ABSTRACT
Creative fiction is the mental landscape. Literary theory is the geography. There are enormous territories of different varieties to be mapped; there are proportionately immense literary theories to account for these worlds. Although valuable work has been done in relevant Near East and Levant studies, little research has been achieved to develop a literary theory of inscriptions and tablets as literature within the perspective of a modern literary critical framework. Theologians and expositors of the Old Testament absorbed with structuralism do well not to neglect this feature, and accordingly integrate indeterminacy into their hypotheses. George Steiner is suspicious about the foundations of cultural ‘academies’ which attract and influence high profiles for literary theorizing. The narratives ironically mirror ancient assumptions concerning kingly identity, neglect of which can derail correct representation of binary oppositions and allusive use of polyphony.
