Genesis Grāmatas Sižeta Trajektorija: The Track of the Plot of Genesis.
This article explores the Biblical book of Genesis as a narrative and uses the final edition of the text without trying to reconstruct the history of the Ancient Near East behind it. Instead, the analysis proceeds from an assumption that the biblical narrative is a genre that exploits the narrative...
| Published in: | Cel̜š |
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| Main Author: | |
| Format: | Electronic Article |
| Language: | Latvian |
| Check availability: | HBZ Gateway |
| Fernleihe: | Fernleihe für die Fachinformationsdienste |
| Published: |
LU Akadēmiskais apgāds
2012
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| In: |
Cel̜š
Year: 2012, Issue: 62, Pages: 123-135 |
| Further subjects: | B
CAIN (Biblical figure)
B Gods B Bible. Genesis B THEORY of knowledge (Religion) B HISTORY of theology B ABEL (Biblical figure) B MIDDLE East history |
| Online Access: |
Volltext (kostenfrei) |
| Summary: | This article explores the Biblical book of Genesis as a narrative and uses the final edition of the text without trying to reconstruct the history of the Ancient Near East behind it. Instead, the analysis proceeds from an assumption that the biblical narrative is a genre that exploits the narrative prose in order to interpret history from the theological point of view, and that the very narrative is the source of theology, not the history behind it. The biblical narrative also poses a challenge of seeming discontinuity. With awareness of literary conventions of biblical narrative this article suggests using God as a character's quest throughout the book, even in the scenes where God is not among the characters. Because the hero's (protagonists) quest is closely tied to the narrator's point of view, suspense and some of biblical literary devices, such as repetition, this analysis also demonstrates how a story involves a reader, thus making the hero's quest become the reader's quest as well. The macro plot of the book of Genesis, as presented here, begins with God creating the heaven and the earth, and forging a perfect world (Gen. 1). The two scenes of Eden (Gen. 2-3) bring in the major complication, as the humans yield to the serpent's temptation of power and thus they become subjects for suffering and death. God's judgment upon the serpent also contains a foresight of a coming conqueror, a successor of a woman that will crush the serpent's head. Anticipation of the coming hero, as the author suggests, is an overarching quest of the book: God seeks to bless the cursed world anew while people hope to find relief from the toil allotted to them by the judgment. Sometimes the two quests split and are even represented by two genealogical branches, as in the story of Cain and Abel (Gen. 4), and sometimes they merge into one, as in the scene of Abraham's call (Gen. 12). The article uses selected scenes and genealogies to illustrate how this quest unifies all the material of the book of Genesis, and how it seeks its fulfillment even beyond, in the book of Exodus. |
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| Contains: | Enthalten in: Cel̜š
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