Irony and Meaning in the Hebrew Bible

1. Interpreting Irony: Rhetorical, Hermeneutical, and Theological Possibilities

Universes hang in the balance with every act of reading an ironic sacred text. This apparently extravagant statement might be perceived as ironic by those who do not believe that reading matters deeply, those who do not see cultural constructions of the sacred as important, and those who may not be sure how to assess the claim. It might also be suspected of irony by those who think that however true the claim might be, its author is probably not pressing it earnestly in this particular context. Yet I, the author, do claim earnestly that reading sacred texts is profoundly important for all who are involved in creating written cultures and for every creature and aspect of creation with which culture-making beings interact. Notions of the holy that readers discover and construct from sacred texts have relevance for their treatment of other living creatures and the natural world, their view of the possibilities and constraints of community and culture, and their posture toward remembered pasts and imagined futures. Acts of reading do matter for all creation. Thus one critic’s ironizing hyperbole may be another critic’s passionate truth claim.1 Sacred texts deal with matters belonging to the gritty stuff of experience and matters belonging to the soaring heights of the spiritual imagi1 Interpreting Irony: Rhetorical, Hermeneutical, and Theological Possibilities Interpreting Irony 7 nation. They catalyze convergences and clashes of culture within and among communities. Sacred texts invite their readers to interpret suffering , to seek healing and enlightenment, and to make sense of the intersections between holy and profane. Discerning appropriate language to mediate the dialogue between holy and profane is no easy task for any writer, ancient or contemporary. Deciphering meaning in Israel’s sacred texts is no easier for the reader. Within the Hebrew Bible we see a wealth of genres and styles and tones employed by biblical writers from many different subcultures and historical periods within ancient Israel, across a broad spectrum of epistemologies and theological perspectives. Crucial components of their understandings and practices are lost to us or remain poorly understood , rendering the task of interpretation challenging. The power of the unspoken adds to Hebrew Bible texts much “fraught” background and implicit foreground.2 Attentiveness to silence —to the importance of what is not said—is a significant part of the enterprise of reading, for, as A. J. Mandt has said, “meaningful discourse is a mixture of articulation and silence.”3 Biblical poetry is elliptical: psalms and prophetic oracles leave much to the reader’s constructive skills, and the gaps in poetry are essential to poetic expression. Narrative , too, can draw the reader into its silences. Consider these observations of Alan J. Hauser about narrative poetics: [I]n the narrative poetry of Judges 5, which never once directly curses the Canaanites, the writer, through succinct characterization , heavily laden but terse dialogue, and a series of skillfully constructed vignettes which have a cumulative effect, devastatingly excoriates the Canaanites. In Genesis 22 the writer argues effectively that Abraham is a man of great faith without ever saying so explicitly, choosing instead to use sharply honed dialogue, pregnant silence, a sparse but precisely articulated story line, suspense , carefully focused development of characters, and phrases laden with implication to concentrate the reader’s attention on the enormous sacrifice which Abraham is prepared to make. What is unspoken can be as important as what is said openly in moving the writer’s argument forward.4 What, then, if the unspoken is at odds with what is articulated? Irony is a cultural phenomenon whose very possibility blurs the lines among the multitudinous possibilities for how to speak, how to hear, and how to understand . Language can represent naïvely and pragmatically, can describe clearly, can make its points directly. But language can also obfuscate, misname , and subvert what it seems to be saying. In the Bible, we have count- 8 Irony and Meaning in the Hebrew Bible less sophisticated ways in which language is used to express understanding of the mysteries of human nature (elusive enough in itself) and the nature of God (far beyond human understanding; that much, the friends of Job get right). What Carl Raschke says of a postmodern view of textuality generally may be applied with particular force to the interpretation of ironic texts: “Texts are no longer bare runes to be puzzled over. They are at once an intricate braid of the latent...