andriolo, k. r. - myth and history_a general model and its application to the bible

Myth and History: A General Model and Its Application to the BibleAuthor(s): Karin R. AndrioloSource: American Anthropologist, New Series, Vol. 83, No. 2 (Jun., 1981), pp. 261-284Published by: Wiley on behalf of the American Anthropological AssociationStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/676670 .

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Myth and History: A General Model and Its Application to the Bible

KARIN R. ANDRIOLO State University of New York, New Paltz

This paperfocuses upon the prevalent complementary definitions of myth and history and questions their analytic utility with reference to literary documents that bespeak the transition between mythic and historic cognition. In the style of ethnosemantic analysis, these definitions are treated as a semantic domain and subjected to formal analysis. The components elicited constitute a new definition-more precisely, a two-dimensional model of the relationship between myth and history. Subsequently, the model is applied to a series of books from the Bible with the conclusion that men and women are structurally equal since, in their roles as social actors, both represent different components of myth as well as history. [structural analysis, analysis of literary documents, Bible, women and men, myth and history]

PART 1: A GENERAL MODEL

THE VERY ASSUMPTIONS AND METHODS that analyze meaning and its symbolization in

culture--whether within a materialist, socio-structural, or mentalist paradigm--must apply to themselves as well. The self-reflective analysis produced such significant areas of inquiry as the sociology of knowledge, the sociology of science, and the recent "critical" trends within different social sciences. This paper develops a kindred theme, taking its cue from LUvi-Strauss's conclusion that conscious models are formalistic simplifications of a more complex and less consistent reality. For example, "apparent manifestations of dualism" are often "superficial distortions of structures whose real nature is quite dif-

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KARIN R. ANDRIOLO is associate professor of anthropology at the State University of New York, New Paltz (N.Y. 12561). She received her Ph.D. in 1967 from the University of Vienna, Austria. Her research interests lie primarily in cognitive anthropology and the analysis of literary documents, the development of anthropological thought and sociology of science, and political organization. Her published works in these fields include "A Struc- tural Analysis of Genealogy and Worldview in the Old Testament" (American An- thropologist 75:1657-1669), "Kulturkreislehre and the Austrian Mind" (Man 14:133-144), and "On Power in Egalitarian Societies" (Dialectical Anthropology 3:191-195). Her most recent contribution is the chapter on structuralism in the forthcoming book Grundfragen der Ethnologie (Berlin: Reimer).

Copyright @ 1981 by the American Anthropological Association 0002-7294/81/020261-24$2.90/1

261



262 AMERICAN ANTHROPOLOGIST [83, 1981

ferent and vastly more complex" (L6vi-Strauss 1963a:161). Like the Bororo, to whose seemingly dual organization the quotation refers, social scientists have been prone to use dyadic classifications or complementary definitions of the phenomena under study. My questions are, first, whether a revision of certain standard dyadic classifications would increase their analytic utility and, second, how such a revision should be accomplished. Of course, I am focusing on a particular issue - the relationship between myth and history.

Western tradition tends to view myth and history as concepts that complement each other; they are distinct representations of the course and significance of past events, and they are symptomatic of and eponymous for two alternative modes of thought. Aristotle contrasts poetry and history, the former expressing the universal, the latter expressing the particular within human experience; the Aristotelian notion of poetry is equated by Finley with myth (1965:282-283). Influenced by the Enlightenment and Positivism, the complementarity of myth and history acquires a temporal dimension. Formerly viewed as concurrent phenomena, they are now considered consecutive stages in the development of human thought (Grimal 1967:12). The recent controversy between Structuralism and Marxism pivots on the fundamental distinction between mythic and historic thought. When Levi-Strauss summons the human mind for an in-depth analysis, myth is cast in the role of an intellectual Rorschach test which allows a relatively untainted projection of thought models. The equation of these models with the infrastructure of the human mind calls to arms the Marxists who assert that history is the locus of the true realization of the mind, a realization that employs the rupture, rather than the repetition, of structure.

I question the analytic usefulness of such complementary definitions of myth and history with reference to texts that manifest the merger of mythic and historic traits. In this paper, I offer a definition of myth and history that advances beyond the dyadic oversimplification without bypassing its intellectual heritage. In fact, the very definitions that I consider lacking in accuracy, if taken as isolated pairs, constitute, as a set of pairs, the raw material from which I derive my own definition. In accordance with ethnosemantic analysis, I consider the various complementary definitions of myth and history (and this paper deals with complementary definitions only, not with those in which myth is defined qua myth or history qua history) as the terms that comprise a semantic domain and subject them to formal and analysis. The components elicited--in other words, the principles that generate the various definitions--constitute my definition of the relationship between myth and history.

However, the task at hand is not the construction of a metatheory as an end in itself, but the introduction of a method that recycles metatheoretical conclusions for primary analysis. I submit that this formulation of the constituents of mythic and historic cognition (hereafter referred to as the myth-history model) is particularly useful in the analysis of literary documents that reflect the transition between these two modes of cognition. Later, I apply the myth-history model to a set of relevant data, namely, a series of books from the Hebrew Bible or Tanach.

The Contemporary Discourse

Contemporary definitions of myth and history can be classified into three groups: (1) the evolutionary view on the relationship between myth and history, (2) the distinction between myth and history based upon a cyclical versus a linear concept of time, and (3) the myth-history dichotomy that evolved in the controversy between Structuralism and Marxism. Each approach tends to define myth and history by pairs of opposing characteristics. The following sketch of the three approaches focuses on these oppositions.



Andriolo] MYTH AND HISTORY 263

1. Jaspers's concept of the "Axial Period" (1953) exemplifies the evolutionary view of myth and history. Jaspers is convinced that the period from 800 to 200 B.C., culminating around 500 B.C., witnessed a turning point in human history. He calls this period of the great breakthrough the Axial Period and ascribes to it the rise of consciousness, self- reflection, and a sense of history.2 This was preceded by the "Mythical Age," a period characterized by a tranquil, self-evident, dreamlike quality. Myth and history are thus primarily delineated by the opposites

dream :consciousness self-evidence :self-reflection.

It seems that this image of the Great Awakening from mythic dream to historic consciousness is but another manifestation of the assumed homology between ontogenesis and phylogenesis. In other words, the turning point in the psychological evolution of the individual, particularly as explained by psychoanalysis, is mapped onto the evolution of culture and the course of history. Psychoanalytic theory understands the Oedipal phase as a junction in personality development where sexuality and its restrictions provide the catalyst for the ego's internalization of normative reason at the price of the id's aliena- tion. Evidence of the temptation to project this individual passage model onto the history of culture is provided by Freud himself when he externalizes the Oedipus complex to the "primal horde" of sons; their murder of the father who has monopolized all the women results in the internalization of the dead father as superego and in guilt-imposed sexual restrictions, or, in the origin of "totem and taboo" and with it of "civilized" society (Freud 1913; Kroeber 1920, 1939). L6vi-Strauss, too, equates psychological with cultural development when he hypothesizes that the prohibition of incest and the exchange of sisters constitute the threshold in man's passage from nature to culture (L6vi-Strauss 1949; Wilden 1972).

2. Eliade exemplifies the second polarization that identifies myth with a cyclical perception of time and history with a linear perception of time. According to Eliade (1954), "archaic and primitive man" considers as real only those events that repeat primordial acts, performed originally in ille tempore, in the potent period of mythic beginnings. Vesting ultimate reality in the "eternal return" of mythic archetypes arrests the fear of the unique, irreversible, historic event. Eliade's correlation of myth with repetition and universality, and of history with irreversibility and uniqueness, is con- gruent with a host of definitions proposed by scholars in various fields; these definitions constitute the following sets of opposites:s

(myth): (history) universality: uniqueness

repetition: irreversibility (Ten Raa 1971:315-316; Leach 1961: 125-126)

timelessness: temporality (Finley 1965:285)

cyclicality: linearity (Kott 1974:13; Watts 1966; Leach 1961: 125-126A)

phases: succession (Cassirer 1955:109).

3. The third and most polyphonic contraposition of myth and history is concomitant with the rise of structural analysis which has stimulated various methodological and ideological dialogues. In particular, the dialogue between Marxism and Structuralism has reached symphonic dimensions, with a dramatic crescendo in French, an agitated resonance in German, and but a faint echo in English.

In the Marxist frame of reference, man realizes himself in history and only a time-




conscious-- that is, a diachronic and dynamic--method can trace this realization. Struc- turalism is discredited for neglecting the temporal dimension and for employing an analytic method- that is to say, for breaking an original unity into components which, although opposed to each other, coexist in a state of equilibrium. In contrast, Marxist dialectics construct a process from components that are themselves the products of contradiction. L6vi-Strauss accepts most of the charges but presents them as the very virtues of his approach. Reality is homologous with the infrastructure of the mind, with models that reside in the unconscious but surface in myth. These structural models are perma- nent, unaffected by time, and call for a synchronic method. LUvi-Strauss considers diachronic arrangements circumstantial and ultimately irrelevant. They are conscious models which ideologize reality and are thus illusory.

(myth): (history) structure: time

synchronic: diachronic static: dynamic

analytic: dialectic equilibrium: change

Sartre's existentialist persona contributes an additional pair of attributes. While ex- istentialism proclaims individual freedom, the universal structures are, of course, deter- ministic.

Alternative types of symbolization are frequently defined in terms of metaphor and metonym.4 Sebag (1967:195-202) employs the opposition specifically for the distinction between structural and historic analysis: structural analysis organizes content by means of metaphoric relations or similarity, while historic analysis pursues metonymic relations or contiguity.

Topolski equates structural analysis with "the discovery of the necessity of the explained element (behavior, object) in the structure" (1973:205). Thus, structural analysis yields functional explanations, whereas the historic-Marxist method renders causal explanations.

Finally, LUvi-Strauss provides two additional sets of diametrically opposed concepts. The bricoleur constructs needed objects from available remnants of his previous produc- tions. The engineer designs new constituent parts for the construction of an object. Cold, or archaic, societies resemble the bricoleur; they restructure a given, reorganize in- frastructural constituents, and are best exemplified by myth. Hot, or modern, societies resemble the engineer; in a superstructural pursuit of reality, they invent new rationaliza- tions for data and consider them history (L6vi-Strauss 1966:15 passim).5

(myth): (history) determinism: freedom

metaphor: metonym functional: causal bricoleur: engineer

cold societies: hot societies

The list of all characterizations of myth and history that we have uncovered so far is shown in Figure 1.

Derivation of the Model

The preceding synopsis, condensed in the list of opposites of Figure 1, represents the spectrum of meanings attributed to the complementarity of myth and history. This spec-




MYTH

dream self-evidence universality repetition timelessness cyclicality phases structure synchronic static analytic equilibrium determinism metaphor functional bricoleur cold societies

HISTORY

consciousness self- reflection uniqueness irreversibility temporality linearity succession time diachronic dynamic dialectic change freedom metonym causal engineer hot societies

Fig. 1

trum is informative, but not analytic. It contains all the information needed to understand the myth-history relationship, but it requires a reformulation to become instrumental in the analysis of cultural data. Ethnosemantics provides both the theoretical framework and the methodological guidelines for this reformulation.

Ethnosemantics assumes that the terms which constitute a semantic domain are systematically related to each other. It searches for the organizing principles that generate the meaning of each term from the meaning differences among them (see Sturtevant 1964; Tyler 1969, inter alia). We may conceive of the complementary definitions of myth and history as a semantic domain within the social sciences. In the preceding pages we have already enumerated the terms that constitute this domain and, in Figure 1, transcribed them in accordance with the requirements of formal com- parability. Next, we must discover the relationships among the complementary pairs in Figure 1, or, more precisely, the similarities and differences between their meanings.6

Since the pairs on our list do not yield a common denominator--one pair in terms of which we can transcribe satisfactorily all other pairs--we must conclude that the dyadic view of myth and history is an oversimplification and that a nondyadic view is called for. It seems that the pairs that make up our list are differentiated along two separate dimensions of contrast.

Opposites such as structure:time or functional:causal express different types of relations among the parts of a system. Structural and functional relations establish networks or constellations, whereas temporal and causal relations establish directionality or irreversible sequence. I chose the opposites field:vector to represent the first dimension along which myth and history contrast; network relations constitute a field, and linear relations constitute a vector.

Other opposites such as analytic:dialectic or bricoleur:engineer express different types of processes that effect- or are effected

by-- a system or its parts. Analytic reason and the




bricoleur rearrange, condense, transpose, or duplicate a given totality; dialectic reason and the engineer produce a new mode of the given. I chose the opposites replication:def- ferentiation to represent the second dimension along which myth and history contrast.

It is important to realize that no pair on our list is defined exclusively along one dimension of contrast. All pairs are dichotomized simultaneously in both dimensions, differing only in the extent to which they recognize the primacy of one. Although the difference between structure and time is primarily one of field versus vector, structural relations require a certain redundancy--which is an aspect of replication--for the recognition of patterns; temporal relations require a certain differentiation for the delineation of before and after. Pairs such as equilibrium: change, determinism freedom, or phases:succession are distinguished equally along both dimensions. Equilibrium is a constellation that reproduces its self-similarity, while change is linear and produces differentiation.

The fact that all such opposites are distinguished simultaneously along both dimensions of contrast proves that the dyadic view of myth and history is an oversimplification.

VEC TOR

HIS TORY REPL- _ _ DIFFEREN- CATION TIATION

MYTH

FIELD

Horizontal axis: represents the _type of process which effects- or is effected by- narrative units. Moving from left to right represents movement from self-similar replication toward increasing differentiation.

Vertical axis: represents the !ype of relations among the constituent parts of a narration. Moving up represents a movement from a non-directed field relation toward a strictly directted vectorial structure.

Fig. 2




Since the two dimensions apply to each pair but in differing proportions, the optimal graphic representation of the myth-history model requires a set of two-dimensional coordinates (Cartesian coordinates), as shown in Figure 2. The subsequent paragraphs discuss three analytical implications of the model.

1. The model is operational in a static, as well as a dynamic, context. Figure 2 represents the static aspect, which is a two-dimensional definition of myth and history in terms of their structural constituents. This definition reads: Myth arranges information in a field (binary oppositions are a familiar example thereof) and progresses by means of replication-in other words, only transformations of the basic arrangement are introduced. History arranges information in linear order (chronology or teleology, for example) and progresses by means of differentiation--in other words, new arrangements are generated.

2. The dynamic aspect of the model is of particular significance. Because it formulates the relationship between myth and history in a continuum, it permits a mapping of the possible transitions between the two modes of thought. Five types of transitions can be discerned; their graphic representation is shown in Figure 3.

Types 1 and 2 represent proto-historic trends, primarily found in cosmologic myths. Myths of type 1 -for example, the Mesoamerican myth of the four suns or the Mediterra- nean myth of the four ages-employ irreversible sequence, but in the service of repetition. A basic constellation of events provides the same scenario for each repeated perfor- mance; what matters is their likeness despite the passage of time. Type 2 refers to the mythic expectation of a great transformation at the end of time, as exemplified by the prophecy of Ragnarok, the Twilight of the Gods, in Norse mythology. This expectation confers upon certain myths a quasi-historic allusion; they anticipate differentiation without describing the process that changes before into after.

Types 3 and 4 represent mythic regressions in primarily historic accounts. Type 3 depicts a historic sequence of unique events, but subsumes it to a philosophy of history that postulates a cyclical pattern. The general theories of Toynbee (1934) and Spengler (1920-22) can serve as examples. Type 4 reflects the tendency to strip historic events of

VEC TOR

HISTORY

REPL/I- 5 DIFFEREN- CA TION T/A TI ON

MYTH .

FIELD Fig. 3




their contextual uniqueness and to cloak them with archetypical motifs. An example is given in Dumezil's analysis of legendary Roman history (1941).7

Type 5 represents the simultaneity of myth and history manifested in literary documents that were created during the period of transition between the two modes of thought. To name but a few: the Shu-Ching, composed in China around the 9th century B.C.; the Kojiki (Philippi 1968), edited in Japan in 721 A.D.; the Tanach or Old Testa- ment, compiled and re-edited between the 9th century B.C. and the first century A.D.; the Historia Tolteca-Chichimeca (Mengin and Preuss 1937-38) and the Codex

Chimalpopoca (Lehmann 1938), both written in Mesoamerica after the Spanish Con- quest, yet remembering things past. These texts combine tales of supernatural intervention, intentional cosmic changes, and superhuman heroes with the recounting of events which, on the basis of archaeological research, are considered factual or, at least, likely. This surface merger of mythic and historic traits is encoded on the structural level by relations between constituent units of the narration, i.e., relations of the field, vector, replication, and differentiation types.

3. Since clarity is not among the virtues of the term structure, a specification of the model's location within the structural topography is in order. The controversy between LUvi-Strauss and Ricoeur is relevant here since it relates to the structural analysis of the Bible and of protohistoric documents in general. It also defines the two distinct levels of analysis between which I locate the myth-history model. The controversy pivots on the distinction between the overt content and the underlying structure of a text while endow- ing but one with the interpretive center of gravity. Ricoeur dismisses as inadequate any interpretation that disregards the historic self-consciousness of the Bible (1963). Levi- Strauss denies wholehearted blessing to the structural analysis of the Bible since conscious and purposive reworking has rationalized, and thus distorted beyond recognition, its deep structure (1963b). Both concur in exposing the Bible and structural analysis as a mismatched pair; they disagree, however, on the identity of the failing party.

I think that the myth-history model, like the classificatory principles derived by ethnosemantics or cognitive anthropology in general, is located midway between LUvi- Strauss's concern with the unconscious deep structure of the mind and Ricoeur's em- phasis on the purposive quality of ideology. For example, Foucault's "epistemes" of Western thought (1966) and the recent structural studies of the Tanach operate on the same analytic level (Andriolo 1973; Barthes 1971; Douglas 1966, 1971; Freilich 1975; Jacobs 1976; Leach 1969a, 1969b, Peck 1968; Soler 1979).8 If we conceive of ideology as thought affected by the socioeconomic organization of a culture, then the myth-history model penetrates conscious ideology, but does not underpass this stratum in pursuit of the untamed, undisturbed deep structure. Its concern is with the structure of ideology rather than the structure underlying it. It mines the latent systematics of manifest ideology. (Thus, the type of structure analyzed by the model is henceforth referred to as the latent structure of ideology.)9

PART 2: MYTH AND HISTORY IN THE BIBLE

In the second part of this paper I am using the previously derived model to analyze the series of books from Genesis to the Second Book of Kings, referred to by some scholars as the "Enneateuch" (Ackroyd and Evans 1970:108). These books were selected because of the relative continuity of their content and literary history.'0

Many scholars in the field of literary criticism agree that the final composition of the Enneateuch is the work of two major groups of writers. The priestly writers compiled the Tetrateuch (Genesis to Numbers) and integrated the earlier Yahwist and Elohist documents; the Deuteronomic writers composed the Deuteronomic History




(Deuteronomy to Kings). The writing of the earliest document is generally placed in the 9th century B.C., whereas the final redaction is assumed to follow the fall of Judah in 587 B.C. (Ackroyd and Evans 1970:73-76; see also Pfeiffer 1948:129-412).

Our analysis includes the Book of Ruth since its content places it in the period of the judges and its literary style relates it to the Yahwist and Elohist documents (Myers 1955:4; Campbell 1975:23, 26). For reasons of brevity, the term Bible will be used from now on with reference to the Enneateuch and the Book of Ruth.

A variety of studies has explored the biblical juxtaposition of myth and history on the level of manifest ideology. Archaeologists have unearthed evidence for some of the historic claims of the Bible (Albright 1969; Freedman and Wright 1961, 1964; Kenyon 1960; Wright 1957, inter alia), and students of comparative religion have discerned mythic themes that are either cross-culturally significant or in correspondence with the spectrum of religious ideas and practices of the ancient Near East (Frazer 1918; Gaster 1969; Graves and Patai 1966; Hooke 1933, inter alia).

According to my earlier postulate, two dimensions of contrast -field:vector and replication:differentiation- constitute the latent structure of biblical ideology. The text- specific representation of these two dimensions is the concern of the second part of this paper.

On the manifest level, God and man are the protagonists of the narration. Both men and women are significant and defined essentially in social terms." I hypothesize that men and women in their quality as social actors manSfest the myth-history model in the biblical text. Generally, the analysis of social actors focuses upon status and role, which correspond to the structure and function of social systems. Structure and function correspond to the two dimensions of contrast in our model, namely, the type of relations (i.e., field:vector) and the type of processes (i.e., replication:differentiation). It remains to be seen whether this hypothesis can be verified in a detailed study of the men and women of the Bible. We must search for the common characteristics of male status, female status, male role behavior, and female role behavior. If the model applies, and if the previous hypothesis is correct, we should find four characteristic traits that correspond to the constituents of our model and, thus, to the merger of myth and history.

Status and the Field: Vector Dimension

The social status of most men in the Bible is determined by their position within either one of two social systems, the genealogies and the succession of leaders. The genealogies consist of the tribal genealogy from Adam to the ancestors of the 12 tribes, and the royal genealogy from Judah to King Solomon;. the succession of leaders proceeds from Moses to Saul and continues with the sequence of kings in Israel and Judah. The genealogies and the succession of leaders integrate the entire text into a consistent chronological framework and provide linear order. Men, the building blocks of chronology, manifest the vector component of history.

A second type of linear order, the teleological aspect of genealogies, corroborates the connection between male status and the vector of our model. Teleology in this context means that the results of the process traced by the genealogies justify and thus determine the course which this process takes. For example, genealogical links between individuals represent inter- and intratribal relations and provide clues for the settlement process in Palestine (Malamat 1968, 1973). The royal genealogy steers a successful course between endogamy and exogamy, so that Solomon is the legitimate heir to two land titles for Palestine, God's gift, and the right of conquest (Leach 1969b). The tribal genealogy provides a logical model for the resolution of ideological conflicts such as God's role as a universal creator and his exclusive patronage of one people, Israel's ideologic homogenei-




ty and ethnic heterogeneity, and Israel's place within yet apart from the world (Andriolo 1973).

Given the overt patrilineality of Israel, it seems self-evident that men are the constituent units of the genealogies and the succession of leaders,12 and that they represent the vector component of history. However, this seemingly uncontroversial observation har- bors a striking incongruence between manifest ideology and its latent structure. Women play significant roles in the narration and are indispensable for descent and succession; yet, the previously discussed linear structures exclude women.'" A reformulation of the issue is helpful. The question is not What place in the genealogies is occupied by women? but rather Where else do women have their structural place?

Ever since the concept of exchange was included in the study of culture and broadened to cover transactions in all major subsystems of culture (i.e., the sociopolitical, the techno-economic, and the ideological) the value of women has been defined in analogy to that of goods and symbols. In particular, an uninterrupted French tradition from Mauss (1925) to LUvi-Strauss (1949) to Clastres (1974:chapters 2 and 5) elaborates on the exchange value of women. However, women are shortchanged in this intellectual barter in which they are conceptually reduced to mere objects of exchange."4

The concept of exchange holds the clue to the perception of a structural pattern that links the women of the Bible. Most biblical heroines and some women in episodic roles embody two opposed types of status. The significant events in their lives cast them either as objects of exchange, objects of give-and-take, or as agents of exchange, active partners in transactions. Their object status is depicted predominantly in the context of marriage or alliance, their agent status in the context of motherhood or descent. For example, Rebekah is given by her brother and father to Abraham's servant Eliezer as wife for Isaac; by means of an elaborate deceit, she exchanges Jacob for the firstborn Esau.'5

Women are related by the structural pattern that Levi-Strauss attributes to myth-binary opposition and its mediation. Women can mediate the opposites object status:agent status or alliance:descent by switching status. The switch in status is reversible. This contrasts with the irreversible change in status from son to father. By switching status, women facilitate the sequence of male protagonists in the genealogy; since they mediate between alliance and descent, they turn sons into husbands and husbands into fathers of sons.

To summarize: irreversible linearity is the essence of a vector and, likewise, the characteristic of the genealogies and the succession of leaders, both of which constitute the matrix for male statuses. Consequently, men represent the vector and thus one of the two properties of history. In contrast, women's statuses are not structured by sequence but by a configuration of oppositions (i.e., object-status versus agent-status) and their mediation; such a configuration is an example of a field. Consequently, women represent the field and thus one of the two properties of myth.

Role Behavior and the Replication: Differentiation Dimension

The social roles that determine the expected behavior of men in the Bible are father, son, brother, husband, son-in-law, father-in-law, and next of kin.'" A strikingly consistent theme resounds in the male role behavior. The majority of social roles that a man plays vis-a-vis another man are characterized by a negative streak: by betrayal, intent to kill, or actual killing.

Brothers are up against brothers: Cain kills Abel (Gn 4:8); Jacob tricks Esau out of his birthright (Gn 25:29-34; Gn 27); Joseph is sold by his brothers into slavery (Gn 37); Ab- salom kills Amnon (2S 13:28-39); Solomon orders the killing of Adonijah (1K 2:23-25); and Aaron rebels against Moses (Ex. 32).




Fathers are up against sons: Abraham expels Ishmael (Gn 21:14); Abraham intends to sacrifice Isaac (Gn 22); and Saul, who has a quasi-father relationship to David, attempts to kill him several times (IS 18:11; 19:1; etc.). Even if a father shows but loving concern for his son, it might actually work to the son's disadvantage. Jacob's favoritism sets in mo- tion Joseph's ordeal (Gn 37).

Sons are up against fathers: Ham defies Noah (Gn 9:22); Jacob cheats Isaac (Gn 27); Jonathan betrays Saul (IS 20); Saul's death is the prerequisite for David's kingship (2S 3); and Absalom rebels against David (2S 15).

Father-in-law cheats son-in-law and vice versa, as in the case of Laban (Gn 29:20-26) and Jacob (Gn 30:25-43). Finally, Boaz tricks his next of kin for Ruth (Rt 4).17

The prevalent characteristic of social role behavior among men is the intended or unintended harm of the man who is the counterpart in the social dyad. In the world of men, agitated commotions take place. Yet, these are commotions within a closed system. One man's anticipated gain is another man's possible loss. Whatever is gained by one man is taken from somebody else; it is a gain within a zero-sum game. Men exchange rather than change roles. They perpetuate a given arrangement by merely altering the score while preserving the equilibrium of the whole. The social role behavior of men does not produce new constellations, but rather replicates the given.

The role behavior of women is significantly different. They are represented as wife, mother, daughter, and sister. The general characteristics of their role behavior seem to be as follows: (1) there are women whose paramount problem is to become a wife; (2) women who are wooed and married with ease have to face a challenge in their role as mothers; and (3) women who are introduced as daughters or sisters invite misfortune.

1. A number of women help themselves to husbands they are not destined for. Leah is not wanted by Jacob but wedges herself into marriage with him (Gn 29:20-26). Both Tamar, daughter-in-law of Judah, (Gn 38) and Ruth (Rt 3:4) leap one step within the order of levirate. Both Abigail (IS 25) and Bath-Sheba (2S 11) are already married when they first meet David. Both husbands die as a consequence of these meetings and as a precondition to the widows' subsequent marriages to David. In all cases, sex takes place prior to marriage, symbolic of the suggestion that the status of a wife has to be acquired by action; and it is worth the effort. Leah is married to the father of the 12 tribes, Tamar and Ruth are ancestresses to David, and Abigail and Bath-Sheba are the wives of Israel's hero-king. But for Bath-Sheba, who loses her first child, no obstacles arise in their subsequent roles as mothers. None of these women replaces another wife in changing her role from woman to wife. Finally, we might add to this group two examples which seem to confirm the pattern by inversion of both the expected behavior and its effect. Women who offer or entertain sexual relationships that are not subsequently legitimized cause disaster: the rejection of Potiphar's wife contributes to Joseph's imprisonment (Gn 39); and Delilah is instrumental in the capture and humiliation of her lover Samson (Jg 16).

2. A number of women do not encounter problems relating to marriage. However, they have to overcome subsequent obstacles pertaining to their roles as mothers of sons. Their mother role involves the accomplishment of a significant change.

For some women the problem is to become mothers. Sarah (Gn 18; 21:1-2), Rachel (Gn 30:1, 22-23), the unnamed mother of Samson (Jg 12), and Hannah, the mother of Samuel (IS 1), are barren for a long time. In each case special supernatural intervention is needed for the mother to give birth to an important son. Both Rachel (Gn 35:17-19) and Ichabod's mother (1S 4:19-22) die giving birth to their sons. To this list we might add Eve, who has to forego the pleasures of paradise to introduce human reproduction (Gn 3).

Additionally, we find women whose major role consists of exerting a changing in- fluence on the life of their sons. Rebekah recasts Jacob into the role of a firstborn son (Gn




27); Zipporah saves her son from impending death by means of an improvised circumci- sion (Ex 4:24-26); and Jochebed acts contrary to Pharaoh's law and saves her son Moses by hiding him in an ark (Ex 6:22). The Shunammite woman is promised a son by the pro- phet Elisha; when the son later dies, she approaches Elisha, who raises him from the dead (2K 4:8-37; 8:1-6). Rizpah watches over the slain bodies of her sons until David grants them a proper burial (2S 3:7).

Inverted examples to this list can be found as well. Wives without sons die under rather unusual circumstances: Lot's wife, who has given birth to daughters only, turns into a pillar of salt (Gn 19:26); and the Levite's childless wife is raped to death by Benjamites (Jg 19).18

3. Women who are introduced in the roles of daughters or sisters have to make un- conventional role adjustments to avoid tragedy. Some daughters acquire a deviant mother role: Lot's daughters attempt a truly desperate but rather successful role change by bearing sons to their own father (Gn 19:30-38); and Pharaoh's daughter selects the role of foster mother to Moses (Ex 2:5-10).

Other daughters attempt to become wives. In this group only Michal succeeds. In- troduced as the daughter of Saul, she is later married to David. She remains, however, barren (2S 6:23). Both Dinah (Gn 34) and Tamar, the daughter of David (2S 13), cause the death of their seducers, administered in both cases by their brothers.

Finally, Jephta's daughter, who does not attempt to change her role, dies in fulfillment of daughterly sentiments (Jg 11:31-39).19

The message redundantly represented in the role behavior of women seems to read: Being a woman is not enough, one has to become a wife. Being a wife is not enough, one has to become a mother. And being a daughter is a problem indeed, since successful role change has to take an unusual course. Daughters are in danger of getting trapped in their role (a rather surprising notion, if we think of the overt praxis of endogamy). As opposed to the male heroes of the Bible, women are open systems who generate change out of themselves. For the accomplishment of role change, they do not deprive other women. Their activity consists of the attempt to differentiate themselves from their given roles.

To summarize: Men exchange rather than change their positions. They represent replication, the second property of myth. In contrast, women change rather than exchange their positions. They represent differentiation, the second property of history (see Figure 4).

Summary and Implications

In part 1, we questioned the sufficiency of the prevalent complementary definitions of myth and history, particularly for the analysis of documents in which mythic and historic cognition coexist. We set out to develop a definition of myth-and-history that offers an optimal utilization of the already existing thought on the subject matter, but transcends its prevalent dyadic formulation. Ethnosemantics provided the method to distill the in- tersubjective essence from the existing definitions. We derived a model of myth-and- history that represents the latent structure of relevant ideological data. This model main- tains that mythic as well as historic thought deals with the past by expressing both the relations and the processes (or, the structures and functions) that constitute the past. Myth and history contrast along these two dimensions: myth represents the past in terms of field relations and replication processes; history chooses vector relations and differentiation processes to accomplish its goal.

In part 2, the analysis of the Bible exemplified a culture-specific manifestation of the myth-history model. We found a structural homology between the two complementary types of relations and processes and the status and role behavior of social actors. We con-




VEC TOR

Q H/STORY RE P LI- men women DIFFEREN-

CAT/ O N TIAATION

MYTH FIELD

Fig. 4

cluded that in the Bible: (1) men and women represent myth and history; and (2) men as well as women represent both myth and history.

We will now look at the implications of the Bible's specific encoding of the general structure.

The implications of our first conclusion, that men and women symbolize the opposition between myth and history, invite comparisons with the homologous representations in other literary documents of the myth-history genre. It seems that many of these documents represent myth and history as the opposition between god and man and offer different mediations for this opposition.

The Codex Chimalpopoca (Lehmann 1938) traces the migration of the Chichimeca and related peoples. Placed in the mythic context of the five ages, their history is per- vaded by divine intervention and the foundation of important cultural institutions. The paramount hero of the Codex is Quetzalcoatl, who is assigned the dual role of god and man. Among the gods, he is the self-sacrificing creator and resourceful patron of mankind. Among men, he is the just and industrious ruler of the Toltec empire centered at Tula. Various isomorphisms permeate his divine and human roles. For example, the circumstances of his conception and birth, his search for the bones of his murdered father, and his encounters with his powerful adversary, Tezcatlipoca, are described on both the divine and the human levels. The mediation between god-man, myth-history, is attempted but not fully achieved in the Codex. In spite of the obvious identification between the god and the ruler of Tula, a schism between the divine and human existences of Quetzalcoatl prevails in the text.

The Kojiki (Philippi 1968) begins with the creation of the universe and traces the divine genealogy to the Great Goddess Amaterasu. Her grandson Ninigi descends to earth and becomes the ancestor of the emperor Jimmu, the founder of the imperial




lineage. Human filiation from the gods, and with it the transition from cosmic to historic events, is mediated by the imperial lineage, yet the transition is abrupt.

Gilgamesh (Speiser 1955:72-99), the king of Uruk, is the son of a mortal father and a divine mother. The god-man polarity in his persona is paralleled by several pairs of oppositions. First introduced as a lonely ruler whose prowess and egocentrism are beyond human scale, Gilgamesh develops into a compassionate man and companion through his friendship with Enkidu. Immortality versus death is the dominant theme on the manifest level. Its structural equivalent is nature versus culture, as demonstrated by Kirk (1970:132-162). Gilgamesh mediates these oppositions successfully. However, his final acceptance of death is symbolic of the painful quality of this mediation, although the pain is eased by the recognition that cultural memory bestows a quasi immortality on those who become the heroes of history.

Jesus mediates the god-man opposition in the New Testament. But the choice of this opposition proved problematic. For several centuries, the semantic controversy over the issue whether Jesus, during his life on earth, was man or manlike provided the ideological superstructure to bloody struggles. It is tempting to see Christian saints as substitute mediators of this unyielding opposition. For many, torture and death were the prere- quisites for elevation to sainthood, or for the mediation between human and divine existence.

All these documents map myth and history onto the opposition between god and man. However, this opposition proves obstinate to mediation; it is frequently associated with death, or lacerated by obvious schisms in the narration. Furthermore, the equation between gods and myth might threaten the survival of the gods, once the historic mode of thought prevails.

By comparison, it seems that the symbolic strategy chosen by the Bible effected - among other variables - the sustained religious and cultural impact of this text. Since myth and history are personalized in exclusively human terms, God remains beyond myth and history and is permitted a progressive depersonalization, and a later identification with The Law. He is clearly distinguished from man, who is charged with the responsibility for both the preservation of tradition and the implementation of change. This separation and definition of the divine and the human sphere has a strong resonance in later Jewish theology and ethics. True to this demarcation, Judaism refrained from pro- moting biblical heroes, charismatic rabbis, or Messiahs, like Bar Kochba and Sabbatai Zevi, to god-man androgyny.20

Our second conclusion, that men as well as women represent both myth and history, deviates significantly from the prevailing symbolization of the male-female relationship in culture. Contemporary anthropological studies show that, in the public domain of most cultures, women are subordinated to men. Various biological, demographic, economic, and social determinants for this political situation are advanced and its symbolic correlates are explored. It seems that one current in the symbolic expression and legitimation of the subordination of women to men is the association of women with an earlier stage of cultural development.

This is particularly obvious in the widespread mythic theme of the ritual foundation of male dominance. Initially, women secretly owned the ritual objects that enabled them to control men. Either through female carelessness, male force, or a combination of both, women lost the secrets of ritual-political superiority to men whose management of sacred objects and power proved better anyhow (Bamberger 1974; Murphy and Murphy 1974:87; Speiser 1944; Weidkuhn 1973).

A variation on the theme is the symbolic equation that "female is to male as nature is to culture," as discussed by Ortner (1974). Most if not all cultures tend to interpret women's bodies and their activities as closer to nature while identifying men and their activities




primarily with culture. From an anthropocentric viewpoint, nature is both inferior and

prior to culture.

Even anthropologists succumbed to the symbolic appeal of relegating women's political hegemony to an obscure proto-cultural stage. The hypothesis of an original matriarchate embedded in promiscuity, from which emerged male dominance and the resulting sociopolitical development, is the cultural evolutionist's version of the tribal myth (Bachofen 1861; McLennan 1865; Morgan 1907).

Extrapolating this theme to the Bible, we would expect, in accordance with Jaspers's view, women to represent myth and men history. However, our analysis has shown that both men and women embody mythic as well as historic components and are therefore

equal in terms of the latent ideological structure. The use of a two-dimensional model

suggests findings not anticipated by previous works. It seems that a model of this type allows for a more refined and accurate perception of the relative position of men and women within the cultural system.

The structural equality of men and women contradicts the manifest ideology of male

authority which is demonstrated by patrilineality and by frequent illustrations of the fact that female accomplishments need formal accreditation by men. To recall but two ex-

amples of the latter, Rebekah stages the change in her son's birth order, but only Jacob's blessing legalizes the fait accompli (Gn 27); Tamar plans and implements her ancestral status in the descent line of David, yet, in a dramatic finale, Judah has to authorize his father role (Gn 38). This contradiction between the latent and the manifest level of

ideology conforms to the findings of several structural studies. For example, LIvi-Strauss (1952) argues that the apparent moiety exogamy of the Bororo and Sherente is underlain

by endogamy within a hierarchic tripartite structure. Murphy and Kasdan (1959; 1967) demonstrate that the patrilineal ideology of Arab Bedouin is complemented by a latent bilateral structure.

The structural equality of men and women, particularly the arrangement by which they represent the differing dimensions of myth and history respectively, might carry a further message. The male status system constructs the vector, the individual behavior of men produces replication. Women as a group constitute the field, individual women par- take in the immutability that characterizes myth, and in the progression that characterizes history. Men in group procure change, but remain stagnant as individuals, whereas women in group are inert, but innovative as individuals.21

Since the preceding discussion is based on a single text, it sketches rather than explores some implications of a specific manifestation of the general model. The most significant task for the myth-history model is to function on a comparison of several specific manifestations and to expose salient differences among them. I think that the basic method of

anthropology, like that of other social and behavioral sciences, is the dialectic interaction between the general and the specific, between similarity and difference; more precisely, these sciences should derive from specific cases general models which only serve as the common analytic ground from which to understand the signtficance of differences among specific cases. Geertz, I think, envisions a similar dialectic in the following passage from The Interpretation of Cultures:

Man is to be defined neither by his innate capacities alone, as the Enlightenment sought to do, nor by his actual behaviors alone, as much of contemporary social science seeks to do, but rather by the link between them, by the way in which the first is transformed into the second, his generic potentialities focused into his specific performances [1973:52].




NOTES

Acknowledgments. I wish to thank Roger Mesznik for his inspiring and influential comments on the manuscript. I also wish to thank Giselle Hendel-Sebestyen and Anthony Wilden for their critical readings of an earlier draft of the manuscript.

1 For example, in 1725, Vico's New Science still emphasizes the importance of myth within history (Frye 1973:147-148) whereas Comte (1830-42) and L6vy-Bruhl (1910) are among the better known representatives of the evolutionary position.

2 This underlies the approximate synchronicity of the Hebrew prophets, the Greek thinkers from the pre-Socratics and sophists to Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle, the writing of the Upanishads and the teachings of Buddha, Zarathustra, Confucius, and Lao Tse.

3 Finley considers "timelessness" the paramount characteristic of myth; myth is without a connection to a before or after, and the characters of myth do not age (1965:285). Ten Raa summarizes the views of several anthropologists and historians and relates history to irreversible time and myth to reversible time or, actually, timelessness; contrary to historic texts, timeless, symbolic myth "allows for many different versions, and indeed thrives on variations" (1971:316). In an interpretation of Greek tragedy, Kott distinguishes between "historic time, which is unidirectional, and mythic time, which is cyclic"; the Moiras and Furies respectively depict these two different notions of time in the Prometheus of Aeschylus (1974:13). In exploring comedy and tragedy, Watts proposes an analogy between comedy and those myths that assert a cyclic concept of human existence; fewer in number and later in origin are the myths that profess to a linear mode of existence, as do the myths of Quet- zalcoatl and Jesus; their dramatic counterpart is tragedy (1966). Cassirer defines the mythic concept of time as a "rhythmic ebb and flow" which conveys "a sense of phases" rather than the notion of duration and succession characteristic for cosmic and historic time (1955:109). Leach's "Two Essays Concerning the Symbolic Representation of Time" open with a review of the two major aspects of time, repetition, and irreversibility, which are later identified with the images of the circle and the line respectively. Subsequently, however, Leach casts himself in the role of a structural mediator and proclaims the existence of a third notion of time. Many societies, he argues, seem to concep- tualize time in analogy to the properties of a pendulum that oscillates between polar opposites, as is exemplified in the Greek myth of Cronus (1961:125-126).

The cycle and the line, the dominant symbols of this series, also represent the thought systems of the ancient Mediterranean, according to historians and theologians. Greeks and Romans supposedly maintained a cyclical view, while Jews and Christians held a linear perspective (Boman 1952; Col- lingwood 1946; Cullmann 1950; Niebuhr 1949; Puech 1951; Quispel 1951; von Rad 1962, inter alia; for modification and discussion of these theories see Driver 1960; Manuel 1965; Meyerson 1956; Momigliano 1966; Starr 1966, inter alia).

4 According to Jakobson (1956), every linguistic sign can be placed in two types of arrangements. For example, a word in a sentence relates to all other words in this sentence (contiguity, metonym), as well as to all other words in the language which can substitute for it (similarity, metaphor). Wilden (1968:244-246) points out that Jakobson's linguistic distinction prevails in the use of metaphor and metonym by L6vi-Strauss (particularly 1966, 1964-71), Lacan (1966), Sebag (1967), and others (see also Rosolato 1970).

Fernandez (1974) traces the recognition of this distinction in anthropology to Tylor "who distinguished between metaphor and syntax in cultural process" as well as to Frazer "in his discussion of sympathetic or similarity magic and contagious or contiguity magic" (p. 119).

5 The preceding summary of the dialogue between structuralism and Marxism draws upon the following sources: Abel 1966; Auzias 1970; Bierwisch 1966; Gaboriau 1963; Godelier 1971; Gold- man 1966; Greimas 1966; Krader 1974; Lant6ri-Laura 1967; Leftbvre 1963; LUvi-Strauss 1966:245-269; Parain 1967; Piaget 1970:120-128; Pouillon 1970; Rosen 1971; Sartre 1960, 1966:89-91; Schiwy 1969:86-102, 1971:56-60; Schmidt 1969; Scholte 1973:648-651, 690-694; Sebag 1967; Simonis 1967.

' A similar conclusion can be reached within a distinct conceptual framework, namely, the analog-digital distinction germane to communication theory, particularly as employed by Wilden (1972). Communication theory distinguishes two modes of conveying information: analog and digital. Analog information is transmitted in continuous quantities, the totality of a given constella-




tion is translated into a different medium of expression. A graph, for example, is an analog representation. So is defining "spiral" by moving one's finger in the characteristic manner. Art represents primarily in an analog manner. Digital understanding attempts to reveal determining variables, discrete units that supposedly represent the essence of the studied phenomenon. The formula that describes a curve presents information in a digital style; so does the interpretation of art. Science conveys primarily digital information.

Wilden's (1972) innovative use of the analog-digital distinction is particularly relevant for our discussion. On the basis of this distinction, Wilden traces isomorphisms in the concepts of Lacan, Bateson, and Lkvi-Strauss, as well as analog-digital switches in the mode of their respective discourse. Analog-digital thus provides the conceptual framework for both an analytic and critical dimension, or, in more general terms, for mediating between the content of a discourse and the discourse itself. Adapted to our context, this suggests the following:

Each pair on our list transmits highly selective digital information on myth and history. The totality of all pairs or the spectrum of meanings, as we called it, contains information in an analog manner. The single pairs are related to each other since they refer to different aspects of the same

phenomenon and represent the collective view of scholars. This analog information is not operational for data analysis, but it can be converted into digital information by distilling a discrete definition from the collective view, or, a limited set of relations. By digitalizing the discourse on

myth and history, we express the relations between the different definitions rather than single definitions or their sum. Relationships between entities are of a higher logical type than are the entities themselves and are the locus of contemporary science.

7 The first four transitions are commensurate with several of Eliade's concepts (1954). His "Myth of the Eternal Return" corresponds to type 1. The attempt to escape the "terror of history" in

eschatological expectations and in cyclical theories of history (p. 139 passim), matches type 2 and

type 3. "Mythicization," done in legends (p. 39 passim), is analogous to type 4. 8 Douglas (1966) analyzes the dietary laws of Leviticus and argues that God's holiness is expressed

by the cognitive principles of wholeness and separation which generate the classification into edible and nonedible animals (see also Douglas 1971). Structural separation is also the theme of Soler's (1979) article on dietary prohibitions. The initial opposition between meat (reserved for God) and

plants (for human consumption) is replaced, since the times of Noah, by a differentiation between blood (which is God's) and meat (now permitted for man) and finally, since the times of Moses, with the distinction between clean (herbivorous) and unclean (carnivorous or blemished) animals. Leach's two articles on the Bible survey sexual politics. Israel's homogeneous and superior descent is a central message in Genesis (Leach 1969a). Solomon's succession to the throne mediates contra- dictions in Israel's title to the land (Leach 1969b). Peck (1968) employs the structural paradigm of

dyadic and triadic models to indicate congruencies between four styles of myth interpretation (Eliade, Jensen, Levi-Strauss, and Leach). These styles and their emerging problematic are demonstrated by means of an analysis of Abraham's sacrifice, in which God's contrary commands, to sacrifice and to spare the son, are mediated by the ram. Barthes (1971) analyzes the story of Jacob's struggle with the angel. His "major contribution is his pointing up of the range of ambiguity and

paradox" in the text (Jacobson 1974:158). In an earlier paper (Andriolo 1973), I propose that the

genealogical structure of Genesis provides a paradigm for the mediation of cognitive dissonances in the ideology of ancient Israel. Decoded by Freilich (1975), the creation account in Genesis presents sets of opposites that are mediated by the evolution of man in four stages: from Adam who is first created a body plus operative potential, to Creative Adam (Eve), to Questioning Adam (snake), to Moral Adam (apple). The transformations of Adam recognize both gains and losses and are "consistent with many modem understandings concerning the nature of human reality" (p. 207). For Jacobs (1976), animals indicate the relationship between God, man, and nature. The decreasing frequency of reference to animals in a religious-ecological context and their increasing politico- economic association parallels Israel's historic development from a pastoral society to statehood and the concomitant reorganization of values.

9 The method for the derivation of the myth-history model can be summarized as follows: The discourse on a phenomenon is converted into a model of the phenomenon itself. This procedure condenses not merely the existing definitions but their relationship to each other (which is the reason why I use the term model rather than definition). Thus, it introduces a form of intersub- jectivity that is particularly suitable and functional for the social sciences.




10 The continuous narration of the Enneateuch describes the creation of the world, traces the emergence of the Jewish people, and delineates the unfolding of its identity and the development of its sociopolitical organization from tribal beginnings to a monarchic state (around 1020 B.C.). The state is later divided into the kingdoms of Israel and Judah. The destruction of Judah (587 B.C.), which was preceded by the fall of Israel, is the closing event of the narration.

" The social focus of biblical culture is not surprising to anthropologists. To paraphrase a recent conclusion of Sahlins (1976: chapter 5), in societies other than class-structured bourgeois societies the institutional locus, reflected in the symbolic production, is commensurate with social relations.

12 The only exceptions are the judge Deborah (Jg 4:5), and the queen Athaliah (2K 11:3) who usurped the throne of Judah after her son was killed.

13 Leach (1969b) assigns a prominent role to the wives of Solomon's ancestors. However, their role in Solomon's operative descent is based upon their descent from certain men. "The Legitimacy of Solomon" rests ultimately on the argument that he is: " 'directly descended' from Jacob the Israelite, but that he is also 'directly descended' from Esau the Edomite and even from Heth the Ca- naanite.

.." (p. 64). Malamat (1973) introduces women along with a distinction between the vertical and horizontal

aspects of genealogies. However, women are soon dismissed from his discussion of the structural vector:

. . the Bible frequently accommodates female elements, as well: wives or concubines, mothers and daughters. But such elements figure there solely on the horizontal plane; they have no place in the strictly vertical lineages of a society based on agnatic descent . . . [p. 127].

My own paper (1973) analyzes the structure of the Esau, Jacob, Leah, and Rachel story and con- cludes that male competition for an ancestral position in the Jewish lineage permits but one victor, while female competition grants both women the status of ancestress and accomplishes the transition from the Jewish lineage to the Jewish people. Though aware of the structural importance of this situation, I was not able to accommodate women in the overall structure of Genesis.

14 The same question was raised by van Baal (1970): "Are women simply objects, as has repeated- ly been stated by L6vi-Strauss . . . or do they-agree to be objects, i.e., subjects willingly agreeing to behave as objects?" (p. 289).

1s This hypothesis is substantiated by the following data, in which the first episode assigns an object status, the second an agent status to a woman. Eve: (1) She is given by God to Adam (Gn. 2:21-24). (2) By presenting the apple to Adam, she

promotes the exchange of Eden for earth, and of being God's happily ignorant creature for knowledge, freedom, and hardship (Gn. 3:1-7).

Sarah: (1) She is offered twice by Abraham to other men in exchange for hospitality and safety. These men are Pharaoh (Gn. 12:1-3) and Abimelech, king of Gerar (Gn. 12:11-15). (2) She presents food to God's messengers and is promised pregnancy after a long barrenness. In accordance with cultural norms, she remains in the background during this exchange, yet her laughter at the promise attests to her active role (Gn. 18:6, 9-15).

Hagar: (1) She is given by Sarah to Abraham, so that she may conceive a child in place of Sarah (Gn. 16:1-4). (2) She despairs twice. First she flees Sarah, later she is driven out by her. However, influenced by God's messenger, she changes her mind and accepts the responsibility for the life of her son Ishmael (Gn. 16:6-15; Gn. 21:14-19).

Lot's daughters: (1) They are offered by Lot to the men of Sodom in exchange for the safety of God's messengers (Gn. 19:6-8). (2) They offer wine to their father and seduce him to impregnate them (Gn. 19:31-36).

Rebekah: (1) She is given by her brother and father to Abraham's servant Eliezer as wife for Isaac (Gn. 24:50-51). (2) By means of an elaborate deceit, she exchanges Jacob for the firstborn Esau (Gn. 27:5-17).

Leah and Rachel: (1) They are given by their father Laban to Jacob in exchange for 14 years of work. In this deceptive bargain they are, furthermore, exchanged for each other (Gn. 29:17-30). (2) Leah exchanges her mandrake (believed to be a fertility drug) for Rachel's right to sleep with Jacob (Gn. 30:14-17). Rachel steals Laban's idols, thus transferring the title to inheritance to Jacob (Gn. 31:19, 34-35).




Tamar: (1) After the death of her first husband, she is given to his brother in levirate marriage and promised a further levirate marriage after the death of her second husband (Gn. 38:6-10). (2) She exchanges her widowhood and what proves to be an empty promise of a third marriage, for impregnation by Judah, her father-in-law (Gn. 38:14-18).

Levite's wife: (1) She is offered to Benjamites in exchange for the safety of her husband, whom they originally requested. She is raped to death (Jg. 19:22-28). (2) She had left her husband earlier and returned to her parents (Jg. 19:1-2).

Ruth: (1) She is offered to her next of kin in a levirate marriage but is refused by him (Rt 4:5-6). (2) Her earlier advances to Boaz lead to their eventual marriage (Rt 3:6-14).

Michal: (1) She is given by her father Saul to David, in exchange for 100 Philistine foreskins (IS. 18:22-25). Later, Saul takes her away from David and gives her in marriage to another man

(IS. 25:44). Finally, she is separated from her second husband and delivered to David by Abner as a token of alliance between the two men (2S. 3:12-16). (2) She saves David's life by placing an image in his bed (IS. 19:11-17). Later, however, she mocks David and therefore remains barren (2S. 6:16; 20-23).

Rizpah: (1) After Saul's death, his concubine is appropriated by Abner (2S 3:7-8). (2) Her two sons by Saul are hanged on David's command and their bodies left to rot. For weeks, she watches over their dead bodies until she receives from David the permission for their burial (2S. 21:8-14).

Bath-Sheba: (1) She is summoned by David first for sex and then for marriage (2S 11). (2) When David is close to death, her intervention places Solomon on the throne (1K 1:15-35). 16 We will limit our analysis to those examples of role behavior that are commensurate with the

narrative center of gravity of an actor. Cain, for example, is a son, a brother, a husband, and a father. But Genesis does not depict him in any significant way in his role as a husband nor in his role as a son or a father. His narrative center of gravity relates to this behavior as a brother (Gn 4).

17 Only two cases do not conform to this trend. Abraham and his brother's son Lot peacefully overcome the tensions of a possibly competitive relationship (Gn 13). Loyalty and love prevail in the relationship between David and his quasi brother Jonathan (IS 18-20).

18 A single case does not conform to the pattern. As a consequence of Sarah's new mother role, Hagar encounters hardship long after she becomes Abraham's concubine and Ishmael's mother (Gn 21).

19 Only one woman does not conform to this pattern. Miriam, sister of Moses, retains her role without causing major suffering. However, for joining Aaron's rebellion against Moses, she is af- flicted with leprosy whereas Aaron is left unharmed (Nb 12).

20 To a certain degree, God's depersonalization is evidenced on the manifest level of the Tanach as well. In sequential redactions, messengers of God gradually substitute for his personal ap- pearance on earth (Sandmel 1963:345-346). For example, remnants of such progressive changes are indicated in the visit of the three strangers with Abraham, where a probably earlier, divine, singular alternates oddly with the appropriate plural form (Gn 18:1-15).

21 Since we analyzed men and women in their capacity as social actors, only social change and stagnation are referred to rather than aspects of personality development. A bbreviations Used:

The following abbreviations were used in references to the books of the Tanach: Ex Exodus Jos Joshua Rt Ruth Gn Genesis 1K 1 Kings IS 1 Samuel Jg Judges 2K 2 Kings 2S 2 Samuel

Nb Numbers

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Submitted 22 September 1978 Revised manuscript submitted 21 September 1979 Accepted 5 August 1980



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