Long considered a series of “loosely connected and grossly editorialized
traditions” about the hero Samson,1 Judges 13–16 has been
seen as increasingly unified in recent decades, with studies arguing
for the coherence of its structure, theme, and even plot.
2 A 1974 essay by James Crenshaw extols the narrator’s skill at achieving a unified composition organized around a universal theme, “the conflict between filial devotion and erotic attachment.”
3 Cheryl Exum’s series of articles published between 1980 and 1983 reveals structural and thematic webs connecting scene to scene, episode to episode, and cycle to cycle, many of them lifting up the theological message that despite his strength Samson is nonetheless utterly dependent on the Lord for life and death.
4 A 1990 essay by Robert Alter describes the structural, thematic, and even psychological connections between episodes forged by the root -36, which underscores Samson’s compulsive drive toward foreign women.
5 Yairah Amit’s 1999 study of editing in the book of Judges emphasizes “how the cycle’s author shaped its units so as to coalesce into a single whole” in order to contrast Samson’s great promise as a deliverer against his actual failure.
6 This sea-change undoubtedly reflects several trends, including a shift from form and source criticism to literary analysis, increased sensitivity to biblical narrative conventions, and a desire to read biblical narratives as unified works. Yet the recent focus on the text’s unity would seem to ignore a basic question: Why, if Judges 13–16 is so coherent a narrative, has it been viewed for so long as a string of loosely-connected stories?
7 In this paper I describe how an imaginary reader of Samson might experience closure at the end of the narrative as well as at the end of each of its constituent units. In doing so, I examine the forces that make the narrative units and episodes discrete as well as those bringing them together. I argue that if Judg 3:2–16:31a fails to strike the reader as a unified story, the reason lies with overlystrong literary devices closing its units, together with too-weak connective ties linking the whole,particularly in the domains modern Westerners prize: plot and character development. At the end of the paper I propose a few rather small redactional changes that would have united the episodes more strongly, and hazard a guess or two as to why the redactor or redactors refrained from their use. My hope is that this paper will provide a step toward the development of a poetics of closure within biblical narrative.
2 A 1974 essay by James Crenshaw extols the narrator’s skill at achieving a unified composition organized around a universal theme, “the conflict between filial devotion and erotic attachment.”
3 Cheryl Exum’s series of articles published between 1980 and 1983 reveals structural and thematic webs connecting scene to scene, episode to episode, and cycle to cycle, many of them lifting up the theological message that despite his strength Samson is nonetheless utterly dependent on the Lord for life and death.
4 A 1990 essay by Robert Alter describes the structural, thematic, and even psychological connections between episodes forged by the root -36, which underscores Samson’s compulsive drive toward foreign women.
5 Yairah Amit’s 1999 study of editing in the book of Judges emphasizes “how the cycle’s author shaped its units so as to coalesce into a single whole” in order to contrast Samson’s great promise as a deliverer against his actual failure.
6 This sea-change undoubtedly reflects several trends, including a shift from form and source criticism to literary analysis, increased sensitivity to biblical narrative conventions, and a desire to read biblical narratives as unified works. Yet the recent focus on the text’s unity would seem to ignore a basic question: Why, if Judges 13–16 is so coherent a narrative, has it been viewed for so long as a string of loosely-connected stories?
7 In this paper I describe how an imaginary reader of Samson might experience closure at the end of the narrative as well as at the end of each of its constituent units. In doing so, I examine the forces that make the narrative units and episodes discrete as well as those bringing them together. I argue that if Judg 3:2–16:31a fails to strike the reader as a unified story, the reason lies with overlystrong literary devices closing its units, together with too-weak connective ties linking the whole,particularly in the domains modern Westerners prize: plot and character development. At the end of the paper I propose a few rather small redactional changes that would have united the episodes more strongly, and hazard a guess or two as to why the redactor or redactors refrained from their use. My hope is that this paper will provide a step toward the development of a poetics of closure within biblical narrative.
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