Subversive Sequels in the Bible: How Biblical Stories Mine and Undermine Each Other [Hardcover]

While I do not share some of Klitsner's presuppositions, her book qualifies immediately in the most important virtue of a book on Biblical interpretation: she helps readers see the text in new ways. Occasionally her exposition is strained but for every non-sequitur there are dozens of insightful connections in inner Biblical interpretation.

The first chapter draws attention to connections between the Jonah story and the earlier Noah story:

(1) Noah sent a dove (Hebrew, yonah) to see if the flood was ended; Jonah is, of course Yonah.

(2) God flooded the world because of hamas (violence, injustice); in Jonah, the Ninevites repented of their hamas and turned away from it.

(3) Noah and Jonah's stories both involve boats, sea journeys, and water-induced catastrophe (even though Nineveh is nowhere near the sea).

(4) The Noah story is about judgment without mercy; the Jonah story is about mercy over judgment.

(5) Noah ends his career in self-induced slumber and drunken self-destruction; Jonah begins his quest sleeping in the hold of the ship, then asking to be drowned in the sea, and at the end praying for God to take his life.

(6) Noah is ambivalent about the destruction of the world while God is unrelenting; in Jonah, God wants to save the wicked, but Jonah is unwilling.

Klitsner is more willing than I to question God's motives in the story, as she apparently views the Biblical narratives as human writings about God. Thus, it is possible, in her view, that the Noah story represents an earlier and inferior view of Divine judgment and mercy. My own theology differs a bit from hers, not being as willing to find fault with God in the Flood account. I would say that context was different between the Flood and Nineveh and that the Judge of all the earth does right. In fact, the repentance of Ninevah, if you believe Jonah is based on real events, was temporary and did not save them. In the end, the Assyrians like the generation of the flood, paid the price for their hamas and went down in history as a defeated empire and a despised people.

Nonetheless, Klitsner's insight into the verbal parallels, puns, and interconnections has forever changed the way I will read both Noah and Jonah. She is an interesting thinker and reader. I recommend this book to those who are not beginners in Bible reading. If you are a beginner, perhaps get it and put it on your list for after you have learned a bit more and you are ready to handle a little controversy. I especially recommend this book to those for whom Bible reading has become stale or whose faith in the God of the Bible is waning.

You can see my review of the first chapter here at [...]

Derek Leman
[...]

Submitted by Prof. Henri Zukier

In Subversive Sequels in the Bible, Judy Klitsner explores the complex relationship between various familiar Biblical tales in a manner that is at once both surprising and convincing. What is convincing is the degree to which these narratives interact with common theme and language. What is surprising is that the results of such an examination yield a subversive yet stubbornly reverent approach to Bible study. Klitsner is a masterful guide on a thrilling voyage of discovery of hidden meanings and dynamics in the classical texts. Klitsner shakes up our old certainties about our most ancient and seemingly familiar biblical narratives, with counterintuitive, but ultimately compelling insights. She casts this familiar universe in a very different, bright light.
Written with a minimum of academic jargon, this work is accessible, enjoyable and valuable to scholar and layperson alike and may be one of a very few examples of literary close readings of Hebrew texts that brings the sophistication of ancient Hebrew literature to the English speaking public.
An easily summarized example is Klitsner's first chapter comparing the narrative of Noah and his ark to that of Jonah (Hebrew for "dove"). Under Klitsner's lens, these two stories are in dialogue about the dynamic nature of both human transcendence and Divine compassion. Whereas Noah is the surviving prophet in a drowning world - Jonah is the drowning prophet in a world redeemed. One story (Noah) ends with the sending of a dove and begins with the saving of many animals. The other begins with the sending of a "dove" (Jonah) and ends with a verse about saving many animals.
I won't spoil the adventure of discovering with Klitsner the intricate inversion of theme and language that creates this theological dialogue between the stories. Yet, the whole treatment is greater than the sum of its parts. The author picks up on the way in which the Jonah story redeems the Noah story and with it the chance for human triumph with its stubborn hopeful "perhaps?" over the gravity and despair of our presumed fate.
What links the various essays in the book is the tight literary analysis and its striking methodology of reading texts as "intertextually" related. Stories are seen as sequels that mine and undermine prior tales. No longer seen as ancient statements of monolithic messages, these stories echo into other stories and eventually resound beyond the pages of the Bible. The result is a highly relevant approach to Bible reading that ultimately invites the reader into an ongoing moral and theological symposium.
Most of the book is dedicated to a rereading of various women's narratives in the Bible -from Eve and Sarah, and Rebecca and Rachel of Genesis to Deborah and Hannah, and Mrs. Manoach. Here too, to the satisfaction of traditionalists and feminists alike, the stories are read with a respect for the original stories together with a mindfulness of the ways in which later stories subvert and elevate the status of Biblical women in an ongoing conversation about biblical woman's relationship to self, to man, and to God. Be prepared for a ride. Very highly recommended.

I very much enjoyed reading this book and I recommend it enthusiastically. Judy Klitsner combines classical Jewish close readings of biblical narratives with deep modern literary insights. The results are often astonishing. I learned much from this book--both from Klitsner's skill at interweaving seemingly unrelated biblical texts and from the timely lessons she draws from these juxtapositions. She finds surprisingly modern attitudes in the Bible about the relationships between women and men, humans and God.
Readers do not require background in Hebrew or in Biblical Studies to appreciate Klitsner's work. But even experts in the field will find much new and of value in the book.