Story Structure and Social Structure in Genesis: Circles and Cycles
| Title | Story Structure and Social Structure in Genesis: Circles and Cycles |
| Publication Type | Book Chapter |
| Year of Publication | 1983 |
| Authors | Prewitt, Terry J., and J N. Deely |
| Book Title | Semiotics |
| Chapter | Story Structure and Social Structure in Genesis: Circles and Cycles |
| Pagination | 529-43 |
| Publisher | Plenum Press |
| City | New York |
| Abstract | The patriarchal traditions of Genesis represent one of the most complex tapestries of theme and character development in the Old Testament. Source criticism has provided minute differentiation of textual elements in Genesis, and great diversity of contemporary thinking on the dating of oral traditions, story blocks, and redactional stages of the book (see, for example, Van Seters, 1975; Hayes and Miller, 1977; Thompson, 1974; Gammie, 1979). Structural analysis has been employed as an adjunct activity to source criticism within the community of biblical scholarship and by anthropologists working on problems of social structure and symbolic representation (see Leach 1969; Andriolo, 1973; Carroll, 1977; Marshall, 1979). This essay attempts to unite the broad concerns of structural and semiotic analysis with the source critical questions surrounding the Genesis redaction. |