The concept of intertextuality has made its way from the study of literature to the field of Biblical interpretation and midrash studies. Jewish interpreters have increasingly utilized it in recent years. It is appropriate, no necessary, to discuss the legitimacy and applicability of this method for those who uphold the traditional understanding of Tanach as Divine Revelation.
Intertextuality as defined in literary criticism should not, in my opinion, be applied to sacred texts. Once you get past the jargon, what it means in literary criticism is that all texts are, in main, unconsciously, in dialog and conversation with earlier texts. In other words, whatever a writer has ever read affects how he or she formulates the aims of his writing, what expressions and devices he uses, and how he shapes his materials into a coherent and meaningful narrative. This definition is clearly unacceptable for a believing Jew, for prophecy derives of God and not from the prophet; it is from beginning to end a conscious and supernaturally endowed endeavor.
Is it legitimate, however, to suppose that prophets may have had some influence on how they phrased and parsed the message that was revealed to them? Is it conceivable that they may have purposefully invoked previously revealed prophecies that they read or heard in order to broaden or sharpen the impact of their own message by incorporating allusions to known texts? Could God Himself have done so? If yes, intertextuality can be admitted into the Sacred as a conscious prophetic technique, albeit in a sharply limited and carefully monitored form. If not, it is a foreign offshoot that feeds of polluted waters and we should leave it to those outside the boundaries of traditional Jewish exegesis.
The Talmud in Sanhedrin 89a writes: "R. Yitshak said: One formulation comes to multiple prophets but no two prophets prophesie in the same language. Obadia (1, 3) said: The evil of your heart lifted you. Yirmiah said: It will frighten you, the evil of your heart will lift you (49, 16)." This passage says that the prophets shape what they express. This goes back to the fact that prophets other than Moses received their prophecy in the form of a vision accompanied by its interpretation; this necessarily set narrow parameters of sentences and paragraphs but allowed them some latitude to choice of words and word arrangement (See Maimonides, Laws of Yesodei Hatorah 7,6). It may then be reasonable that prophets express what they received in a way that is, to some degree reflective of their previous encounter with other sacred texts, that is in other words, intertextual. It seems that intertextuality, if properly defined and utilized, may indeed turn out a legitimate technique. As always, the success or failure of this method depends on its veracity - on how much Yiras Shomaim it includes and how conscious it is of the underlying principles of traditional belief.
Intertextuality as a means of deciphering the influences on the 'author', is clearly off base . However w/r/t nevua... In addition to your observation that the navi has limited leeway in expressing the nevua, which may be influenced by prior texts, we must remember that the nevua was given to Bnei Yisroel, both at the time of the nevua as well as for all future generations. Accordingly, the message is massaged, in essence taillore, to have an impact on the recipients. To the degree the recipients can draw on their own experience with other texts, it enhances the message. In fact, in a paradoxical way, we may get more out of such a nevua in that we have more text in our (sub)conscious than the earlier generations.
Actually, I believe that a close study of intertextualality can shed light on how issues were (and should be) understood by the neviim. For example, much can be learned from the what Dovid HaMelech relates to the events in Chumash, Mordechai and Esther to prior encounters with adversaries. etc.
As a separate issue, the navi may have more leeway than we think. The gemara relates that one of the recipients of nevua preferred Hulda because she was a woman and hence more compassionate.
As usual, a thought provoking post.
Kol tuv.
YM Klein
Posted by: avakesh | April 29, 2007 at 12:54 PM