In the law's shadow, she speaks : an intertextual narrative analysis of casuistic laws and the women in Genesis

This study explores the complex intertextual connections between biblical casuistic laws and narratives. By utilizing a nuanced narratival method, these connections elicit synthetic character analyses of women in Genesis: Sarah and Hagar, Leah and Rachel, and Tamar. First, I will offer a brief narratival analysis of a biblical narrative, highlighting lexical, syntactic, structural, and topical elements. Based on the legal realities presented in this brief overview, I will identify casuistic texts that share similar grammatical and linguistic features (e.g., lexemes, phrases, legal relations, characters, etc.). The linguistic elements demonstrate an intertextual connection that illuminates the narrator’s presentation of legal realities in biblical narratives. After a structural and narratival analysis of relevant biblical casuistic laws is completed, I will return to the initial biblical narrative to offer a synthetic character analysis. Central to this study is my analysis of the lawgiver, who functions as a commissioned narratorial character created by the narrator. While the lawgiver demonstrates several overlapping functions to the narrator, he/she constructs very different narratives. The lawgiver creates mini-narratives that are rhetorically communicated to an initial recipient in an effort to portray a general wisdom about life’s conflicts, accidents, acts of worship, and problems. The lawgiver’s wisdom is extrapolated and compared to the narrator’s portrayal of legal realities. By treating the lawgiver and the narrator as parallel rhetorical voices, my research paves the way for intertextual connections between law and narrative. Ultimately, this study demonstrates that these intertextual analyses expand on women’s participation in legal decision-making, their influence on legal choices, and their role in resolving or complicating legal problems. These analyses reveal that biblical laws and narratives are not distinct literary forms but mutually interpretive modes through which the lawgiver’s wisdom and human agency are portrayed and complicated.