Abstract
Abstract In what way do artists and novelists who have re‐presented Old Testament narratives differ from biblical critics who seek to explain the texts of Scripture? This paper begins with a brief examination of a Rembrandt etching and the way in which it diverges from the text upon which it is based. Why does the artist change the narrative shape of the Bible? I then proceed to discuss the work of a critic, Robert Alter, who has read the text of the Old Testament as “literature”, and compare him with writers of fiction who have dealt with the same texts — in the first instance considering Thomas Mann and his great work Joseph and His Brothers. The second part of the paper examines a number of novelists who have taken biblical themes — Julian Barnes, Joseph Heller, Torgny Lindgren and Moelwyn Merchant. I will suggest that what they offer is a tragic element which is lost in the biblical texts insofar as they are configured by the history of salvation and its theology. Even for great kings like David, “the...
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