Robert Alter - Parshat Hashavua Mikeitz - Bible's "Composite Artistry"

"The analogy of film montage in fact suggests something of the dynamic interplay between two different presentations of a subject in

narrative sequence that we find in the Bible." - Robert Alter - The Art of Biblical Narrative- Chapter 7 - Composite Artistry , p. 174.

[MS: Montage -- We moderns enjoy montage in famous films like The Godfather. We accept imagination and are not put off by the distortions of place, time or repetition. In the first five minutes of the Academy award winning, Disney film UP, in a montage, we are moved to tears by the compression and storytelling of young lovers' ups and downs, dreams that come and go, setbacks, changes in Fate and a theme: whether a happy ending to life is possible - and then the film goes on for two hours. Alter's insights on the Bible's composite artistry will make more sense viscerally, if you can click the link to watch the five minutes of UP montage before reading Alter's analysis of Mikeitz.]

[MS - Mekeitz: The brothers are on the way home from Egypt to report to their father Jacob their success in buying food to survive the famine. The good news is that yes they succeeded. But the bad news is that the odd ruler of Egypt, who magically seems to know a lot about them, suspects they are spies and criminals and has taken Simeon hostage, warning them to return only with their youngest brother, if they want to buy more food to stay alive during the famine.

There is more trouble: in their packs they discover the silver they paid to buy food in Egypt. They look like thieves and liars who took the grain and disappeared into the night without paying. How can they ever go back - to buy more food - not to mention to rescue their brother Simeon?

However, there is a problem with the telling of this story. The shock and fear of discovering the silver in their packs is told twice. The first time they are in a desert "encampment," possibly at night, somewhere between Egypt and their father's home in Canaan. The second time, they are in Jacob's home, and with their father looking on, they are aghast at the discovery of the silver in their packs - and the likely doom for all. No mention is made at all of the discovery before at the desert encampment. Can this be: The brothers did not discuss it at all during the days of travel to their home, to report to their father? Is there an odd silence as if in darkness, like Avraham and his son in the Akedah?

From Genesis 42:27 to 42:35, a mere nine verses, the "discovery of the silver" incident happens twice, in two different locations and one is dramatically in front of father Jacob's shocked eyes.

Moreover, later, in Egypt the brothers will recount what happened, as a narrative memory, to Joseph's steward in Genesis 43:21. This retelling does not mention at all the second discovery of the silver in front of Jacob in Canaan, only the first one at the desert encampment.

Why is the discovery of the silver incident enacted twice and retold yet again in an odd way?

Especially puzzling is the near absence of any reaction to this repetition by commentators. They are usually quite clear about any differences in two linked events and any narrative retelling of an event, catching any nuances from the slight variations, extracting comments about what happened and why the event or story is changed. Here there is a strange silence. Why?

I suggest there is no clear answer to this question. Most probably the Sages noticed, but were not perturbed by it. (Rashi, the Netziv and Shadal noted whether just one, or all the brothers, discovered the silver, but do not explain how that could be; nor how they could be surprised a second time in front of Jacob; and the total omission of the second event, during the retelling to Joseph's steward. Perhaps more research will discover such commentary. )

Modern Bible scholars of manuscript sources (J, E and P manuscripts) call it a "clumsy piece of editing" per Alter p.171, who explains the research and rejects that conclusion.

What does Alter make of it? In The Art of Biblical Narrative, Chapter 7, "Composite Artistry" Alter explains why this story is not an editing error but rather masterful storytelling in the form of a composite narrative, adding depth and vitality to Biblical themes of human love, moral failing, family tensions and God's plans.]

Here are the relevant verses:

At the desert encampment:

At Jacob's home, verse 35 is the action itself in one verse:

And here is the recounting to Joseph's steward, that describes the first discovery of the silver in the desert encampment, but nothing about what happened at Jacob's home:

(Copyrighted material) [MS: Excerpts, formatting and emphasis added]

p.170 Let us now consider a more compact example of composite narrative, where there is duplication together with seeming contradiction ... At the end of the first visit of Joseph's brothers to Egypt (Genesis 42), Joseph- still of course perceived by them

only as the alien Egyptian viceroy~-gives secret instructions for the sil-

ver they have paid for their grain to be slipped back into their sacks

(Gen. 42:25). They have already been badly shaken....

Now, at the first encampment on the way north to Canaan (Gen. 42:27-28), one of them opens his sack to feed his donkey, "and he saw his silver, and, look, it was in the mouth of his bag." .... And he said to his brothers, My silver has been put back, and, look, it's actually in my bag. ‘ And they were dumbfounded and trembled each before his brother, saying,“What is this that God has done to us?"

p. 171 As soon as this question is raised about the strange workings of destiny - for the force of the word for God in the original is not far from "fate" - the narrator hurries the brothers home to Canaan, where they relate to their father Jacob the troubles they have had with the Egyptian viceroy, .... Just at this point, the silver hidden in the sacks makes an odd reappearance (Gen.42:35-36): "And just as they were emptying their packs, look, each one's bundle of silver was in his pack, and they saw their bundles, both they and their father, and were afraid. And Jacob their father said to them, "Me you have bereaved. Joseph is no more and Simeon is no more, and Benjamin you would take? It is I who bear it all."



p. 171 According to our own understanding of narrative logic, it is obviously impossible that the brothers could discover the hidden money twice - once at the encampment and once in Canaan in their father's presence - and be surprised and frightened both times. ... Biblical scholarship essentially explains this duplication as a clumsy piece of editing.



pp. 171-74 [MS: Alter provides a clear explanation, pp. 171-174, of scholarship establishing different texts from ancient times that give parallel accounts. In Alter's Introduction to Genesis he considers what is a "redacted or composite text" like medieval cathedrals built over generations. See link Robert Alter MS Sefaria collection of Sheets ]

....

p. 172 Precisely in this regard, I would like to raise a question of general principle, for it may help us see the point of more elaborate instances of manifest duplication in biblical narrative. The contradiction between verses 27-28 and verse 35 is so evident that it seems naive on the part of any modern reader to conclude that the ancient Hebrew writer was so inept or unperceptive that the conflict between the two versions could have somehow escaped him. Let me suggest that, quite to the contrary, whoever was responsible for the composite text was perfectly aware of the contradiction but viewed it as a superficial one. ...



p.172 In linear logic, the same action could not have occurred twice in two different ways; but in the narrative logic with which this writer worked, it made sense to incorporate both versions available to him because together they brought forth mutually complementary implications of the narrated event, thus enabling him to give a complete imaginative account of it.

p.172-73 In [this version] where the brothers make the discovery when they are all alone on the caravan track between Egypt and Canaan, their

sheer wonder over what has happened is stressed. It is true that they

"tremble" at the sight of the money, but the emphasis is on their sense

of the strange ways of destiny: "What is this that God has done to us?" In [this] version [it] is crucial for the writer because it ties in the discovery of the silver with the theme of Joseph's knowledge opposed to the brothers' ignorance that is central to both meetings in Egypt and, indeed, to the entire story.



p. 172 When the brothers ask what is it 'Elohim' - God, fate, and even occasionally judge in biblical Hebrew--has done to them, we as readers perceive a dramatic irony continuous with the dramatic ironies of the previous scene in the vice regal palace: Joseph in fact is serving as the agent of destiny, as God's instrument, in the large plan of the story; and the very brothers who earlier were shocked at Joseph's dream of having the sun and moon and eleven stars bow down to him unwittingly say God, when we as readers know they are referring to that which Joseph has wrought....



p.174 The Joseph story has both a moral-psychological axis and a theological-historical one. In regard to the latter category; what is important is the mysterious workings of God, Joseph's role as an agent of divine destiny, and the paramount theme of knowledge versus ignorance. In regard to the former category, what is crucial is the painful process by which the brothers come to accept responsibility for what they have done and are led to work out their guilt. ...



p. 174 I cannot pretend to certainty in what I have inferred

about the biblical writer's sense of appropriate form, but it seems to

me at least plausible that he was prepared to include the minor in-

convenience of duplication and seeming contradiction in his narrative

because that inclusion enabled him to keep both major axes of his story clearly in view at a decisive juncture in his plot. A writer in another tradition might have tried somehow to combine the different aspects of the story in a single narrative event; the biblical author, dealing as he often did in the editing and splicing and artful montage of antecedent literary materials, would appear to have arrived at this effect of multi-faceted truth by setting in sequence two different versions that brought into focus two different dimensions of his subject. His primary task, to be sure, was probably to work out a sequence in which he could incorporate the two sources that he felt he could not edit out, but the ensuing fullness of thematic statement is not purely accidental.



p. 174-75 The analogy of film montage in fact suggests something of the dynamic interplay between two different presentations of a subject in narrative sequence that we find in the Bible. [MS: Alter describes here and in footnotes, the composite artistry of montage, especially as defined by Eisenstein, as a unified creation from several shots. It's now common in movies and taught in film classes.]

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