Morning thoughts

Working through my notes on Fuchs, I'm still struck how she reads the entire biblical text as a prescriptive text written with a clear hegemony of thought. I'm also working through Robert Alter's The Art of Biblical Narrative currently and his thoughts seem to be much more aware of the multitude of authors behind the text. While Alter is not approaching this with a feminist lens, I wouldn't think the creation of a consistent, singular meta-narrator necessary to deconstruct the patriarchal parts of biblical narratives. Especially when Fuchs is very clearly stating that she is presenting one woman's reading and not trying to speak for all women reading the texts.

Alter seems to be approaching the texts much stronger literary formula than Fuchs. While she works out multiple layers of patriarchal societal constructs that are reported and used for the narrative, he seems to be working out thematic points the authors might be intending to bring to light. Fuchs' work is useful for warning against building ancient assumed cultural norms into modern religious morals, Alter's approach seems to work at divining the purpose of the stories and how they might still speak to the human condition and the human intersection with the divine.


And as an aside, I'm not sure why I started with the books on narrative. In Fuchs' case, it was mostly because it dealt with sexual norms, which is the first piece I'm working on teasing out. Alter's text will likely be moved through in the background while I approach a few other texts on sexual morals/ethics/norms in Ancient Israel and the wider Ancient Near East.