
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