Reading the Lines: A Fresh Look at the Hebrew Bible (review)

Hebrew Studies 44 (2003) 245 Reviews Analogously, a narrative pattern, rather than indicating deliberate (and therefore meaningful) design, may merely reflect the natural course of events. Any round-trip journey, for instance, will necessarily have a concentric structure (ABA'), inasmuch as one begins and ends in the same place. Thus, while not a round-trip, the structure Walsh correctly identifies in I Kgs 5:8b, 9 simply mirrors the necessary sequence of events: bringing trees down to the sea, transporting them as ratts, and bringing them up for the work of construction (p. 83). The concentric structure of the Jacob cycle (Gen 25:1235 :26), on the other hand, while partly a reflection of his journey to and from Laban, has clearly been artistically shaped, as well: note, for example, the symmetrical pair of nocturnal encounters with a supernatural being (pp. 31-34). Finally, one wonders how a pattern sewn together by a redactor-such a" Gen 1-11 (pp. 111-113)-differs from one woven into the text itself by a writer-such as Gen 11:1-9 (pp. 94,95). The argument has been made that literary structure is evidence of a textual unity that disproves the documentary hypothesis. As is well known, however, source criticism has used certain rhetorical features (especially "resumptive repetition") as clues to redactiona fact acknowledged by Walsh (p. 59). By extension, the study of structureby -redaction, as some critics have come to recognize, could ultimately help reconcile synchronic interpretation of the text "as we have it" with diachronic analysis. Robert S. Kawashima University ofCalifornia Berkeley, CA 94720 kawashr@socrales.berkeley.edu READING THE LINES: A FRESH LOOK AT THE HEBREW BmLE. By Pamela Tamarkin Reis. Pp. x + 227. Peabody, Mass: Hendrikson, 2002. Cloth, $24.95. Pamela Reis's book is in a genre of its own. Ms. Reis is not a professionally trained biblical scholar, but rather an autodidact who has acquired some proficiency in Biblical Hebrew as well as a working knowledge of the secondary literature in the field. Her book is composed of literary readings of eleven biblical texts (Genesis 1-2, Gen 4:8, the three wife/sister stories, Genesis 16 and 21, Genesis 37, Exod 4:24-26, Judges II, 1 Samuel 21-22, I Samuel 28, 2 Samuel 13, and 1 Kings 13), each introduced by a short biographical essay describing her personal struggle to make sense of these enigmatic and troubling passages in a holistic fashion. The strength of this book resides in Reis's ability to write clearly as well as in her very strong literary sensibilities. Here one thinks of her abilities to make verbal and thematic links Hebrew Swdies 44 (2003) 246 Reviews between apparently disparate narratives such as she does convincingly with Genesis 16 and Exodus 2-3 (pp. 81-82). Anyone will learn new and interesting things from her essays and be challenged by some of her arguments. While Reis makes many good points along the way, the larger framework of the book is problematic. Reis spends a good deal of time arguing against any use of source criticism, and she does so by setting up source critics as a bogeyman. In some sense, she follows in the tracks of Robert Alter and Umberto Cassuto, but with much less depth and finesse than either of these two great scholars. Now Reis is to be complimented for protesting the way in which some scholars resort to source criticism much too quickly in their quest to explain any textual variance. However, in spite of her sense that she has defeated source critics at their own game, she has only demonstrated that those source critics who think the redactor was a mindless editor or a literary artist with no talent are wrong. What she fails to realize is that source critical theory is itself grounded in an attempt to make sense of things in a holistic way. However, the phenomenon that is being made sense of is not limited to just the Torah, rather it includes all of ancient Israelite society. The fact is that source criticism frequently enhances one's perception of the Hebrew Bible as well as of the complex sociology and history...