1 Samuel (Berit Olam Series) (David Jobling) - Hardcover

1 Samuel is a national autobiography of the Hebrew people.  David Jobling reads 1 Samuel as a story that is complete in itself, although it is part of a much larger narrative.  He examines it as a historical document in a double sense: (1) as a document originating from ancient Israel and (2) as a telling of the past.  Organizing the text through the three interlocking themes of class, race, and gender, Jobling asks how this historical—and canonical—story relates to a modern world in which these themes continue to be of crucial importance.

While drawing on the resources of biblical "narratology," Jobling deviates from mainstream methodology.  He adopts a "critical narratology" informed by such cultural practices as feminism and psychoanalysis.  He follows a structuralist tradition which finds meaning more in the text's large-scale mythic patterns than in close reading of particular passages, and seeks methods specific to 1 Samuel rather than ones applicable to biblical narrative in general.

This book is part of the series Berit Olam, Studies in Hebrew Narrative and Poetry, a multi-volume commentary series that reflects the latest developments in a relatively new method of biblical study:  literary criticism.  The authors approach the books of the Hebrew Bible as literary works, recognizing that the stories and poetry can be better appreciated if one is acquainted with the techniques whereby the ancient Hebrew authors told stories and wrote poems, as well as the strategies that modern readers use to understand them.

• Author:  David Jobling
  
• Editor:  David W. Cotter, O.S.B
• Format:  344 pages, hardcover
  
• Series:  Berit Olam, Studies in Hebrew Narrative and Poetry
  
• Publisher:  Liturgical Press (1998)
  
• ISBN:  9780814650479