The World of Biblical Literature

The bible is a literary masterpiece. Increasingly, literary scholars as well as general readers have joined the ranks of the religious orthodox in reading it. Robert Alter, long in this movement's vanguard, reflects on the paradoxes inherent in considering this great religious work as literature. This book builds on, & in some cases takes issue with, the new wave of literary & bibilical studies to reexamine the elusive, endlessly fascinating texts that have nourished our culture for millenia. While most other books, including Alter's own earlier work, have been devoted to an analysis of the formal poetry & narrative properties of biblical literature, in this book Alter steps back from the analytical catagories to reflect on the general nature of biblical literature. How is one to account for the presence of an impulse as playful & as potentially subversive as literary creation in a body of texts so dedicated to religious purposes? What is the relation between literary imagination & religious values in the bible? In what ways is the bible distinctive as a body of literature. Are there lines of continuity between biblical literature & literature written later & elsewhere? In grappling with these questions, Alter draws on specific examples to make the theoretical issues concretely intelligible.