ABSTRACT

This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book looks at how biblical poetry is shaped by its textual frame. It shows how the narrative frame has gripped and shaped literary imagination, both in the ancient and modern interpretive tradition. The book demonstrates how in successive periods of scholarship, mashal was seen not only as one term guiding the organization of Proverbs but as the key to all of biblical poetry. It illustrates how dominant theories of poetry colored the interpretation of mashal, a fact that has significant implications for present-day interpretations of biblical poetry. The book traces the shifting study of genres in biblical studies into the specialized subfield of wisdom literature and the parallel but separate development of folklore studies. It examines the story within its broader narrative history, the speeches within the episode sequence themselves, and as speeches with their own internal frames.