First and Second Samuel (review)

Hebrew Studies 34 (1993) 113 Reviews interpretation (see for instance the analysis of 2 Kgs 6:1-7 on p. 200), one wonders whether the rules offered by Brichto will establish strict enough bonds of discipline to inhibit the sometimes too free spirit of the interpreter . Without "close reading," analysis founded on careful attention to every detail and the role it plays in creating the whole picture, literary analysis will always be arbitrary and superficial. My reservations should not obscure the importance of such an effort to offer a grammar of biblical poetics. I agree with Brichto's statements about attributing biblical narratives to different genres: "Categorization of genre must follow exegesis and not serve as a tool for exegesis. Only when a consistent and satisfying exegesis of a given narrative has been achieved should we ask which. if any, genre label is most apposite to our narrative" (p. 27). Furthermore. "regardless of the variety of literary genres available to the biblical authors. the shape and substance of Scripture constitute a new genre, without precedent and probably inimitable: an ideological corpus blending story and structure. the novel and the historic. the real and the ideal, the poetic and the prosaic, the comic and the tragic, the mundane and the metaphysical into a literary achievement whose design we are only beginning to plumb" (p. 257). Indeed, any attempt to approach biblical poetics is trustworthy only when founded on listening to the voice of the Bible, on the condition that the scholar is ready to consider contributions of different approaches to Scripture and is not equipped with a rigid system of rules such as the apologetic assumption that every roughness, discrepancy. or pit in the story can be smoothed (see for instance pp. 90-91), or that the MT deserves the "benefit of doubt" due to the doubtful principle of lectio difficilior praestat (p. 246) with which every textual error can be justified. Yair Zakovitch Hebrew University Jerusalem, Israel FIRST AND SECOND SAMUEL. By Walter Brueggemann. Interpretation: A Bible Commentary for Teaching and Preaching. Louisville: John Knox, 1990. Cloth, $24.95. The choice of author for this particular volume in the Interpretation series of commentaries by John Knox Press is a happy one. The series, Hebrew Studies 34 (1993) 114 Reviews which is intended to meet a wide range of needs among students, teachers, ministers, and priests for contemporary exposition, attempts to integrate the results of historical and theological work with the biblical text. Brueggemann is unusually well fitted for this task. Moreover, he has achieved his objective in what may well prove to be the most significant of his many published works in recent years. This particular reviewer was deeply impressed with the author's earlier contribution to the same commentary series on the book of Genesis. The present volume is even more impressive. This book is destined to take its place as one of the most useful tools currently available for interpreting, teaching, and preaching on 1 and 2 Samuel. Walter Brueggemann's long and fruitful dialogue with the figure of David in the biblical text has produced some remarkable contributions to scholarly discourse. As early as 1968, his study of the paradigmatic role of David for Israel ("David and His Theologian," CBQ 30 [1968]: 156-181) pointed in new directions. His popular study, David's Truth in Israel's Imagination and Memory (Fortress, 1985), carried the dialogue into somewhat turbulent waters in his attempt to combine the divergent approaches of sociological analysis and literary criticism. His more recent study, Power, Providence and Personality: Biblical Insight Into Life and Ministry (Louisville: Westminster/John Knox, 1990), grows directly out of his long preoccupation with the story of David and the writing of this particular commentary, which marks the culmination of a most significant journey-one that has profound implications for both the academic world of biblical scholarship and the community of faith in general. As one would expect, Brueggemann focuses his attention throughout this work on radical social change and drastic reconfigurations of social power in ancient Israel in terms of what this means in contemporary society. The books of Samuel occupy the transition from the amorphous social order of tribal...