Intersecting Identities and Persuasive Speech
The Cases of Judah and Esther
In: Biblical InterpretationSearch for other papers by Greg Schmidt Goering in
Current site
Google Scholar
The similarities between Judah’s speech before Joseph in Genesis 44 and Esther’s series of requests before Ahasuerus in the book of Esther provide an unusual opportunity for an intersectional exploration of multiple identities as reflected in persuasive discourse. The speeches of the two figures not only contain verbal similarities but also occur at decisive moments in the narratives, when hidden identities are revealed, and they even share a set of rhetorical tactics. Each speech unfolds in a setting where the speaker’s identity is shaped by a combination of intersecting factors involving class, ethnicity, gender, sexuality, and relatedness. Judah and Esther both model ways in which Jews who inhabited these intersecting categories could shape social realities in their diasporic communities despite structural constraints on their status. Subtle differences between the rhetorical strategies of the two figures provide further clues to the ways in which persuasive discourse and intersecting identities mutually influenced one another.
Purchase
Buy instant access (PDF download and unlimited online access):
Institutional Login
Log in with Open Athens, Shibboleth, or your institutional credentials
Personal login
Log in with your brill.com account
-
6
Jennifer C. Nash, “Re-Thinking Intersectionality,” Feminist Review 89 (2008), pp. 1–15 (1).
-
7
See Leslie McCall, “The Complexity of Intersectionality,” Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society 30 (2005), pp. 1771–1800.
-
10
Schüssler Fiorenza, “Exploring the Intersections,” p. 17; Schüssler Fiorenza cites political theorist Anna Marie Smith’s work on Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffé: Anna Marie Smith, Laclau and Mouffé: The Radical Democratic Imaginary (New York: Routledge, 1998), pp. 58–59.
-
15
James Muilenburg, “Form Criticism and Beyond,” JBL 88 (1969), pp. 1–18. See especially pp. 5, 7, and 8.
-
19
See, for example, Ludwig A. Rosenthal, “Die Josephsgeschichte, mit den Büchern Ester und Daniel verglichen,” ZAW 15 (1895), pp. 278–84; Arndt Meinhold, “Die Gattung der Josephsgeschichte und des Estherbuches: Diasporanovelle I,” ZAW 87 (1975), pp. 306–324; idem, “Die Gattung der Josephsgeschichte und des Estherbuches: Diasporanovelle II,” ZAW 88 (1976), pp. 72–93. Meinhold focused on the broad outlines of plot shared by the two stories, while Rosenthal catalogued numerous verbal similarities. Although Sandra Berg has argued that Meinhold overdrew the parallels between the Joseph and Esther stories, she and others have continued to affirm the influence of the former on the latter; see Moshe Gan, “The Book of Esther in the Light of the Story of Joseph in Egypt (Hebrew),” Tarbiz 31 (1961–62), pp. 144–49; Sandra B. Berg, The Book of Esther: Motifs, Themes, Structure (SBLDS 44; Missoula, Mont.: Scholars Press, 1979), pp. 123–42; Michael V. Fox, Character and Ideology in the Book of Esther (Columbia: University of South Carolina, 1991), pp. 76–77, 147 n. 17; Jon D. Levenson, Esther: A Commentary (OTL; Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 1997), pp. 21, 54–55.
-
20
Judah Messer Leon, The Book of the Honeycomb’s Flow (trans. Isaac Rabinowitz; Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1983), pp. 56–59 (i.5.10). For this critique of Messer Leon’s work, see Rabinowitz’s introduction, p. lxv.
-
25
Cynthia L. Miller, The Representation of Speech in Biblical Hebrew Narrative: A Linguistic Analysis (Harvard Semitic Museum Monographs 55; Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1996), p. 272.
-
32
Meir Sternberg, The Poetics of Biblical Narrative: Ideological Literature and the Drama of Reading (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1985), p. 308.
-
40
David J.A. Clines, The Esther Scroll: The Story of the Story (JSOTSup 30; Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1984), p. 179.
| All Time | Past 365 days | Past 30 Days | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Abstract Views | 480 | 76 | 31 |
| Full Text Views | 84 | 14 | 1 |
| PDF Views & Downloads | 113 | 17 | 2 |
Intersecting Identities and Persuasive Speech
The Cases of Judah and Esther
In: Biblical InterpretationSearch for other papers by Greg Schmidt Goering in
Current site
Google Scholar
PubMed
The similarities between Judah’s speech before Joseph in Genesis 44 and Esther’s series of requests before Ahasuerus in the book of Esther provide an unusual opportunity for an intersectional exploration of multiple identities as reflected in persuasive discourse. The speeches of the two figures not only contain verbal similarities but also occur at decisive moments in the narratives, when hidden identities are revealed, and they even share a set of rhetorical tactics. Each speech unfolds in a setting where the speaker’s identity is shaped by a combination of intersecting factors involving class, ethnicity, gender, sexuality, and relatedness. Judah and Esther both model ways in which Jews who inhabited these intersecting categories could shape social realities in their diasporic communities despite structural constraints on their status. Subtle differences between the rhetorical strategies of the two figures provide further clues to the ways in which persuasive discourse and intersecting identities mutually influenced one another.
| All Time | Past 365 days | Past 30 Days | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Abstract Views | 480 | 76 | 31 |
| Full Text Views | 84 | 14 | 1 |
| PDF Views & Downloads | 113 | 17 | 2 |