Theology Today - Vol 46, No. 4 - January 1990 - BOOK REVIEW - Samuel and the Deuteronomist: A Literary Study of the Deuteronomic History: I Samuel

458 - Samuel and the Deuteronomist: A Literary Study of the Deuteronomic History: I Samuel

Samuel and the Deuteronomist: A Literary Study of the Deuteronomic History: I Samuel
By Robert Polzin
New York, Harper & Row, 1989. 296 pp. $38.95.

The volume under review is the second part of a major work in progress: a complete literary study of the Deuteronomistic History (the books of Deuteronomy through I and II Kings, excluding the book of Ruth). The first part of this work was published in 1980 (Moses and the Deuteronomist: A Literary Study of the Deuteronomist History), and it is a pleasure to see this ambitious project carried on into I Samuel. Robert Polzin's literary approach in these two volumes is based not only upon his previous work in structuralism (cf. especially his Biblical Structuralism: Method and Subjectivity in the Study of Ancient Texts), but also upon the allied and distinctive work of the Russian Formalists. Mikhal Bahktin especially figures in this latest volume.

Consequently, Polzin's study focuses primarily upon the analysis of rhetoric, voice, characterization, and scene. Plot analysis in itself is of distinctly secondary importance and the issues of text production and reception are virtually untreated. However, the literary aspects he chooses to treat, he treats with insight and care and does, in fact, use to his advantage the literary theories he holds. This is not always the case with scholars and critics in either the field of biblical studies or literary criticism in general.

Polzin, in the course of his reading of the Samuel narrative, constantly holds in view the full sweep of the story to which he is attending. This makes it difficult in a review of this length to rehearse the arguments he gives for his interpretation of specific themes, scenes, or characterizations. Yet it can be said that the literary element which holds his analysis together is characterization.

Polzin's brilliant treatment of characterization in I Samuel allows the reader to see such figures as Hanna, Eli, Saul, Samuel, Jonathan, David, and Israel's God as precisely drawn, psychologically credible and complex characters in their own individual right acting out Israel's developing narrative about itself. But what is more, the author's analysis also allows us to see these characters as having a conflate nature, each shading off into one another by means of their rhetoric. Each functions with an implied other to form a skein of tensions, defining relationships that generate plot-action and articulate thematic issues. At its best, this type of sophisticated literary analysis, which is often missing from the interpretation of biblical narrative, demonstrates its power to reveal the riches embedded in the stories told in I Samuel.

In taking up this type of analysis, the author quite explicitly puts himself at odds with what he takes as the traditional historical-critical

459 - Samuel and the Deuteronomist: A Literary Study of the Deuteronomic History: I Samuel

project of studying the growth and development of biblical narrative traditions into the canonical forms we possess today. Instead, he takes these canonical forms as "real" texts and proceeds to read and analyze them instead of looking for what he calls "pre-texts" behind them. He makes his position clear in his introductory chapters to both volumes concerning the History. The introduction to the first volume is a rather straightforward outline of his understanding of the contributions that literary analysis can make to biblical studies. In the second, he drops any discussion of literary theory itself and challenges specific scholars engaged in what he sees as, at best, a tangential and speculative study of composition history. Such a study does not deal, in his opinion, with the "real'' text at all; it deals with reconstructed "pre-texts."

But what is this "real" text? Polzin seems to prefer the received Hebrew or Masoretic text and takes it generally as the "real" text. Yet the situation is not so simple. There are at least five tellings or retellings of the Samuel narrative: the Masoretic Hebrew, the so-called Old Greek of the Septuagint, the latter Greek or Lucianic version, the Hebrew tradition preserved among the Dead Sea Scrolls, and the account contained in Josephus's Greek Antiquities of the Jews. To this we might add the various retellings of certain stories found in I and II Samuel in the Psalter, such as in Psalm 89 or 132. These traditions do not represent "corrupt" as opposed to "pristine" or "original" texts. They are truly different retellings of the story narrarated. Why are they any less "real" than the Masoretic tradition?

This is no more evident than in I Samuel 17, the story of David and Goliath. Here we have almost half of the Masoretic Hebrew tradition missing from the Old Greek version, and a quarter missing in Josephus's retelling. Polzin, unfortunately, dismisses this variety of tellings and simply seems to go with the longer Masoretic tradition. The question lingers: why go almost arbitrarily with this tradition, why is this the "real" text?

In his first chapter, his assessment of previous historical-critical scholarship seems somewhat beside the mark. Because of the prominence the author gives this evaluation and the significance he gives it from a methodological standpoint, some comment must be made on his treatment of a few of the scholars he discusses. Polzin does not seem to take into account that a number of the scholars he takes to task can be read and used in the development of a literary critical analysis of biblical narrative. Martin Noth, like Leonard Rost and Gerhard von Rad, was among the first scholars to consider the narrative structure of larger units of biblical material and attempt to define that literary structure, even if he used the terminology and suffered from some of the presuppositions of the form-critical and tradition -historical approaches. One could also take issue with Polzin's assessment that Noth's analysis of the Deuteronomistic History focuses upon "superficial aspects of the composition." Noth's insight that one of the main architectural elements in the History's structure is constituted by a series of summary

460 - Samuel and the Deuteronomist: A Literary Study of the Deuteronomic History: I Samuel

monologues or speeches (not "didactic sermons" as Polzin calls them) is still essential to understanding the thematic coherence as well as the plot motivation in the History.

Again, the discussion of Frank Moore Cross's "two author" or "double redaction" hypothesis ignores the emphasis Cross puts upon the analysis of plot and theme in the History. For Cross, the central thematic and plot tensions in the History are focused in the differences and the interplay between the "prophetic" oracles given to David, Solomon, and Jeroboam 1. These three oracles define the destiny of the king, his dynasty, and his people and, in doing so, determine the course of the tragic history of Israel's possession and dispossession of the land. Issues of composition are addressed in the course of Cross's analysis precisely because Cross recognizes what Polzin prefers to bracket: the History is not a purely fictive narrative. It has been written as a type of historical narrative and as such has to deal with the contingencies of historical "reality." That is the meaning of events that stand outside his narrative but are urgently addressed by it. Cross's study is really about the interplay of narrative and event, telling and retelling under the pressure of changing and challenging developments in the life of the community. The search is not for a "pre-text," but for the development within the narrative that allowed it to continue to make sense of the full sweep of Israel's historical experience even as it unfolded.

The author's criticism of P.D. Miller and J.J.M. Roberts' The Hand of the Lord, also seems to be based upon a misreading of the use to which these scholars put ancient Near Eastern texts. Their work is essentially a comparative study. It is a work that attempts to bring to the fore the thematic issues at stake in the so-called "first" Ark Narrative. The use of Mesopotamian parallel narratives concerning the capture of divine images illumines what is at issue in the "real" or canonical text of the Ark Narrative in a way that is not possible from a reading of that story alone. The study does contain some speculation concerning what a "pre-text" of the story might have looked like, but this is clearly a secondary aim in what is first and foremost a comparative genre study.

On the other hand, it must be emphasized that Polzin does not, as some others, simply dismiss these scholars out of hand. Though he does not deal with their views in his main text, the notes are very full and at many points contain detailed discussions of Polzin's positions contra other more historically oriented scholars.

Despite the polemic tone of the opening chapter and the issues raised above, this volume accomplishes much in the way of offering the reader a literary reading of I Samuel. It is fresh, challenging, and constitutes a solid beginning, the first steps along a path only a few others have taken, toward an adequate literary interpretation of biblical narrative,

Michael Thomas Davis
Princeton Theological Seminary
Princeton, New Jersey