Narrative Demarcation, Part I - "You Have Set and Inviolable Boundary"
LITERARY STUDY OF BIBLICAL NARRATIVE
By Rav Dr.
Yonatan Grossman
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by Frieda and Dovid Wadler
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Lecture #15:
Narrative Demarcation, Part I
“You Have Set an Inviolable Boundary”
NARRATIVE DEMARCATION AND THEME
One of the most basic
components of analysis of biblical narrative is narrative demarcation –
determining where the story begins and where it ends. As Yaira Amit puts it,
"The topic of demarcation is a primary and basic issue with which every reader
must contend when attempting to analyze any biblical narrative."[1]
Narrative demarcation
is often accomplished in an intuitive way; in most cases, it is obvious to the
reader where the plot begins and where it ends.
However, sometimes this activity is not simple at all, and deciding where
the story begins and where it ends significantly influences the meaning of the
narrative in its entirety.
In the context of this analysis, there is a clear distinction between
hermetically sealed, stand-alone stories and those that are part of a broader
cycle or series. Since many biblical
narratives are in fact part of a wider literary cycle (for example, the stories
of Avraham, Yaakov, Yosef and his brothers, the Exodus from Egypt, the journey
to the Plains of Moav, Shmuel, Sha'ul, David, etc.), the process of demarcation
and analysis cannot be done with naiveté, as if the reader is aware only of the
story currently being read. The
theme of an individual story is often tied to the theme of the wider narrative
cycle.
Thus, the reader may (and indeed must) set the boundaries of the story of
Yosef and Potifar's wife (Bereishit 39) and dissect the text as an
independent story. Nevertheless,
appraising it as a lone story while ignoring what precedes it and what follows
it does an injustice to the full theme of the story. Similarly, the reader may analyze the
encounter between Rut and Boaz in the latter’s field (Ruth 2) as a scene
that stands on its own, with a unique theme. Despite this, it is clear that the
full significance of the scene may only be grasped by relating to the entire
story. Therefore, despite the
importance of the issue of narrative demarcation, in my humble opinion, its
importance is often exaggerated. Most of the time, the reader can recognize the
theme of the narrative without explicitly addressing the issue of setting the
boundaries of the story at one point or another.[2]
Professor Amos Frisch notes a primary and basic distinction in the
context of the analysis of biblical narrative through the process of
demarcation. Sometimes, the boundaries of a biblical narrative can be determined
via an external analysis, “a technical, artificial delineation, which is set
according to the needs of the researcher on a certain mission." On the other
hand, sometimes the analysis is done internally, listening to the design of the
narrative itself, "exposing the literary boundaries which already exist in the
biblical text itself."[3] We are interested, in our current
discussion, in the nature of the second type of demarcation, which arises from
the verses themselves, as we seek to track the ways of shaping the biblical
narrative and their contribution to the messages hidden beneath the surface.
First, we will describe the essential measures by which we can locate a
narrative’s boundaries, and afterwards we will analyze the borderline and
complex cases. Naturally, dissecting
ambiguous cases can often lead us directly to the hidden themes of the
narrative.
NARRATIVE DEMARCATION AND NARRATIVE UNITY
The question of narrative demarcation is tied to what is sometimes called
the question of narrative unity – in other words, what turns a story into "one,"
a story that is distinct from that which comes before it and that which comes
after it?
A broad discussion of this issue emerges from the debate between Menachem
Perry and Meir Sternberg on one side and Uriel Simon and Boaz Arpali on the
other. In light of a deep analysis
of the story of David and Bat-Sheva by Perry and Sternberg,[4]
Simon and Arpali attack them for only dissecting the story of the sin without
addressing the rebuke of the prophet Natan (the parable of the poor man's sheep)
and without considering David's repentance. According to Simon and Arpali, any
analysis of the story that ignores the episode that closes it misses the point,
as the punishment for the sin and David's repentance are essential parts of the
theme of the narrative.
Seeking to justify their omission of Natan’s parable and David’s reaction to it,
Perry and Steinberg discuss the different techniques of narrative demarcation.
The general thrust of their argument is:
The borders of the unit are dynamic. They are not determined a priori, once and
forever; rather, they are determined again and again, reorganizing themselves
according to the questions which [the narrative] wants to answer, according to
the type of view with which it observes [the situation].[5]
Accordingly, the central
criteria by which one can determine the boundaries of a literary unit in
Tanakh are thematic unity, shifts in time, literary symmetry, techniques of
transmission, and the natural, distinctive stages of storytelling. Yaira Amit
adds another criterion, which she calls an “editorial expression,” such as
"After these things," "And it was at that time," "And it was after that," etc.[6] One may distinguish between the
different parameters of the two basic spheres that shape the narrative – the
plot elements on one hand and the verbal network on the other.
The Plot
Unity of the Plot
Often, the reader senses where the plot begins and where it ends based on
the consecutive nature of the plot and the procession of events until the plot
is resolved. In the above-mentioned
response of Perry and Sternberg to the claims of Simon and Arpali, they claim
that one may talk about the unity of the plot in three contexts:
-
Concatenate structures
are based on the consecutive nature of the plot.
This is clearly the easiest method of narrative demarcation, and in most
cases, it is intuitive and self-evident. As part of narrative continuity, it is
also worth noting the gathering of characters (sometimes concluding with
character dispersal, as in Shemot 18 and Bamidbar 24-25) and the
unity of time or place.
-
Joint structures
are based on thematic continuity. As long as the story deals with a particular
issue, we can view it as part of the organic Scriptural unit dissecting the
subject under discussion. The problematic nature of this definition is clear:
the one who defines the subject is the reader himself or herself. What is the subject of the story of David
and Bat-Sheva? "David and his sin"? "Crime and punishment"? "Absolute power corrupts absolutely"? Each definition of the subject will
suggest different boundaries for the narrative. Indeed, as Perry and Sternberg
noted, “The borders of the unit are dynamic…They are determined again and again,
reorganizing themselves according to the questions which [the narrative] wants
to answer, according to the type of view with which it observes [the
situation].”
-
Comparative structures
create a clear analogy (for points of comparison or contrast) in the literary
unit, housing the two sides of the analogy beneath one roof.
While these three methods are distinct, any two or all three may work
together. Let us take the example of
the description of Shabbat at the beginning of the second chapter of
Bereishit. Unlike the division of the Torah into 54 weekly portions and 669
paragraphs, which is of Jewish origin, the division of Scripture into chapters
is of Christian origin. It was Archbishop of Canterbury Stephen Langton who
divided the chapters in 1205 (although the division was soon adopted by Jews as
well). Langton clearly severs the paragraph of Shabbat from the preceding
days of Creation, putting it with the story of the Garden of Eden in chapter 2.
Nevertheless, the structure of the plot compels the reader to view the
description of Shabbat as an integral part of the story of Creation. This
arises from the narrative concatenation – it is impossible to speak of "the
seventh day" without the six days preceding it – as well as from the joint theme
– the subject of Creation, which comes to its conclusion specifically with rest. Moreover, in a certain sense, we may
point to a comparative element as well – the expression of a confrontation
between the six days and the seventh day. As a result, a chorus appears in the
short description of the seventh day; "the work which He had done" appears three
times in three verses![7]
Verbal Network
Sometimes, it is not the plot and its structure that helps the reader
with narrative demarcation, but rather the tapestry of words in the text, which
alerts one to the termini of the story.
-
Standard formulations
make the work of demarcation much easier.
There are boilerplate formulas for the introduction (e.g., "After these things")
and the conclusion (e.g., the etiological "Therefore, it is named... until this very day," naming a place
because of the event, etc.; or an editorial summation, such as "And the land was
quiet for forty years"). However, one must pay careful attention to the choice
of the formulas that open and close the narratives. "And there was once a man" (Shoftim
13:2, I Shmuel 1:1) gives a feeling of a totally fresh subject; on the
other hand, while "At that time" or "After these things" introduce a new unit,
they indicate that this new unit is tied to that which precedes it. (The Rashbam points this out in his
comments to the beginning of the story of the Binding of Yitzchak, Bereishit
22:1.)
-
A mila mancha
(guiding word) or
unifying semantic field can help the reader find the narrative’s borders.
(Polak refers to this as a “structural contribution” of the mila mancha,
as we already discussed in the analysis of the mila mancha.)
We can demonstrate the importance of verbal demarcation through the story
of the theft of Yitzchak’s blessings (Bereishit 27). Langton clearly
believes that the story ends with Rivka’s sending Yaakov to Charan, and the
final verse of the chapter (46) reports her words to Yitzchak justifying
Yaakov’s departure. Yitzchak then blesses Yaakov and formally sends him to
Charan to find a wife, and Langton views this as the opening of the next
literary unit. The logic behind this distinction is clear: the subject of the
theft of the blessings logically should end with Rivka's begging Yaakov to flee
to Charan to save himself from Esav, who is trying to kill him because of the
theft. Yitzchak's words to Yaakov
are not tied to the theft, and one can thus view them as the introduction to a
new scene.[8]
However, the reader must note that from the beginning of chapter 28, one
encounters many descriptions of family relations:
Arise, go to Paddan Aram, to the house of Betuel, your mother’s father,
and take from there a wife, from the daughters of Lavan, your mother’s
brother… (2)
And he went to Paddan Aram to Lavan, son of Betuel the Aramean, the brother
of Rivka, mother of Yaakov and Esav… (5)
And Esav saw that the daughters of Canaan were evil in the eyes of Yitzchak
his father. (8)
These familial terms are
common in particular throughout the story of the theft of the blessings, and one
may view them as a semantic field that unifies the story of the theft of the
blessings (chapter 27). This ties the episode of Yitzchak’s sending Yaakov to
Charan with the entire preceding story, a connection implied by the rabbinic
division of the portions (the parasha of Toledot concludes with
28:9), as opposed to the division of the chapters.
-
Inclusion
is the technique of creating a literary envelope by using similar words at the
beginning of the story and at its end, thereby delineating the boundaries of the
story.
This can be seen in the story of Yosef and Potifar’s wife (Bereishit
39). The episode both opens (vv. 2-4) and closes (vv. 21-23) with Yosef’s
success in the house of an Egyptian master:
And God was with Yosef, and he was a
successful man, and he was in the house of his Egyptian master. And his master saw that God was with
him; and everything which he did, God made successful in his hand.
Yosef found favor in his eyes,
and he served him, and he appointed him over his house, and he put in his hand
everything he had.
The story ends with a parallel phrase, this time referring to Yosef’s
success in prison:
And God was with Yosef,
and He treated him kindly, and He made the warden view him with favor. And the warden put in the hand of
Yosef all of the prisoners who were in the prison-house, and everything
which they did there, he would do. The warden did not look at anything in his
hand, because God was with him; and whatever he did, God made successful.
-
Inversion
is similar to the previous technique, but instead of the opening and closing
reflecting a similar state, the conclusion reverses the situation at the opening
of the story. The story opens with a certain fact, and within the process of the
story, the situation reverses itself, so that in the end the reader confronts
the results of this turnabout.[9]
For example, in the story of the Tower of Bavel (Bereishit
11:1-9), the introduction (vv. 1-2) mentions two facts: unity of language and
unity of place:
And it was (Va-yehi) that
the whole world had one language and a common speech. And it was (Va-yehi)
when they moved eastward that they found a plain in Shinar and dwelled there.[10]
In the end of the story (v. 9), the two facts return with a noticeable
inversion: no more unity of language or unity of place, but rather a
multiplicity of language and a scattering people:
That is why it was named Bavel — because
there the Lord confused (balal) the language of the
whole world, and from there the Lord scattered them over the face of
the whole world.[11]
The technique of inversion is also apparent in the opening of the story
of Naaman: “And Naaman, chief of the army of the king of Aram… and the man was a
mighty man of valor, but a leper”
(II Melakhim 5:1), which concludes with a reversal of fortune when
Geichazi is told: “‘Naaman’s leprosy will cling to you and your seed forever!’
And he left, leprous as snow” (ibid. 27).[12] Zakovitch writes of this reversal:
Geichazi’s leprosy is more severe than
that of Naaman: concerning Naaman, it is said in the exposition that he is “a
leper,” while Geichazi is now described as “leprous as snow”… Our verse nevertheless completes the
cycle – Naaman is healed, while Geichazi becomes a leper. Naaman recognizes, in
light of his healing, the hierarchy of our world, while Geichazi becomes a leper
because he does not recognize this order, in light of the revelation of his
dishonesty and fraud.[13]
-
Literary structure can be
based not on plot elements, but the words in the text themselves. This
does not necessarily imply a verbal network, as the structure can spring from
the plot and not from the language. Nevertheless, I bring this technique as the
final element of our discussion of the role of the verbal tapestry in narrative
demarcation to distinguish this type from demarcation based solely on the plot
elements. Indeed, in relying on the literary structure of the story for the sake
of its demarcation there is some circularity, because the demarcation itself
influences the determination of the structure of the story, and it makes sense
that sometimes the structure is what determines the elusive demarcation.
An example of this may be seen in the struggle of the commentators and
critics to determine the boundaries of the story of Yitzchak’s birth and
Yishmael’s banishment (Bereishit 21). Langton makes one unit of the two
episodes – the great rejoicing at the birth of Yitzchak (vv. 1-8) and the
desperation of the banishment of Hagar and Yishmael (vv. 9-21) – as he includes
the two halves in the same chapter. This is also the demarcation that arises
from the paragraph divisions. On the other hand, some critics claim that in fact
there is no connection between the description of Yitzchak’s birth and the
description of the banishment of Yishmael.[14]
Following the literary structure of the unit can resolve the debate.
There is a sense that the narrative is designed as two parallel parts in a
chiastic structure, with the response of Avraham to Sara’s proposal to banish
Yishmael being the focal point and pivot of the story. (This is sometimes
described as a concentric structure.[15])
A |
1-5 |
God’s blessing: the birth of Yitzchak, Avraham’s son |
B |
6-7 |
Sara and her son: “God has made laughter for me; whoever hears will laugh for
me” / “Sara nurses children!” |
C |
8 |
Avraham and his son: “a great feast” in honor of his son’s entering the house.
[16] |
D |
9-10 |
Sara asks Avraham to banish Yishmael. |
E |
11 |
The reaction of Avraham: “This matter was very bad, in the eyes of Avraham, for
his son.” |
D1 |
12-13 |
God joins Sara’s request to banish Yishmael |
C1 |
14a |
Avraham and his son: banishment from the house with bread and a bottle of water. |
B1 |
14b-16 |
Hagar and her son: “The
water in the bottle was spent, and she
cast the child under one of the
shrubs" |
A1 |
17-21 |
God’s blessing: the survival of Yishmael, son of Avraham. |
This structure is certainly not unequivocal, mainly because there is no
joint verbal network binding the parallel parts. However, if it is intentional,
this is a deciding vote for the view of the dividers of both the chapters and
the paragraphs that one must view the birth of Yitzchak and the banishment of
Yishmael as one story. This reading makes the banishment of Yishmael a clear
result of the birth of Yitzchak – the selection of one son and the rejection of
the other.
These are the central criteria that aid demarcation of the boundaries of
a literary unit. There are a number
of things that make demarcating the story easier, and we will enumerate them at
a later point. In order to do so, however, we must first open a wider analysis
of borderline cases, cases in which Scripture plays with the boundaries of the
unit and in this way assimilates the hidden messages of the narrative. This will
be the subject of the next lecture.
[1]
Y. Amit, Likro Sippur Mikra'i (Universita Meshuderet, Misrad Ha-Bitachon,
5760), p. 25. Compare this to the
words of Yair Zakovitch in Gavoah Mei-Al Gavoah: Nittuach Sifruti shel
Melakhim Bet, Perek 5 (Tel Aviv 5745), p. 15, who defines the work of
narrative demarcation as constituting "the first stage of consciousness in an
analysis of literary-biblical creation."
[2]
Nevertheless, it is appropriate to point out even at this point that the
question of demarcation significantly affects the question of order and
organization of the facts in the narrative, as well as the issue of the literary
structure of the narrative. We will relate to this point in the coming lectures.
[3]
A. Frisch, Pirkei Malkhut Shelomo Be-Sefer Melakhim (Doctoral thesis,
Bar-Ilan University: Ramat Gan, 5746), p. 12.
[4]
M. Perry and M. Sternberg, "Ha-Melekh
Be-Mabbat Ironi," Ha-Sifrut 1: 2 (5728-5729), pp. 263-92.
[5]
M. Perry and M. Sternberg, "Zehirut,
Sifrut! Le-Ba’ayot Ha-Interpretatzia Ve-Hapoetika shel Ha-Sippur Ha-Mikra'I,"
Ha-Sifrut 2 (5730), pp. 608-63 (esp. pp. 633-7).
[6]
Amit, Likro Sippur Mikra'i, p. 29.
[7]
The verbal network seems to support the proposed division, because God's name as
mentioned on the seventh day is simply "God" (as opposed to “Lord God,” which is
used throughout the next chapters).
[8]
In fact, it is surprising that the Rivka's words to Yitzchak, "I am disgusted
with my life because of the Hittite women," are viewed by Langton as the final
verse of chapter 27 (the theft of the blessings) and not the opening of chapter
28 (Yaakov’s leaving home to find a wife).
It may be that because of the centrality of Rivka in this verse, Langton
prefers to include it in the story of the theft, in which Rivka is the main
instigator.
[9] Examples of inversion can be found in U. Simon’s Keria
Sifrutit Ba-Mikra: Sippurei Nevi’im (Jerusalem-Ramat Gan, 5757), pp. 1-2 – I
Shmuel 1-2: Holadat Shmuel; p. 84 – I Shmuel 28: Shaul
U-Va’alat Ha-Ov; p. 113 – I Shmuel 10-12: David U-Vat Sheva);
and p. 274 – I Melakhim 18-19: Berichat Eliyahu Le-Chorev.
[10]
The anaphora “Va-yehi” makes it
easier for the reader to identify the double introduction to the narrative.
[11] In this
conclusion, the anaphora of “there” and the epiphora of “all the land” are
intertwined, which makes it easier for the reader to identify the double
conclusions. As for the envelope
structure, see, for example, J. P. Fokkelman’s Narrative Art in Genesis
(Assen and Amsterdam, 1975), pp. 13-23.
[12]
Translator’s note: For convenience’s sake, we use the terms “leper” and
“leprosy” for metzora and tzara’at respectively, despite the fact
that in Tanakh, tzara’at is a physical manifestation of spiritual
infirmity, not a bacterial disease.
[13]
Zakovitch, Gavoah Mei-Al Gavoah, p. 121.
[14] This is how Westermann and Hamilton approach the story: C.
Westermann, Genesis 12-36: A Commentary (Minneapolis, 1985), p. 330, 336;
V. P. Hamilton, The Book of Genesis: Chapters 18-50 (NICOT, Grand Rapids,
1995), p. 75.
[15] Compare this view to that of E. Samet in Iyunim Be-Farashat
Ha-Shavua, Parashat Vayera.
[16] Weaning
was viewed in the ancient world as the stage at which the child was separated
from its mother and became a member of the household.