John Hobbins has a great post over on Ancient Hebrew Poetry about comparing and contrasting texts from different cultures (Genesis and Atrahasis are his examples). Anybody interested in the relationship between the Bible and other surrounding cultures should read and think through what he says there, particularly the bit about contrastive approaches. And the dialogue with Angie Erisman (whose excellent blog seems to have gone the way of all flesh) is also very valuable. I like John's description of intertextuality as a cultural web. This serves as a corrective to those who use the term "intertextuality" to refer to any and every kind of allusion or reference and who constantly ascribe authorial intention to such connections. Sometimes allusions are intentional, but a lot of the time they are just a consequence of cultural (or inter-cultural) meta-data, and discussions of intention and ascription and dependence are illegitimate.*
Also John's notes regarding cultural divisions are very important. "Culture" is a tough concept. Where does one culture begin and another end? How do we know? Are these divisions simply arbitrary? Just heuristic devices we use to keep our questions and answers straight? I think they are probably more than arbitrary but it's hard to know where to draw those lines. One significant corollary for me is the question of the relationship between various levels of social interaction (family, community, culture, etc) and various sub-divisions of language (register, idiolect, dialect, language, etc). One of the papers I'll be writing in the near future will explore the possibility of using linguistic markers in concert with literary form in order to help identify and delimit passages in the Latter Prophets. I still haven't the faintest clue if it will work, but the problems inherent in inter-cultural relationships that John identifies in his post are the same problems that I'll be facing as I try to eke out my methodology in that paper (albeit my questions will probably be more intra-cultural).
The moral of the story? Whether inter or intra-cultural, these kinds of questions are difficult and lend themselves to tendentious arguments. Great care is required.
*As a brief side-note, there are notable post-modern authors (e.g. Umberto Eco) who do make intentional use of intertextual irony, but even here I think such authors (Eco for certain) would admit that there are significant and important instances of intertextuality that are not a product of conscious authorial intention. To extend John's web metaphor, some strands are woven on purpose, and some strands are not.
Also John's notes regarding cultural divisions are very important. "Culture" is a tough concept. Where does one culture begin and another end? How do we know? Are these divisions simply arbitrary? Just heuristic devices we use to keep our questions and answers straight? I think they are probably more than arbitrary but it's hard to know where to draw those lines. One significant corollary for me is the question of the relationship between various levels of social interaction (family, community, culture, etc) and various sub-divisions of language (register, idiolect, dialect, language, etc). One of the papers I'll be writing in the near future will explore the possibility of using linguistic markers in concert with literary form in order to help identify and delimit passages in the Latter Prophets. I still haven't the faintest clue if it will work, but the problems inherent in inter-cultural relationships that John identifies in his post are the same problems that I'll be facing as I try to eke out my methodology in that paper (albeit my questions will probably be more intra-cultural).
The moral of the story? Whether inter or intra-cultural, these kinds of questions are difficult and lend themselves to tendentious arguments. Great care is required.
*As a brief side-note, there are notable post-modern authors (e.g. Umberto Eco) who do make intentional use of intertextual irony, but even here I think such authors (Eco for certain) would admit that there are significant and important instances of intertextuality that are not a product of conscious authorial intention. To extend John's web metaphor, some strands are woven on purpose, and some strands are not.
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