Biblical Narrative and the Death of the Rhapsode

NOTES

215 NOTES 1. Introduction 1. Throughout this discussion I use Allan Bloom’s translation, which appears in The Roots of Political Philosophy: Ten Forgotten Socratic Dialogues, ed. Thomas L. Pangle (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1987), 356–70. Unless otherwise noted, all other translations are my own. 2. It is worth noting that at ¤rst, as in this passage, Socrates refers to Ion unambiguously as hermåneus, meaning simply “interpreter.” Later, however, he uses the more ambiguous term hypokritås (536a), meaning not only “interpreter” but “actor ,” which seems more to the point and of questionable merit for Plato. For the problem of “acting” (hypokrisis) seems related to the problem of “representation” (mimåsis) in Book 3 of The Republic. Just as Socrates here distrusts the actor who, borrowing Homer’s voice, would speak of many arts without knowing any of them, so in The Republic he doubts the rectitude of any man who would “represent many things” (polla . . . mimeisthai, 394e), that is, play the parts of other men. One should also note the remark of Antisthenes in Xenophon’s Banquet: “Do you know any tribe more stupid [or simple] than the rhapsodes?” (quoted in Allan Bloom, “An Interpretation of Plato’s Ion,” in Roots of Political Philosophy, ed. Pangle, 371). For a more positive assessment of the rhapsodes’ place in the evolution of Homeric epic, see Gregory Nagy, Homeric Questions (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1996). 3. For a brief discussion of these issues, see Richard Elliott Friedman, Who Wrote the Bible? (New York: Summit Books, 1987), 150–60, 217–33. 4. This oral recitation in no way changes the written character of the text. Albert Lord himself has observed: “Oral epics are performed orally, it is true, but so can any other poem be performed orally. What is important is not the oral performance but rather the composition during oral performance” (The Singer of Tales [Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1960], 5). Even more to the point in the case of the Bible is the remark he makes in the related footnote: “It should be clear from this . . . that sacred texts which must be preserved word for word, if there be such, could not be oral in any except the most literal sense” (280 n. 9). 5. See Gerhard von Rad, Studies in Deuteronomy (London: SCM Press, 1953), 13–14; Jacob M. Myers, Ezra-Nehemiah, AB 14 (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1965), 151–53; Joseph Blenkinsopp, Ezra-Nehemiah (Philadelphia, Pa.: Westminster Press, 1988), 283–88. This passage poses several problems, such as deciding what, precisely , the Levites did, the meaning of mýpõr÷š, and the likelihood of secondary additions . But these do not obscure my main point, namely, that “interpretation” here is aimed not at the audience’s affects but at their intellects (ÿekel, bînâ). 6. In this study “biblical narrative” refers to the prose narratives found in Genesis through Kings. Broadly speaking, these texts originate from the same period of Israelite history (during the monarchy and before the fall of Jerusalem in 216 587 b.c.e.) and are written in what is often referred to as Classical Biblical Hebrew. Later texts such as Esther, while affecting a “classical” style, betray the in¶uence of Late Biblical Hebrew. My literary and linguistic analyses will therefore focus on this body of texts, and my claims will not necessarily hold outside of it. 7. Wolfram von Soden, for instance, simply states that “outside of Israel . . . there was no historical writing in the ancient Orient in the strict sense of the term” (The Ancient Orient: An Introduction to the Study of the Ancient Near East [Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 1994], 46). 8. Gerhard von Rad, “The Beginnings of Historical Writing in Ancient Israel ,” in The Problem of the Hexateuch and Other Essays (Edinburgh: Oliver & Boyd, 1966), 167; subsequent references are given parenthetically. 9. Gerhard von Rad, “The Form-Critical Problem of the Hexateuch,” in Problem of the Hexateuch, 1–78; subsequent references are given parenthetically. 10. I borrow the term from Hans Frei, The Eclipse of Biblical Narrative (New Haven , Conn.: Yale University Press, 1974). 11. Umberto Cassuto, “Biblical and Canaanite Literature,” in Biblical and Oriental Studies, vol. 2, Bible and Ancient Oriental Texts (1942–43; reprint, Jerusalem: Magnes Press, 1975), 16; subsequent references are given parenthetically. 12. Von Rad, “Form-Critical Problem of the Hexateuch,” 68. 13. Ibid., 64. 14. Cassuto, “Biblical and Canaanite Literature,” 18. Regarding this “new content ,” see especially Cassuto, “The Israelite Epic...