The Tacit Agenda of a Literary Approach to the Bible

Robert Alter's The Art of Biblical Narrative (1981) did not merely aim to elucidate the literary structure of the Bible for a broad audience; it also sought to articulate the moral and theological vision of the Bible. In this respect it parallels the efforts of Martin Buber and Franz Rosenzweig, whose essays on biblical translation collected in Die Schrift und ihre Verdeutschung (1936) claimed the mantle of critical scholarship but, more importantly, strove to guide readers to a meaningful encounter with the biblical text. This article argues that a common theological agenda animates both Alter's and Buber-Rosenzweig's projects and informs the metaliterary significcance that the authors ascribe to the literary approach to the Bible.