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stories nos. 9 and 10 that involve conception by deception have political implications,
because at stake is the continuation of a line of descent and inheritance of property. The third
group of punishment stories has as its subjects characters who, from the point of view of
the biblical narrators, are marginal. Thus the commitment of ethical or religious wrongs is
attributed to figures who are at the periphery of biblical society.
2.2 Perhaps the correlation between narrative forms and thematic domains can be best
demonstrated by those stories that violate these principles. The biblical account of the exodus
from Egypt is a case in point. In these tales miracles function in a political strugglea clear
violation of the correlation between form and theme that underlies biblical narrative rules. Yet
this very departure from the grammar of stories serves biblical storytellers rhetorically in
creating a greater narrative impact upon listeners and readers. That storytellers knew and
made creative use of the rules of narration is demonstrated by their adherence to and
departure from those rules.
3. One of the main goals of structural analysis is, indeed, the discovery of narrative
principles and the understanding of a corpus of tales as a system of communication in a
culture. Hence Burke O. Long takes a correct step in his attempt to remove the label of
legend from stories about prophets. As he points out, the term (and the concept) is
anachronistic, deriving from medieval saints narratives. The term legend imparts to the
biblical stories about prophets a whole range of connotations and meanings which is alien to
them, often distorting our perception and understanding of their nature and background. Yet,
the solution that Long offers, drawing an analogy between prophets and shamans, is hardly
satisfactory.
3.1 The difficulty in accepting his proposal does not derive from the lack of historically
and geographically verifiable connections between Siberian, North American, and biblical
peoples. Rather, by comparatively employing concepts from different cultures, Long commits
the same error he tries to avoid. Like the concept legend, that of a shaman carries with it
a whole range of connotations and meanings that can skew our understanding of the biblical
stories about prophets. In order to achieve the same goal that Long has set for himself it is
necessary to interpret the biblical stories and their social setting not by resorting to models
from other periods nor from other cultures, but by constructing the biblical culture as a
complex system. The concept of prophecy itself has a variety of manifestations and meanings
in biblical society that differ from each other not only historically, in different periods, but
synchronically as well. The same term had been applied to a variety of social and cultural
phenomena. Only by discovering the similarities and differences that existed between the
various manifestations of prophecy in biblical society would it be possible to understand their
intrinsic qualities.
4. While structural studies have often been developed by resorting to deductive models, as
Long has done, some of the most valuable contributions in this direction of research were
achieved inductively when the folklorists, anthropologists, or linguists followed the dictate of
the texts. Such an approach made possible the discovery of meanings in the relationships that
existed between narrative elements, meanings that often even contrasted with explicit
statements made by the narrators. To a certain extent Polzin and Gunn have taken this route.
Both deal with historical narratives, but after their respective interpretations it becomes
apparent that the stories contain symbolic and not historical truths.
4.1 The incident of "The Ancestress of Israel in Danger" seems, at best, to be an anecdotal
event in the history of a nation. However, by examining the three versions of this account and
their transformation, Polzin demonstrates that the narration progresses along the pivot of the
two major symbols of prosperity: wealth and progeny. Both relate, either negatively or
positively, to the violation of family order through adultery. While wealth can be a function of
adultery, progeny cannot.
4.2 The succession story of King Solomon that Gunn analyzes clearly shows that for
biblical storytellers this was an issue and a concern. After all, the David and Bathsheba story
is the same tale of Pharaoh and Sarai, and Abimelech and Sarah, narrated however from an
opposite perspective and sanctioning rather than condemning the progeny that resulted from
adultery with royalty. Thus symbolically, royal intercourse ensured progeny, and the biblical
narrators had to neutralize this powerful idea in the account of the origin of the nation.
5. Thus, while initially structural analysis abstracted forms out of narrative contents, in the
long run, it could contribute to the discovery of symbolic meanings of story patterns and the
rules of appropriate correlation between themes and forms. Ultimately this research could
formulate the principles of narration that guided storytellers in the biblical periods by
bringing together the concerns for themes, forms, and meanings.
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