Do Biblical Characters Talk to Themselves? Narrative Modes of Representing Inner Speech in Early Biblical Fiction

Niehoff, Maren R.

doi:10.2307/3267433

“…But in a penetrating study of this passage, M. Niehoff made a strong case for reading these words as Reuben speaking to himself. 34 The presence of confused syntax in Reuben's words could support Niehoff's proposal-Reuben's mind, filled with pain and "inner conflict," 35 has not quite sorted out the individual words.…”

Section: 1mentioning

confidence: 95%

Confused Language as a Deliberate Literary Device in Biblical Hebrew Narrative

Rendsburg

1999

JHS

1

0

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This article presents a paradigm example of confused language in an ancient Near Eastern literary text, the Egyptian tale of "The Shipwrecked Sailor." It explains the pertinent passage as a clever literary device in which confused and irregular syntax is utilized to portray the confusion that characterized the moment of the shipwreck. It then proceeds to treat seven biblical passages where similarly confused language is invoked to portray confusion, excitement, or bewilderment. Two of these passages have been treated previously in the secondary literature: 1 Sam 9:12-13 and Ruth 2:7. The five new treatments concern Gen 37:28, Gen 37:30, Judg 18:14-20, 1 Sam 14:21, and 1 Sam 17:38.

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“…But in a penetrating study of this passage, M. Niehoff made a strong case for reading these words as Reuben speaking to himself. 34 The presence of confused syntax in Reuben's words could support Niehoff's proposalReuben's mind, filled with pain and "inner conflict," 35 has not quite sorted out the individual words.…”

Section: Gen 37:30: Reuben To His Brothers (Or Is It To Himself?)mentioning

confidence: 96%

Confused Language as a Deliberate Literary Device in Biblical Hebrew Narrative

Rendsburg¹

1999

JHS

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This article presents a paradigm example of confused language in an ancient Near Eastern literary text, the Egyptian tale of "The Shipwrecked Sailor." It explains the pertinent passage as a clever literary device in which confused and irregular syntax is utilized to portray the confusion that characterized the moment of the shipwreck. It then proceeds to treat seven biblical passages where similarly confused language is invoked to portray confusion, excitement, or bewilderment. Two of these passages have been treated previously in the secondary literature: 1 Sam 9:12-13 and Ruth 2:7. The five new treatments concern Gen 37:28, Gen 37:30, Judg 18:14-20, 1 Sam 14:21, and 1 Sam 17:38.

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“…Such non-communicative "speech", called collective monologue, is not uncommon in biblical narrative as a method of representing inner thoughts of characters (Niehoff, 1992).…”

Section: A Inner or Spoken Perspective By The King?mentioning

confidence: 99%

Perspective and attribution: The cognitive representation of biblical narrative

Sanders

¹

1996

Poetics

4

0

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Frequently, a narrative leaves room for different interpretations. Perspectival ambiguities, in particular, may lead to different interpretations of narrative discourse. In this paper, it is argued that the analysis of perspectival ambiguities can be grounded in a cognitive-linguistic approach to mental space representations or embedded domains. In such cases, readers may arrive at different possible domain structures as a representation of the narrative. This model is exemplified by the study of the biblical story Solomon's Judgment. The domain structure analysis offers explanations for different ways in which translators and readers represent ambiguities in this story. Eleven translations were compared. In a pilot experiment, students of Tilburg University were randomly assigned to an idiolect translation group (N= 20), or a dynamic-equivalent translation group (N = 20). Differences in the students' representation of the story were found. The implications of these findings are discussed and re-examined by means of a second experiment.

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Do Biblical Characters Talk to Themselves? Narrative Modes of Representing Inner Speech in Early Biblical Fiction

Cited by 10 publications

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Confused Language as a Deliberate Literary Device in Biblical Hebrew Narrative

Confused Language as a Deliberate Literary Device in Biblical Hebrew Narrative

Confused Language as a Deliberate Literary Device in Biblical Hebrew Narrative

Perspective and attribution: The cognitive representation of biblical narrative

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