Biblical Poetry

[BruceJ]

This is a sister post to a question regarding biblical poetry with particular respect to parallelism. Has anybody read Jame's Kugel's The Idea of Biblical Poetry: Parallelism and Its History? Any thoughts on his critique of traditional views on parallelism (or the notion of biblical poetry overall) as it was handled from the ancient rabbinic tradition through the midrashic era, the church fathers through medieval Jewish views? His criticism of how parallelism in both biblical poetry and prose (ala Robert Lowth) have been oversimplified and even led to misinterpretation of the text seem really well researched and thorough. I just haven't seen anything yet in the way of a rebuttal to his views. Anybody have any thoughts?

[Sarita]

Great question Bruce. Sorry it took me so long to get to it. I haven't read the book, maybe others have. But, I'm fascinated by biblical poetry.

[skylarburris]

I haven't read this book, but I have been long interested in the parallelism used in the psalms and other places throughout the Bible, so I am glad you mentioned the title. I will add it to my library "hold" list.

[BruceJ]

It's pretty interesting. I'm leading a study through the Minor Prophets and it's had something of an impact on my approach to the literary aspect of not just the poetry, but the prose, too.

Thanks for the replies.

[Memoirista]

This is a sister post to a question regarding biblical poetry with particular respect to parallelism. Has anybody read Jame's Kugel's The Idea of Biblical Poetry: Parallelism and Its History? Any thoughts on his critique of traditional views on parallelism (or the notion of biblical poetry overall) as it was handled from the ancient rabbinic tradition through the midrashic era, the church fathers through medieval Jewish views? His criticism of how parallelism in both biblical poetry and prose (ala Robert Lowth) have been oversimplified and even led to misinterpretation of the text seem really well researched and thorough. I just haven't seen anything yet in the way of a rebuttal to his views. Anybody have any thoughts?

Kugel is authoritative--the best. There hasn't been a (successful) rebuttal AFAIK. A more detailed look at the techniques of Biblical Hebrew Poetry is the following:

Classical Hebrew Poetry: A Guide to Its Techniques (T & T Clark Biblical Languages) by Wilfred G. E. Watson (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/search-handle-url/104-6012274-9782320?%5Fencoding=UTF8&search-type=ss&index=books&field-author=Wilfred%20G.%20E.%20Watson) (Author)

[BruceJ]

Kugel is authoritative--the best. There hasn't been a (successful) rebuttal AFAIK. A more detailed look at the techniques of Biblical Hebrew Poetry is the following:

Classical Hebrew Poetry: A Guide to Its Techniques (T & T Clark Biblical Languages) by Wilfred G. E. Watson (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/search-handle-url/104-6012274-9782320?%5Fencoding=UTF8&search-type=ss&index=books&field-author=Wilfred%20G.%20E.%20Watson) (Author)
I just picked up Robert Alter's The Art of Biblical Poetry. If I remember correctly, I think he's a closer adherent to Lowth's position, but it'll be interesting to see.