Abstract
Loaded with various citations from T. S. Eliot and other memorable clues (‘“text” is derived from Latin texere, “to weave, braid together,”’ p. 7), Ziony Zevit’s introduction to this new essay collection makes one point very clear: a text is no island. Although the dynamics of textual production stand near the centre of modern biblical scholarship, the safe navigation past the cliffs of parallelomania continues to be stuck in the dock of basic questions: how do we identify literary allusions and determine whether they are deliberate or accidental? How do the forces of memorization, conservationism, and translation bear upon such allusions? In how far is modern literary theory applicable to ancient compositions, and what is implied by our descriptive terminology (e.g., echoes, parallels, intertextuality)?
Zevit’s volume seeks to take the long-standing discussion of these questions to the next level. As a methodological compass (pp. 22–53), Joseph Kelly problematizes the criterion of shared language and David Carr asks how we may determine the dependence of biblical on non-biblical texts. This is followed by a study of Hittite scribal practice by Ada-Taggar Cohen (pp. 54–72) which draws out some implication for the editing of biblical material. The reminder of the book separates into inner-biblical (pp. 73–142) and extra-biblical allusions (pp. 143–241). In the first section, we find Marc Brettler’s quest for identifying Torah sources in the Historical Psalms, Jeffrey Leonard’s work on ‘narrative tracking,’ Joel Baden’s probing of assumptions about textual familiarity, and Marvin Sweeney’s ‘Isaiah 60–62 in Intertextual Perspective.’ The second section includes studies by Edward Greenstein (Job and Mesopotamian literature), David Wright (source dependence in the covenant code), Peter Machinist (the question of reference), and Michael V. Fox (Egyptian influence on biblical literature).
The book closes with an afterword by Zevit which envisions expanded collaboration and a methodological protocol which would allow biblical scholars to analyze ‘within a decade’ (p. 244) all allusions and citations in the Hebrew Bible. To be sure, all of the contributions in this volume move the study of such parallels a step forward. Yet, the discussion as a whole seems not so much to lay the foundations for a unified system of analysis but rather to highlight the idiosyncrasies and challenges of each textual scenario. Texts are no islands, yes; but each one of them remains a world on its own.