Old Testament Assignment
Character Study
Characterization in the Bible
Seymour Chatman - "Plot and character intersect." Story and Discourse, p. 119.
Aristotle "A person will have character [in a play] if ... his speeches or actions make clear his moral choices." Poetics 15.2
"... [U]nderstanding characters in biblical narrative is rather like getting to know people in real life, we might start with assumption about appearance, profession or position. A particular action or conversation may also prompt initial approval or disapproval. In effect, what we start with is a hypothesis which we then test and elaborate as we draw on information as it becomes available." (David Gunn and Danna Nolen Fewell, p. 51)
We have two major sources of information: the narrator and characters themselves.
Biblical narrators are reliable.
They do not give misleading information, but sometimes they withhold
important pieces of information until late in the story.
Sometimes the narrator adds an "exception clause" that
may be more important than the wording suggests when the entire
narrative is taken into consideration.
1 Kgs. 15:5 "David did what was right in the sight of the
Lord, and did not turn aside from anything that he commanded him
all the days of his life, except in the matter of Uriah the Hittite."
The narrator may provide information about appearance, profession or social situation. This tends to be sparse. Any detail that is given usually has great significance.
On occasion the narrator provides an evaluative statement, such as, "Noah was a righteous man" (Gen 6:9). Sometimes the evaluation is implicit. Frequently, the narrator adds ambiguity by juxtaposing actions that may seem inappropriate with actions that seem noble or necessary. Biblical figures appear to be real people.
Biblical narrators leave things out. These are called gaps in the narrative. Meir Sternberg calls the biblical narrative a "System of Gaps." Sometimes the narrator provides sufficient information to judge one's gap filling probable. On other occasions, one must concede one's hypothesis is possible but that another contradictory hypothesis may also be valid.
Characters may speak for themselves, but what they say may be fraught with irony. Sometimes, characters reveal their weaknesses in statements that they regard as showing their strengths. When Elkanah says to Hannah, "Am I not more to you than ten sons?" (1 Sam 1:8), he implicitly criticizes her. If he meant to comfort her, he could have said, "you are more to me than ten sons." Watch for what a character does not say or what he or she changes in or adds to his or her account of things. "We may also seek to fathom characters by measuring what they say against what they do" (Gunn and Nolan Fewell, p. 71).
E.M. Forster distinguishes between flat and round characters. A flat character tends to serve a limited purpose in a narrative. A servant may simply bring a message, and we may learn nothing more about him or her. Round characters exhibit a wide range of traits, many of which are contradictory. They are like real people. Few characters in the Bible are truly flat. It is often important to know as much about each character with whom your character interacts before you can understand his or her motives. To understand Absolom's motive for burning Joab's field, one must first understand Joab.
Bibliography on Biblical Characterization and Poetics
Alter, Robert. The Art of Biblical
Narrative. New York: Basic Books, 1981.
Berlin, Adele. Characterization in Biblical Literature.
Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1993.
Gunn, David M. and Nolan Fewell, Danna. Narrative in the Hebrew
Bible. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993.
Sternberg, Meir. The Poetics of Biblical Narrative. Bloomington:
Indiana University Press, 1987.
I. Choose one of the following characters.
Rachel Deborah Joab Esther
Isaac Abimelech Michal Jonah
Judah Samson Absalom Boaz
Tamar Saul
II. Prepare for writing your paper by reading the story of your character very carefully and taking note of significant events, actions, words or descriptions. The events that have preceded or follow this story may also be important. Biblical characters are seldom simply bad or good or of a type. The biblical narrator presupposes a whole person even if he tells us only a few things about that person. Use the model of analysis that we have been using in the class to explain the nature of this person's characterization. What does his or her story tell you either about the nature of God and his relationship to the community, his people or to humanity in general?
One way of approaching this step in preparing to write your paper is to ask yourself what questions need to be addressed in order to understand your character's actions, emotions and ideas. The following is a set of standard questions that may help you see significant patterns and details in the text:
How does her or she fit into the larger story of Israelite
history? What role does her or she play in that history?
What is the person's relationship to God? How do they come to
know God? What personal qualities draw them closer to God or push
them away from God or other characters in the story?
How does he or she manifest his or her faithfulness of lack of
faithfulness? (Try not to impose your notion or knowledge of God
upon the character. Remember many of these characters have just
been introduced to God.)
Note any tension you discern between your sensibilities and what
you discern about this person after a close reading. Try to be
conscious about what this discomfort means. Is there an implicit
criticism of the character in the text or are you challenged to
reflect upon a conflict between your point of view and that of
the Bible?
What is his or her motive or motives for actions that are unusual
or call for a decision?
Is there a particular passage or event that is difficult to understand
upon first reading that requires that you puzzle out the logic
of what is happening?
Try looking at your character from perspectives internal to the
story. How would another character, perhaps one who rigorously
observes the law, view your character? Would female and male characters
differ in viewpoint?
What gaps occur in the narrative and what do you draw upon to
fill them?
These questions are not exhaustive. Your reading of the narrative may suggest other more relevant questions. I encourage you to discuss your ideas with friends, classmates, and myself before you cast them into a final written form.
III. Research:
Use a concordance to help you find relevant material in the Bible
related to your text. For example, if you were looking for all
of the references to Michal in the text, you would look up her
name. You might also look up key words from your story, such as
the word prostitute from the Tamar story. These concordances are
located in the reference room of Good Library. Nelson's Complete
Concordance of the Revised Standard Version of the Bible Ref.
BS 425.E 1957
An Analytical Concordance to the Revised Standard Version of the
New Testament Ref. B.S. 2305 .M67
Also use biblical dictionaries and encyclopedias to provide general information about social realties, legal concerns or concept with which you are not completely familiar.
Look for relevant articles and books that will help you notice details which you may have overlooked or provide you with information and data with which you are not familiar. I recommend ATLA in Palni SiteSearch for articles in Biblical Studies and Religion. Academic Search Elite offers a limit selection of full text articles from a few relevant journals. Look for arguments that support your ideas or interpretations with which you will argue in your paper. Treat your paper as part of an on-going scholarly dialogue.
In order to ensure that you are making the most of the resources
offered by Good Library offers, your bibliography must include
the following:
One book from the Good Library collection
One article found in a periodical in the collection.
One relevant web site
Be cautious about the way that you use commentaries. Commentaries provide verse by verse discussion of biblical books. Students often gravitate to commentaries because they are easy to use. Commentaries are also dangerous. The interpretation provided may be determined by an ideology not located in the text. For example, commentaries written before 1950 may be implicitly or explicitly Anti-Semitic. Commentaries that cover more than one book of the Bible tend to be too superficial to be of use for the type of scholarly research that you will be doing in college. They provide useful information for your initial research but consulting them should not be the extent of your research
Take careful notes while you read so that you can provide complete citations and so that you know which words are your own and which come from your sources.
IV. Write a 5-6-page essay in which you discuss the relationship between characterization and the significance of biblical narrative.
Note: An essay begins with an introductory paragraph that explains both why the topic at hand is of interest and needs to be addressed and what point you will make. Your thesis statement usually appears as the last sentence of the introduction. The thesis statement is an answer to a question that is stated implicitly or explicitly in the sentences that precede it.
Old Testament Assignment 1999
Choose one of the following two themes. Examine what biblical scholars have written on the passage that you choose. Investigate what has been written on the themes related to your topic and passage. Document the research that you do. This must be turned in with your essay. Write a 4-5 page essay based upon your own answer to the posed questions. Use proper forms of citation to document how you are using the words and ideas of other scholars.
Choice A: The Righteousness of God
One of the distinctive ideas in Hebrew thought is that God's holiness and righteousness are inseparable: "The Lord of hosts is exalted by justice, and the Holy God shows himself holy by righteousness" (Is 5:16). The prophets repeatedly insist that God by his nature demands right conduct from his worshippers. Our understanding of Old Testament righteousness tends to be shadowed by commentaries that draw a sharp distinction between the legalism of the Old Testament and the Love of the New Testament. Norman H. Snaith calls our attention to an understanding of righteousness that suggests the Old and New Testaments share a vision of acceptable human conduct. With reference to the eight-century prophets, he writes:
There is a deep-seated and fundamental bias at the root of their ethical teaching. This element is a consideration for the poor and down-trodden. It crops up again and again. ... When they emphasized tsedeq (righteousness in relation to the needs of the widow and the orphan, the poor and the needy, this does not mean that the depressed classes ought to receive any treatment different from the rest of the community. It does not mean that they were to receive better things. Still less does it mean that wrong actions which are condemned in the rich are to be condoned in the poor. Theoretically, there is no doubt, the prophets held that there should be one law for all, rich and poor alike. But their message arose out of the frank recognition that here most in human affairs there was room for improvement. In practice these unfortunates did not receive the same treatment. That is why the prophets singled them out so markedly. Their need was greater. Further, it was evident that unless God himself did something for them, then nothing would be done at all. The wealthy and the noble, the aristocrats and the business men would continue on their self-appointed way, selling up the poor, building up their ow estates, and all within the law as administered in the courts. The poor had no redress there, for where the oppressors themselves were not the judges, they controlled the judges by influence and bribes. The poor and helpless had no helper but God. The Psalmist writes, "Why do the wicked renounce God, and say in their hearts, "You will not call us to account"? But you do see! Indeed you note trouble and grief, that you may take it into your hands; the helpless commit themselves to you; you have been the helper of the orphan" (Ps 10:13-14).... Inasmuch, therefore, as it is God's concern to establish tsedeq (righteousness) in the land, he must perforce pay particular attention to the case of the poor and outcast, the widow and the orphan.... tsedeq is more than a barely ethical word. Already it is invading the salvation vocabulary. Tsedeq certainly stands for the establishment of justice in the land. We would not detract to any degree from the importance of that, but important as it is, it is but half the truth. It is incidental that tsedeq stands for justice. It is incidental because tsedeq actually stands for the establishment of God's will in the land, and secondarily for justice, because that in part is God's will. It is 'in part', because God's will is wider than justice. He has a particular regard for the helpless ones of earth to rescue them from the clutches of those that are stronger than they.... Here is no Justice, blindfoldedly holding the scales in just equality. The Distinctive Ideas of the Old Testament (New York: Schocken, 1964), pp. 68-72.
God's justice is, therefore, not about fairness and just deserts, but about giving and mercy.
Explain how God's sort of justice is evident or absent in one of the following stories in a four page essay.
Choice Two: Deuteronomic Theology in the Biblical Narrative
Deuteronomy, Joshua, Judges, 1-2 Samuel, and 1-2 Kings are called collectively the Deuteronomic history because the writers seem to have based their editorial principles upon the principles and laws of the book of Deuteronomy. The ancient Rabbis recognized these unifying principles and identified Jeremiah as the author because of the significance place of Deuteronomy in the prophetic book of Jeremiah. The writers of these biblical books assumed that the readers would know the laws of Deuteronomy; therefore, they did not provide editorial comments criticizing or praising behavior, they left that to the reader.
Jesus quotes Deuteronomy more than any other book of the Old Testament, but Christian readers tend to ignore Deuteronomy because its focus upon law is easily confused with an idea of credit and debit justice that has nothing to do with biblical theology and has never been a part of Judaism.
J. Gordon McConville describes Deuteronomic theology as a monotheism of relationship that is epitomized by the Shema (Deut 6:4). God governs every nation, but he has chosen Israel to live in a covenant relationship bound by mutual commitments. God stands as Israel's monarch and gifts the people the land in which they dwell. God makes himself known through history and dwells among his people, but God is greater than any one place. Through the law and his actions, God shares a vision of an order that embraces all life in which moral and religious uprightness bring blessings. The law enshrines principles of love and self-denial.
According to McConville, Deuteronomy is the story of a covenant relationship in which the people of God demonstrate their inability ot be faithful covenant partners. Early in the story, God admonishes his people to "circumcise the foreskin of your heart" (Deut 10:16); at the end of the story, God becomes the agent of change. "The Lord your God will circumcise your heart and the heart of your descendants, so that you will love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul, in order that you may live" (Deut 30:6). Deuteronomy ends with prescriptions for renewal of the covenant, for God responds to human failure with grace. Grace in the End: A Study in Deuteronomic Theology (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1993), pp. 123-137.
Provide an analysis of how one of the following stories reflects the laws of Deuteronomy. What is praiseworthy or condemnable in the actions of the characters from a Deuteronomic perspective? How does knowing the legal background help the reader understand the story better?