Narrative voice and chronology in the books of Samuel

Abstract

Although the importance of chronology as a device employed within the Old Testament is widely recognised, its analysis has not employed some of the tools made available by literary theorists. This article adopts Genette's fourfold model of the relation between narrative voice and chronology to the books of Samuel, arguing that they employ all four types (subsequent, prior, simultaneous and interpolated) in a sophisticated interplay between narrative voice and chronology, with the different modes used to indicate the relative knowledge of the characters in comparison with the extradiegetic narrator. Exegesis of Samuel therefore needs to consider the rhetorical goals made evident through such analysis.