Looking in the Old Testament for the Epic Genre

This article considers the question of what may qualify as “epic” in the Hebrew Bible. Against Cross, we argue that certain prose narratives can be termed epic in themselves, although Judges 5 and Exodus 15 show that Israel could produce epic poetry. Hector and Nora Chadwick claimed that epic is a c...

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Bibliographic Details
Subtitles:Special Issue: Papers in honour of Roger Omanson, Part I
Main Author: Bullard, Roger Aubrey 1937- (Author)
Format: Electronic Article
Language:English
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Published: Sage 2013
In: The Bible translator
Year: 2013, Volume: 64, Issue: 1, Pages: 99-111
Further subjects:B Epic
B Frank Moore Cross
B C. S. Lewis
B Lord / Parry
B Epic poetry
Online Access: Volltext (lizenzpflichtig)
Description
Summary:This article considers the question of what may qualify as “epic” in the Hebrew Bible. Against Cross, we argue that certain prose narratives can be termed epic in themselves, although Judges 5 and Exodus 15 show that Israel could produce epic poetry. Hector and Nora Chadwick claimed that epic is a cultural rather than literary phenomenon and does not demand poetic form. For Parry and Lord, epic poetry has its origin in oral singing of tales, with no Urtext ever existing since every performance was a new creation. Israel’s epic must be considered secondary, in C. S. Lewis’s terminology, because it does not look back to a heroic past, but assumes a progression in history.
ISSN:2051-6789
Contains:Enthalten in: The Bible translator
Persistent identifiers:DOI: 10.1177/0260093513481152