To engross oneself in the stories of the Hebrew Scriptures is to be absorbed into a world of literature, a world in which the events of many thousands of years past are relived and re-experienced in the imagination of the reader and of the listener. Within this rich ability to form our imaginations exists techniques and features identified through scholarship and used by authors to evoke, reflect, instruct and suggest this reality into its fullness, and it is the way that these are used in the narrative of 1 Samuel 9:1-21 to which we will now turn our attention. Identified in the NRSV translation of the Bible as the narrative in which “Saul [is] chosen to be King” we find in this text the first story of Saul’s call to kingship and the circumstances around it . Throughout this narrative, the author, or perhaps more accurately, editor(s) , evokes a number of literary features to build a story and to portray the character of Saul. In this essay, we will focus on the features of the narrative’s folklorist character, the use of type-scene, the presence of suspense and anticipation and the motif of providence, exploring how these affect the story and how they portray the character of Saul.
Before beginning this essay proper, it is important to roughly outline the underlying methodology of Narrative Criticism that will be used in our interpretation of 1 Samuel 9:1-21. Narrative Criticism, as opposed to many other forms of biblical criticism, is focused primarily on the world of the text, that is, the story world as created by the narrative . This leads the interpreter to immerse her or himself in this world, suspending disbelief as one would in a fictional story to elicit the authors intended meaning with less reference to histo...
... middle of paper ...
...ok of Samuel: A Literary Study of Comparative Structures, Analogies and Parallels. Jerusalem: Rubin Mass Ltd, 1990.
Gilmour, Rachelle. "Suspense and Anticipation in 1 Samuel 9:1-14." The Journal of Hebrew Scriptures 9 (January 2009).
LaSor, William Sanford, David Allan Hubbard, and Frederic William Bush. Old Testament Survey: The Message, Form, and Background of the Old Testament. 2nd Edition. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans Publishing co., 1996.
Mark, Strom. The Symphony of Scripture: Making sense of the Bible's many themes. Phillpsburg, NJ: P&R Publishing, 2001.
Powell, Mark Allan. What is Narrative Criticism? Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 1990.
Robert, Alter. The Art of Biblical Narrative. New York, NY: Basic Books, 1981.
Rogerson, J. W., and Judith M. (ed) Lieu. The Oxford Handbook of Biblical Studies. New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2006.
Carson, D. A. New Bible Commentary: 21st Century Edition. 4th ed. Leicester, England; Downers Grove, IL: Inter-Varsity Press, 1994.
Revised Standard Version Catholic Edition Bible. Eds. Dom Bernand Orchard, Rev. R. V. Fuller. San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1966. Print.
The Bible: The Old Testament. The Norton Anthology of World Masterpieces. Ed. Sarah Lawall et al. Vol 1. 7th ed. New York: Norton, 1999. 47-97.
The book of 2 Samuel tells the story of King David and his rise to power, as well as reign- the good and the bad. The focus here will be on 2 Samuel, chapters eleven through thirteen, which depict some of the darker times in David’s rule.
The New Oxford Annotated Bible with the Apocrypha, Augmented Third Edition, New Revised Standard Version, Indexed. New York: Oxford UP, 2007. Print
Smith, LaGard F.: The Daily Bible; New International Version: Harvest House Publishers; Eugene, Oregon 97402_1984. Pages 1449 – 1453.
Hindson, E. E., & Yates, G. E. (2012). The Essence of the Old Testament: A survey. Nashville, Tenn: B & H Academic.
...hard to understand fully because of its comprehensive metaphoric language and the difference in culture from present day. It is also sometimes hard for us to understand God's actions because we think of him simply loving and caring rather than ruthless and violent. We need to understand that the creation of mankind is taking place in the recordings of these scriptures and so things may not be as customary as we would like to think. I believe that God has a plan for everyone. And, in the case of Saul, he had a plan to take away his kingdom in order to pass it on to David so the formation of history could continue. I also think this passage, like many other passages from the Bible, has a message linked to it, a lesson to the story if you will. The lesson is to prove that God's unlimited power must never be taken for granted or there surely will be hell to pay.
Harris, Stephen. Understanding The Bible. 6 ed. New York City: McGraw-Hill Humanities/Social Sciences/Languages, 2002. Print.
Watts, John D.W. Nahum. Vol. 34, in World Biblical Commentary, edited by David A. Hubbard and Glenn W. Barker, 61-90. Waco, TX: Word Books, 1984.
...pse." In Current Issues in New Testament Interpretation, edited by W. Klaasen and G.F. Snyder, 23-37. New York, NY: Harper and Row, 1962.
Kohlenberger, III, John R. and Barker, Kenneth L., eds. Zondervan NIV Bible Commentary: An Abridgement of the Expositors Bible Commentary. Chicago: Zondervan Publishing House, 1994.
Cosby, Michael R. Interpreting Biblical Literature: An Introduction to Biblical Studies. Grantham: Stony Run, 2009. 120-25. Print.
Henry, Matthew, and Leslie F. Church. Commentary on the Whole Bible: Genesis to Revelation. Grand Rapids: Zondervan Pub. House, 1961. Print.
LaSor, W., Hubbard, D., Bush, F., & Allen, L. (1996). Old Testament survey: The message, form, and background of the Old Testament (2nd ed.). Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans