Structuralism and the Biblical Text 1212 Religion and Reason 32 Method and Theory in the Study and Interpretation of Religion GENERAL EDITOR Jacques Wa arde η berg. University of Utrecht BOARD OF ADVISERS Th. P. van Baaren, Groningen R. N. Bellah, Berkeley U. Bianchi, Rome H. J. W. Drijvers, Groningen W. Duprc, Nijmegen S. N. Eiscnstadt, Jerusalem M. Eliade, Chicago C. Geertz, Princeton K. Goldammer, Marburg P. Ricœur, Paris and Chicago M. Rodinson, Paris K. Rudolph, Santa Barbara, Calif. N. Smart, Lancaster and Santa Barbara, Calif. G. Widcngren, Stockholm Mouton Publishers · Berlin · New York · Amsterdam Structuralism and the Biblical Text DAVID GREENWOOD University of Maryland Mouton Publishers · Berlin · New York · Amsterdam Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Greenwood, David, 1927- 1984. Structuralism and the biblical text. (Religion and reason ; 32) Bibliography: p. Includes index. 1. Structuralism-History. 2. Bible -Criticism, interpretation, etc.-History-2()th century. I. Title. II Series. B841.4.G67 1985 220.6Ό1 85-11424 ISBN 0-89925-103-X (U.S.) CI Ρ-Kurztitelaufnahme der Deutschen Bibliothek Greenwood, David: Structuralism and the biblical text / David Greenwood. - Berlin ; New York ; Amsterdam : Mouton, 1985. (Religion and reason ; 32) ISBN 3-11-010336-2 NE GT Printed on acid free paper © Copyright 1985 by Walter de Gruyter & Co., Berlin. All rights reserved, including those of translation into foreign languages. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form - by photoprint, microfilm, or any other means - nor transmitted nor trans- lated into a machine language without written permission from the publishers. Type- setting: Asian Research Service, Hong Kong. - Printing: Druckerei Hildebrand, Ber- lin. - Binding: Dieter Mikolai, Berlin. Printed in Germany Foreword Preface 1. STRUCTURALIST PROCEDURES IN GENERAL Ferdinand de Saussure — the Prague Circle — structuralism as a science — its artistic aspects — formalization — codes — figures — Pettit's differential semantics — Jakobson — Chomsky — definition of structure — theory of meaning — basis of structure — Barthes' "paradigm of the difference." 2. THE METHODOLOGY OF CLAUDE LÉVI-STRAUSS Anthropologie structurale — theory of myths — langue and parole — mythemes — diachronic and synchronic approaches to the biblical text — mediation of oppositions — Edmund Leach — Genesis as Myth — binary distinctions and mediations of the creation myth — criticism of the Ρ and J creation stories — discussion of Leach's approach to the creation stories — Patte 's structural exegesis of Galatians 1:1-10 — Patte's analysis of the parable of the Good Samaritan — parable or example story? — discussion between Via and Crossan — cultural structures — structures of the enunciation — deep structures — narrative structures — correlated sequences — topical sequences — sub- sequences — mythic structure — the semiotic square — Blanché's logical hexagon — flexibility of Lévi- Straussian methodology. 3. THE METHODOLOGY OF ROLAND BARTHES Plural overlapping codes — La lutte avec l'ange — vi Contents "ineffable individuality" of the text — primary symbol- ization — Freud's concept of the Prohibition — the personal voice — proairetic code — semic code — cultural code — hermeneutic code — symbolic code — methodology of S/Z — Grunkel's approach to the story of Jacob and the angel — unstructured equilibrium and language systems — the linguistic "mark" — Propp's "functions" — asyndetic structuring — métonymie logic — language and the subjectivity of the author. 4. THE METHODOLOGY OF A. J. GREIMAS 63 Semantique structurale and Du sens — the opposition between "immanence" and "manifestation" — the semantic representation of a lexeme — sememes — classemes — isotopies of a text — normalization — the six roles of actants or nominal groups — the actantial model — logomachie character of texts — reduction of texts to series of sememes — global meaning — descriptive algorithms — Jean Calloud's analysis of Matthew 4:1-11 - the "signified" of the text - actantial positions of Jesus and Satan in the temptation story — semiotics of manipulation. 5. THE METHODOLOGY OF ERHART GÜTTEMANNS 75 Generative poetics - text and Gattung — eight axioms underlying generative poetics — textual actuality — differentiation of texts by genres — transformations — narrative mode in the gospels — base-grammar of narrative — transformational grammar — dialectical mediation — narrative competence of homo loquens — Guttgemanns' criticisms of New Testament theology — theology as a science — the place of faith — the 47 methodological rules of generative poetics — definition of kerygma — influence of Chomsky's Syntactic Structures — the value of generative poetics — the place of inspiration. Contents vii 6. OTHER STRUCTURALIST METHODOLOGIES 91 Claude Chabrol — the hidden signifier — Chabrol's Analyse du 'texte'de la Passion — Jean Starobinski — discussion of Mark 5:1-20 — Jesus as "the immutable representative of the singular" — Louis Marin — analyses of the women at the tomb and Jesus before Pilate — Dan Via — the death-resurrection motif in St. Paul's epistles and Greek comedy — Umberto Eco — Edenic language. 7. AN ASSESSMENT OF STRUCTURAL ANALYSIS 107 Strucutral methods as applied to the biblical text — Propp as the father of structural narrative analysis — disadvantages of Propp's method when applied to scripture — Propp's method and biblical parables — myth in the thinking of Lévi-Strauss and biblical scholars — ontological truth in theological myth — the impossibility of purely inductive structural analysis — stylostatistics — structural analysis as a semiotic enterprise — the division of structural analysis and structural ideology — the sign theory of language — Gadamer's view of language — ways in which struc- turalism can aid exegesis and hermeneutics — the limitations of structuralism — post-structuralism and deconstructionism — Derrida — general conclusions. 8. STRUCTURAL ANALYSES 123 Analyses of the story of the ordeal of Isaac (Genesis 22:1-19) and the parable of the prodigal son (Luke 15:11-32). Select Bibliography 139 Index 153 Preface The application of structuralist methods of analysis to the text of the Holy Bible started in the early 1960's with the work of Sir Edmund Leach. He used a structuralist methodology which owed a certain amount to that which Claude Lévi-Strauss had employed in his Anthropologie Structurale of 1958. In September 1969 almost two hundred biblical scholars, including Roland Barthes, convened at Chantilly under the auspices of the Association Catholique Française pour l'Etude - de la Bible to discuss the relationship between structuralism and the biblical text. In 1970 Erhardt Giittgemanns of the University of Bonn founded the journal Linguistica Biblica to promulgate the structuralist views of himself and others. In February 1971 Roland Barthes and Jean Starobinski introduced structuralist analysis of the biblical text to a colloquium of Protestant scholars at the University of Geneva. In 1973 the Toronto Semiotic Circle was founded by structuralist scholars of the University of Toronto, and has sub- sequently exerted considerable influence, especially through the periodic meetings of the International Institute for Semiotic and Structural Studies. It is impossible to predict how long the use of structuralist methods will continue. It is often said in the mid-1980's that the age is post-structuralist, and that the shortcomings of structuralism are now so generally admitted as to preclude any foreseeable future for the movement. It should be remembered, however, that structuralism is an interdisciplinary enterprise, involving principles drawn from anthropology, hermeneutics, linguistics, literary criticism, communication theory, and several other academic subjects. In a broad sense linguistic structuralism is a branch of - and to some scholars largely conterminous with — semiotics, and nobody at present is willing to presage the early demise of that science. Structuralist thinking of one kind or another is likely Preface ix to continue for some time, though its character and boundaries are hardly likely to remain fixed or permanent. One would hope that its present rather unsatisfactory terminology may also be improved. This work is primarily intended for scholars and others who may need a general survey of structuralist procedures and method- ologies as they have been applied to the biblical text. Among those to whose assistance and advice I am most indebted are the Oriel Professor of the Interpretation of Holy Scripture at Oxford, Dr. Ernest Nicholson, Dr. Fitzroy Pyle of the University of Dublin, Professor Amos Wilder of the Harvard Divinity School and Dr. Joseph Zalotay of the Catholic University of America in Washing- ton, D.C. I should add that many of the books referred to in the notes and the Select Bibliography have been issued in similar editions on both sides of the Atlantic. I have indicated the edition or editions that I was using: a particular citation is not as a rule intended to indicate any special preference. D.G. University of Maryland College Park, Maryland. 23 May 1984 Foreword Structuralism, first developed in the fields of linguistics and anthropology, was soon applied to and adopted by a variety of other disciplines. Among them was biblical studies. At first, biblical structuralism was practiced by non-biblicists. Then, gradually, the more literarily inclined biblical scholars tried their hand at it, so that by the 1970's there was a growing bibliography, and structuralism began to take its place among the sub-groupings of biblical studies. But to many biblical scholars, untrained in literary methodo- logies, structuralist analysis and exegesis remained alien. Biblicists had little understanding of or sympathy for its approach or goals. To make matters worse, biblical structuralists themselves did not always seem to agree on what to do or how to do it; and at times their relationship to more "traditional" forms of structuralism seemed, at best, distant. The present volume is designed to alleviate this confusion and present a coherent discussion of structuralism as it has been appli- ed to the biblical text. In this major synthesis, David Greenwood explains the origin and development of biblical structuralism, and devotes a section to each of its most prominent practicioners. The explication is lucid, sensitive, and objective; advances are praised and deficiencies are criticized, and all in language easily understood by non-structuralists. Thus this book can serve as an introduction to biblical structuralism as well as a reference for those already initiated into this area. David Greenwood was, in many ways, the perfect author for such a book. The holder of a Ph.D. in English Literature from the University of Dublin and a Doctor of Sacred Theology from the Catholic University of America, he was Associate Professor of Comparative Literature at the University of Maryland, where he taught courses on Bible and Literature for many years. His