{"id":5179,"date":"2009-11-08T09:44:46","date_gmt":"2009-11-08T13:44:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/fryeblog.blog.lib.mcmaster.ca\/?p=5179"},"modified":"2009-11-08T09:44:46","modified_gmt":"2009-11-08T13:44:46","slug":"battle-of-the-bibles-more-on-robert-alter-and-frye","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/macblog.mcmaster.ca\/fryeblog\/2009\/11\/08\/battle-of-the-bibles-more-on-robert-alter-and-frye\/","title":{"rendered":"Battle of the Bibles: More on Robert Alter and Frye"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-5187\" src=\"http:\/\/macblog.mcmaster.ca\/fryeblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2009\/11\/250px-Behemoth3.jpg\" alt=\"250px-Behemoth3\" width=\"250\" height=\"345\" srcset=\"https:\/\/macblog.mcmaster.ca\/fryeblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2009\/11\/250px-Behemoth3.jpg 250w, https:\/\/macblog.mcmaster.ca\/fryeblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2009\/11\/250px-Behemoth3-217x300.jpg 217w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 250px) 100vw, 250px\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Further\u00a0to <a href=\"https:\/\/fryeblog.blog.lib.mcmaster.ca\/wp-admin\/post.php?action=edit&amp;post=4983\" target=\"_blank\">Joe\u2019s point<\/a> about Robert Alter:<\/p>\n<p>Another cheap shot by Alter is his critique of Frye\u2019s interpretation of <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Leviathan\" target=\"_blank\">Leviathan<\/a> in <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Book_of_Jonah\" target=\"_blank\">Jonah<\/a> and <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Book_of_Job\" target=\"_blank\">Job<\/a>. Alter picks up a phrase here and there from Frye\u2019s <em>Great Code<\/em> discussion, but he\u2019s not in the least fair to Frye\u2019s extended account of the way this image functions across the biblical narrative. One of the advantages of looking at the Bible as a unity is that it permits Frye to link the images of the Leviathan as they appear in <a href=\"http:\/\/etext.virginia.edu\/toc\/modeng\/public\/KjvPsal.html\" target=\"_blank\">Psalms 74 and 104<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/etext.virginia.edu\/toc\/modeng\/public\/KjvIsai.html\" target=\"_blank\">Isaiah 27<\/a> and elsewhere (the word occurs six times in the Old Testament). Alter says that the \u201cLeviathan is in no way a force contending with God.\u201d But it is clearly such a chaotic force in Psalm 74, where God is said to have crushed the heads of this marine creature, and in Isaiah 27, we\u2019re told that the lord will punish the fleeing, twisting serpent and will kill the sea dragon. The image was a familiar one in Hebrew culture, as it was in <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Ugarit\" target=\"_blank\">Ugaritic poems<\/a>. Alter, who has no sense of what a mythical symbol is, wants to make Leviathan into a literal crocodile rather than a symbolic primeval monster, a creature quite like the <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Behemoth\" target=\"_blank\">Behemoth<\/a> of <a href=\"http:\/\/www.bartleby.com\/108\/18\/40.html\" target=\"_blank\">Job 40<\/a>, also a symbol of chaos and evil. Alter says that the author of the Book of Job \u201cnever so much alludes to the belly of the beast.\u201d True, the Hebrew poet doesn\u2019t allude to the belly; he refers to it directly: \u201cLook at Behemoth . . . its power in the muscles of its belly\u201d (Job 40:15, 16). One would think that the literal minded Alter would at least pay attention to the letter. What we can say for Frye\u2019s reading of the sea monsters\u2013\u2013and their link with <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Rahab_(demon)\" target=\"_blank\">Rahab<\/a>\u2013\u2013is that he\u2019s got biblical scholarship, which sees the sea monsters as symbolizing chaos and evil, on his side.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Further\u00a0to Joe\u2019s point about Robert Alter: Another cheap shot by Alter is his critique of Frye\u2019s interpretation of Leviathan in Jonah and Job. Alter picks up a phrase here and there from Frye\u2019s Great Code discussion, but he\u2019s not in the least fair to Frye\u2019s extended account of the way this image functions across the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":24,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[11,16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5179","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bible","category-bob-denham"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.2 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Battle of the Bibles: More on Robert Alter and Frye - The Educated Imagination<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/macblog.mcmaster.ca\/fryeblog\/2009\/11\/08\/battle-of-the-bibles-more-on-robert-alter-and-frye\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Battle of the Bibles: More on Robert Alter and Frye - The Educated Imagination\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Further\u00a0to Joe\u2019s point about Robert Alter: Another cheap shot by Alter is his critique of Frye\u2019s interpretation of Leviathan in Jonah and Job. 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