First, a quick definition of terms courtesy of Search Assist:
Russian formalism is a school of literary theory that emerged in Russia during the 1910s to 1930s, emphasizing the autonomy of literature and the analysis of its formal elements rather than its historical or social context. Key figures include Viktor Shklovsky and Roman Jakobson, who focused on the unique features of poetic language and the scientific study of literary devices.
New Criticism is a formalist movement in literary theory that emphasizes close reading of texts, particularly poetry, treating them as self-contained works without considering historical or biographical context. This approach became dominant in American literary criticism during the mid-20th century.
Structuralism is a literary theory that examines the underlying structures and systems within literature, focusing on how elements like characters, plot, and themes relate to one another to create meaning. It seeks to uncover deeper patterns that inform literary works, moving beyond surface-level analysis.
Deconstruction is a literary theory that examines how texts undermine their own apparent meanings, revealing contradictions and instability in language. It challenges traditional interpretations by highlighting the fluid and uncertain nature of meaning in texts.
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The book begins with a preface explaining Geller’s intention and shape of his analysis which he describes as a “blend of literary, religious, and historical analysis – perplexing to some, especially scholars in the field who have been taught to keep these areas distinct and discrete.” Geller has formed his own set of working assumptions holding the essence of “literariness”. These assumptions are “based purely on [his] personal experience of what he finds with an orientation to” Russian Formalism, New Critics, “a smattering of structuralism, a whiff of deconstructionism, all jumbled unsystematically into whatever configuration will make a story or poem work for me as literature.” Such terms as: ‛sense of word,’ ‛theme’, ‛motifs’, ‛setting’, and also ‛emotional meaning’ of the passage to its audience. He picks up for his task what Hermann Gunkel wrote, earlier in this century, “must be recreation, revivication, to the fullest extent allowed by the available scholarly tools, of a text’s original relationship between author and audience.”
Geller’s interpretive approach is (1) based on the text as a finished product, or, it’s final form, with an eye to what potential meaning(s) may be reasonably hypothesized an author may have intended or not intended holding that interpretation based on the final form is, in fact, less speculative than what rests on a prior division of the text in question into sources (unless circumstances demand otherwise). (2) based on “attention to language at all levels,” with a reference to Roman Jacobson; striving to reach in the spirit of Goethe, access to the interior of a literary work of art, and like the Russian Formalists, “regard for the intricate pattern of words, nuances, and allusions.” He is accepting of ‛legitimate ambiguity’. Aggadah as compared to halakah he writes was “at least was tolerant of ambiguity.”The more legalistic Halakah finds ambiguity unacceptable to a dogmatic approach that aims at uncovering the absolute, unchanging “truth” in the sacred text. He argues for a literary, possibly more in the spirit of, aggadahic point of view, where all possibilities are equally valued (except for the truly non-sensical ones).
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What I love is that he separates pre-Hellenic biblical religion from the organized faith, official or popular, of the period of circa, 1000-600 BCE – the era of two states of Israel and Judah, better referred to as “Israelite or, more so, owing to circumstantial differences between those, Israelite or Judean religions.” The emergence of a ‛biblical religion’ Geller credits to a small minority which managed to impose its religion on the rest of the people, and he applies his dominantly literary orientation to what is “primarily and essentially literary expression of religious feeling and insight,” rather than the immediate recording of primary experience. (An approach to the text as an immediate record of primary experience I suppose would be based more on a search for facts and historical record.) He goes on to say, “In other words, it takes seriously the biblical religion’s one proclamation of centrality and canonicity, of the primary text.”
To expand a little, in the use of this term, ‛biblical religion’, Geller understands that what the Hebrew bible presents is not a religion, per se, that is, it is not “something like a community set of beliefs concerning the supernatural in relation to the cosmos and a set of rituals incorporating those beliefs.” He emphasizes “community” as the main issue, and writes “The bible constantly proclaims itself the religion of a faithful minority in every age in opposition to the idolatry of the masses. It is a minority faith, a protest, and as such, essentially polemical.” This minority is, itself, a congeries of traditions that often conflict. Dominant is the covenantal, that is, of a formal relationship between deity and people. The covenantal is expressed in the Priestly and the Deuteronomic tradition; a third tradition, centered in the “writings” is the wisdom tradition and although centered there, it “meanders throughout the other sections.” Fourthly, and finally is the prophetic tradition, which he writes “is the heart of biblical religion, that revelation of covenant was through a prophet of prophets, Moses. Even more than wisdom, it remained apart, at heart untamable by covenantal law, priestly rite, and wisdom precept.”
Geller denies the ideal of a theology in the Hellenic sense of a systematic exposition of the principles of faith based on logical principles for this biblical religion, but does not deny a profound intellectual as well as religious content employing “subtle manipulations of the traditional meaning of terms, striking wordplays, peculiar juxtapositions of topics, shifts in the use of stock formulae, creative associations of images, such were the halting means through which a biblical theology finds expression.” He proposes that only attention to that literariness can enable one to understand fully the underlying ideas.
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I’ll say I’ve learned quite a lot just preparing for this particular post. I hope to continue but I’m thinking I’ll probably start with the chapter on Deuteronomy 4, because I’ve read it first. Actually I’m still studying it the process of translation.
Geller begins with the Struggle at the Jabbok because that story is earlier in the history of the Israelites.
Well if the goal of a review is for the reader to decide to read the book, mission accomplished!
The emergence of a ‛biblical religion’ Geller credits to a small minority which managed to impose its religion on the rest of the people, and he applies his dominantly literary orientation to what is “primarily and essentially literary expression of religious feeling and insight,” rather than the immediate recording of primary experience.
A spot-on perception that applies equally well to the New Testament. Which is why the interregnum between the actual historical events, honestly beyond our ability to capture, and the codification of the canon is so fascinating.
Geller denies the ideal of a theology in the Hellenic sense of a systematic exposition of the principles of faith based on logical principles for this biblical religion…
It is interesting to consider how little actual theology there is to be found in the Bible.
Joseph Campbell told a funny story. In the 1940s, after the War, he was in New York editing the research papers of a deceased friend of his who had been an renowned Indian scholar. This was before Hinduism had penetrated popular culture and in the West was still largely the purview of scholars. A pious Indian friend of Campbell’s, new to the West, knowing his interest in Asia and its myths, came to him perplexed. He said, “When I travel to a new country I like to learn about their religion, so I got myself a Bible and began to read it. But I’m confused. I can’t find any religion in it!”
In the essay in which he recounts this episode, Campbell offers, “Look at it from a Hindu perspective. If you don’t have an idea that the history of the Hebrew people is a religious expression then you won’t find much religion in the Bible. Some say, what about the Psalms? But what is the message of the Psalms? God is going to give me victory and power and destroy all my enemies. This is just the opposite of what a Hindu would regard as a religious expression!”
Very nice. Thanks, Jill.
a third tradition, centered in the “writings” is the wisdom tradition and although centered there, it “meanders throughout the other sections.” Fourthly, and finally is the prophetic tradition, which he writes “is the heart of biblical religion, that revelation of covenant was through a prophet of prophets, Moses. Even more than wisdom, it remained apart, at heart untamable by covenantal law, priestly rite, and wisdom precept.”
I do love his talk of the wisdom tradition meandering throughout the other sections as well as the prophet tradition at heart untamable!
Amos 5:8-24
What a question! Yes, that does come up!
He says this:
“The goal of true understanding certainly became blurred after Gunkel, so that literary criticism came to refer primarily to the dissection of the text into it putative sources; and form criticism, introduced into the study of the Hebrew Bible mainly by Gunkel, became quite as isolating and atomizing, quickly losing sight of his true aims. . .
“When interest in a truly literary approach revived, it took a polemical stance against history, justified by its models in linguistics and modern literary criticism. Once again, Gunkels’ goal of total understanding, of the integration of all the disciplines and all their foci, literary, aesthetic, comparative, and historical, receded even further into the distance. ..”
“Today, the atomizing approach dominates, often contemptuous of any attempts at sympathetic, synthetic comprehension of different periods and cultures. Solipsism rules, and critics write only for the like minded.”
He writes:
“Originally, the aim of the type of interpretation of religious texts presented in this work was, in the mind of its author, simply to display the utility of deep exegesis in drawing meaning of religious as well as literary significance out of the texts. Gradually, however, the broader, and more radical, thesis of the privilege of the literary approach as an aid in understanding biblical religion began to emerge. In addition, a basic similarity in the religious messages in the texts, with a new awareness of the relative limitation to a certain period and set of historical and cultural circumstances, led gradually to an awakening intimation of a general hypothesis about the origin and nature of biblical religion itself. In many respect, it is similar to that long proposed by many scholars, from Wellhausen on, but differs from them precisely in its dominantly literary orientation, that is, it views the phenomenon of biblical religion as a primarily, and essentially, literary expression. . ..”
and later,
“Chapters 7 and 8, analysis, respectively, of the story of the rape of Dinah in Genesis 34 and of the Garden of Eden narrative in Genesis 2 and 3, will attempt to illustrate that even the seemingly most concrete topics in the Hebrew Bible take on a different range of meaning when viewed as literary images. Specifically, the historical role of the Canaanites, enemies of covenant Israel and supposedly addicted to unnatural sexual practices, is really a metonymy, an image for an aspect of biblical religion that is struggling to formulate itself through that image. And, moreover, even sexuality itself is employed in the Bible as a literary metaphor to enable yet deeper aspects of religious intuitions, new at the time, to reach the level of expression. This is probably the most abstract and certainly the most controversial portion of the book, the one that touches most directly on its thesis. The claim will be made that the kind of interpretation offered is valid not only as a literary reading but that it also has historical value, as a timely expression of that complex of intended and unintended meanings we personify as the author of the text.
“The final chapter deals openly with the historical circumstances of the type of religion uncovered by the literary approach: its place in the culture of its time, its relationship to earlier forms of religion, and its leading ideas as products of their age.”
I do love his talk of the wisdom tradition meandering throughout the other sections as well as the prophet tradition at heart untamable!
** you do not have permission to see this link **
Justice, justice, shall you pursue, that you may live and take hold of the land that the Lord your God is about to give you.
Deuteronomy 16:20
That’s a great point about the repetition. Robert Alter actually mentions that particularity in his notes.
Though much ingenuity has been exercised by exegetes to explain the repetition, its function as a verbal gesture of sheer emphasis is self-evident: justice, and justice alone, shall you pursue.
I was taken by the word “pursue”. Of all that a man can pursue, only justice — so that they may live in the land.
I love that repetition, and it brings to mind ** you do not have permission to see this link **, which I’ve always taken a liking to. I’m sure there are other examples of the same thing, but I can’t think of any offhand.
That’s just a beautiful beautiful verse. So telling.
That’s a great point about the repetition. Robert Alter actually mentions that particularity in his notes.
In his Bible translation? I started it a while back and am only in Leviticus, but I shall skip ahead to see – also his notes on Jeremiah.
I was taken by the word “pursue”. Of all that a man can pursue, only justice — so that they may live in the land.
Indeed. Yet, nothing more worthwhile.
I’m inclined to start my first word study with pursue. I’m not sure if it’s the same word in Hebrew, but another favorite verse of mine is Proverbs 28:1.
Thanks for the questions Robert.
I’m not sure I’m how much this last quotation relates to my question above, and perhaps my question relates more to how I personally approach and attempt to integrate formalism, structuralism, deconstruction, and other forms of new criticisms to historico-critical methodologies.
I think basically, I was trying to clear out the impression that Geller was simply focused on the literary value without consideration to other, ‛socio-historical’ aspects. The quote was an attempt to illustrate that this was not the case.
What does Geller owe to the new criticisms outlined above? Is it merely the focus on the final text as a literary expression, which he then further appreciates as an author’s perspective engaged with an historical audience? Or does he more specifically embrace and utilize elements of formalism, structuralism, deconstruction, etc?
These questions are a bit more difficult. In order for me to respond in any coherent fashion, I will need to further study in depth of detail his observations and how they relate to those disciplines, i.e., formalism, structuralism, deconstruction, etc. There I am also handicapped as I have little exposure to those disciplines, so I’ll also be learning as I go along. That is, I don’t find he specifically mentions any ‘that school tells us this’ or ‘this school tells us that’. No worries though. I’m thinking, too, as I share what I find, you may be able to glean answers as I go along with the posts.
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