Book Reviews -- By: Anonymous

Journal: Westminster Theological Journal
Volume: WTJ 52:2 (Fall 1990)
Article: Book Reviews
Author: Anonymous


Book Reviews

Robert E. Longacre: Joseph: A Story of Divine Providence. A Text Theoretical and Textlinguistic Analysis of Genesis 37 and 39–48. Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 1989. xiv, 322. $25.00.

The Joseph story provides one of the few extended narratives in the OT. For this reason it has long been a proving ground for the many different methods used in biblical studies. In the last two decades it has been a showcase for monographs devoted to various approaches: source criticism (D. B. Redford, A Study of the Biblical Story of Joseph [Leiden: Brill, 1970]), form criticism (G. W. Coats, From Canaan to Egypt [CBQMS 4; Washington, DC: Catholic Biblical Association of America, 1976]), archaeological backgrounds (Redford, Joseph), rabbinic interpretation (E. I. Lowenthal, The Joseph Narrative in Genesis [New York: KTAV, 1973]), literary criticism (W. Lee Humphreys, Joseph and His Family: A Literary Study [Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1988]), devotional literature (T. Hoogsteen, God Meant It for Good [Burlington, ON: Welch Publishing, 1989]) and a chrestomathy (I. Jerusalmi, The Story of Joseph [Cincinnati: Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion, 1973]). This is not to mention the discussion of the Joseph story in recent commentaries or the articles devoted to the narrative. Robert Longacre’s new volume uses the Joseph story as the background for yet another type of analysis becoming increasingly important in modern biblical studies.

Longacre has long been a prominent contributor to studies in discourse grammar and textlinguistics. His previous volumes include Discourse, Paragraph, and Sentence Structure in Selected Philippine Languages (2 vols.; SIL Publications 21; Santa Ana: Summer Institute of Linguistics, 1968), Hierarchy and Universality of Discourse Constituents in New Guinea Languages (2 vols.; Washington: Georgetown University, 1972), and An Anatomy of Speech Notions (Lisse: Peter de Ridder, 1976). While traditional language study and instruction have largely confined themselves to morphology and syntax at the level of the sentence and below, discourse analysis seeks to articulate the grammar that exists also at the higher levels within a discourse: the signals governing relations between clauses, the “rules” for a well-formed paragraph or narrative, sociolinguistic clues, repartee grammar, etc. By virtue of its concern with grammar at the upper levels of a discourse, discourse analysis is somewhat the midpoint between traditional grammatical-historical exegesis and rhetorical criticism. Though Longacre is not a specialist in Hebrew language and literature, he had earlier demonstrated his inter...

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