Hebrews between Cultures: Group Portraits and National Literature (Indiana Series in Biblical Literature)

The Poetics of Biblical Narrative, Sternberg's last book, established a new level of sophistication for biblical analysis. In Hebrews between Cultures, he shifts his focus from individual identity to the group, in this case the Hebrews. Sternberg's analysis of the development in the Bible of the Hebrew identity (and alternate identities) is brilliant, challenging, intellectually rigorous and unusual, and almost always unexpected and dramatic. 1. The Hebrews In The Hebrew Bible: Culture-blindness, Crosscultural Romance, Intercultural Poetics -- Who Were The Hebrews? Reopening The Question -- The Forces For Studied Closure: A World In A Grain Of Sand -- The Hebrew As Hab/piru: Traffic Across Cultures -- Source And Discourse, Sources As Discourse -- Fables Of Identity, Or, Poetic License In Historical Reconstruction -- Babelian Confusion And Translational Mimesis: The Hebrewgram -- 2. Heterocultural (mis) Representation In Inverted Commas: Outsiders At Name-calling -- Image And Victimage -- Polar Cultures In Contact, Nations In Total Conflict: An Interim Outline -- De-nomi-nation As Process -- The Law Of Intercultural (de) Nomination: A Poetic Microcosm -- From De-nomi-nation To Re-nomi-notion: The Hebrew/hamite Master Plot -- 3. Proteus In Culture Land: Stereotypes, Metastereotypes, And Idolatry -- Proteus Principle Vs. Package Dealing -- Descriptive Packaging: Character Traits Misallied -- Packaging For Ideology: Culture, Nature, And Their (sub) Human Correlates -- (de) Stereotyping The Stereotype -- Otherness: Restrictive Vs. Open-ended, Polar Vs. Gradable, Discriminatory Vs. Differential -- Foreignness -- Hamiteness -- Ethnocentricity Vs. Ethnocentrism 4. The Translated Self In Adverse Encounter -- Speaking Like A Foreigner: Enforced Self-designation -- Maneuverable Imagery: The Hebrewgram Refined In Theoretical And Comparative Light -- Adaptable Culture Heroines And The Rhetoric Of Pretended Solidarity -- Stiff-necked Prophet, Versatile God, Mimicking Villain: Three Forms Of Self-translation -- 5. Intergroup Dramas In The Secret Life -- Speech And Thought -- Expressive Duplexity: Ellipsis As Mimesis -- Abomination In High Places: Joseph's Feast Between Dietary Taboo And State Terrorism -- A Champion Miscast: Abram And Hebrew -- Presence And Absence: Vocal Stereotype, Inner Ear -- Shuttling Between Identities: Moses' Route To Prophecy -- 6. Dissonant Discourse, National Discord: Echoing Outgroup Parlance At In-fighting -- Bicultural Stigmatizing -- High Art Under Low Criticism -- High Criticism, Low Historicity And Narrativity -- The Way To Hebrewgrammatic Resolution -- A Nation Divided, A Kingdom United 7. Slave Law: Outside Parallel And Internal Process -- Coming To Terms With Hebrew Bondage In Israel -- Underprivileged Class, Privileged Treatment: The (il) Logic Of Sociolegal Synchronism -- Displacing The Israelite From The Hebrew Codes: Leviticus As National Preserve -- The Nuzi Connection: Verbal Co-portraits, Legal Co-privileges -- Freedom Limited In Going Free: Quantifying A Canonical Absolute -- Tales Of Diachronic Distribution: How A Class Becomes A People In Midcareer -- Synchrony And Diachrony Among Pattern-making Universals -- An Unbrotherly Pentateuch? -- The Longest Bridge, The Deepest Freeze -- Checkpoint Romances Of Identity Change -- Toward A Fresh Start In The Reconstruction Of Legaliterary Culture -- 8. In-group Servitude Between Yes And No: The Law's Rhetoric Of Deterrence -- Saving The Texture -- Green Light, Red Backdrop -- License Rebarbed -- Bonds And Bondage: Loving Unto Perpetual Servitude -- 9. Law, Narrative, And The Poetics Of Genesis -- The Source Of Discourse And The Discourse Of Source: Law As Compound Law-tale -- The Image Of Diachrony In (lega) Literature: Genesis Mimeticized And Canonized -- Intergeneric Composites -- Law-speaking Within The Represented Events -- Law-telling Among Modal Event-representations -- Law-tale Interacting With Overall Process And Canon Evolving A Macro-lawtale: The Hebrew Bondage Series -- Variance For Persistence, Variance For Novelty: Two Evolutionary Drives Behind Literary History -- Exodus At Bridging: The Double Covenant Code, Covenant/code -- Rebridging With Updating Across Distance -- The Sinai To Jordan To Jerusalem Route: Post-exodus Exigencies -- Longer Intervals, Stronger Bridges: Memory Updated -- Disclosure And Development: Narrative Universals As Generators Of Change -- From Exodus To Deuteronomy: Loci, Ranges, And Teleologies Of Variation -- Unpacking The Manifold Of Change -- Poetic Genesis Of Poetic Justice -- From Tact To Bluntness: Inherited Scenarios Newly Focused Without Favor -- Updating Or Outdating? The Program Of Successive Co-eternities -- Systematizing Legal Communication -- Pregnant Silences, Divergent Ambiguities: Between Artful Re-formation And Material Reformation -- From Type Enumerator To Unitype Generalizer: Alternative Coverages Of The Possible Law-world -- From Judgment To Rejudgment: (d) Evolution Of And By Conduct -- Bidirectional Motivation -- From Pentateuch Codes To Jeremian Coda. Meir Sternberg. Includes Bibliographical References (p. 673-686) And Indexes. The Poetics of Biblical Narrative, Sternberg's last book, established a new level of sophistication for biblical analysis. In Hebrews between Cultures, the author shifts his focus from individual identity to the group, in this case the Hebrews. His analysis of the development in the Bible of the Hebrew identity (and alternate identities) is challenging and intellectually rigorous. Once again Sternberg elucidates the Bible's many complexities, and in the process proves himself to be an acute and original thinker.