Plague Narrative Research Articles

The Structural Paradigm of the Ten Plagues Narrative and the Hardening of Pharaoh’s Heart

The Ten Plagues narrative is classically considered a heavily redacted unit. The most widely accepted structural division in research is the model of three units of three plagues, which concludes with the death of the firstborn (3-3-3-1). This theory, well justified as it is from a structural and textual perspective, is not without its problems. One notable issue is its failure to explain the anomalous description of the seventh and eighth plagues, hail and locusts. This study proposes a new division of the plagues into a unit of seven plagues followed by a unit of three. This division, which, I will show, is supported by the redactive design, has special theological significance. Through this model, I will illustrate how (at least) two different structural paradigms can coexist within a single narrative, illuminating different facets of the multilayered text. In this paradigm, the plagues narrative emerges as two educational processes: the first seven plagues, ending with the plague of hail, are designed to educate Pharaoh and the Egyptians, while the unit of three is also geared towards the education of the Israelites.

The Thucydidean Moment: History, Science, and the Yellow-Fever Controversy, 1793–1805

From 1793 to 1805, yellow fever devastated the port cities of the eastern United States. As the most pressing natural philosophical issue of the early national period, the search for the cause of the disease generated a heated debate that pitted “contagionists,” who thought the it was imported, against “localists,” who believed it arose from domestic sources. This article examines the fever investigators' uses of history to settle the controversy, thereby showcasing an unknown aspect of the early republicans' well-noted interest in the past. This "Thucydidean moment" (so named for their particular fascination with Thucydides' famous plague narrative) culminated in two massive books on the history of disease: the Treatise on the Plague and Yellow Fever by the contagionist James Tytler, and the Brief History of Epidemic and Pestilential Diseases by the localist Noah Webster. Whereas Tytler's work was roundly rejected by his philosophical peers, Webster's Brief History cogently situated the yellow fever epidemics in the sweep of history, and thus pushed the debate in favor of the localists. But the victory was a Pyrrhic one. The appeal to the past exposed problems that undermined investigators' hopes that history could serve as an empirical basis of disease inquiry. It also threatened early republicans’ pretensions to historical exceptionalism by forcing them to reckon with their own precarious places in the cycles of time.

We Must Live Elsewhere: The Social Construction of Natural Immunity in Mary Shelley’s The Last Man

This article takes as its premise that personal and political catastrophes inform but do not determine the political and poetic texture of Mary Shelley’s apocalyptic plague narrative, The Last Man (1826). Despite charges of nihilism and anti‐Romantic conservatism, Shelley offers several sites of social resistance to natural disaster that renovate, rather than reject, the idealism of the earlier generation of Romantics. In particular, this article explains the development of Shelley’s lifelong struggle with the ideal of androgyny through the narrator of the frame tale and the critically neglected Evadne. Further, the author uses Kant’s concept of cosmopolitanism as “unsocial sociability” to track a discourse of race and species in Verney’s encounters with a diseased “negro half clad” and an abandoned dog. Through this sustained narrative genealogy, Shelley employs a shrewdly revisionist strategy that continuously rewrites notions of community and companionship in the variable terms of gender, race, and species. The central metaphor of inoculation manages these volatile terms through its invocation of a long material history of medical science, from Montagu’s Turkish inoculation to Jenner’s cowpox vaccine. In the end, Shelley models a cogent politics of possibility and articulates a mature evolution of the transformative agency of the Romantic imagination.

The Rhetoric of Materials: Thucydides and Lucretius

In this article, analyses of Thucydides' story of the Spartan siege of Plataea (2.71-78) and of his plague narrative (2.47-54) show that Thucydides' references to natural and man-made materials characterize actors and events and are deployed for the exploration of political, cultural, and scientific themes. At the same time, Thucydides' references respond to his fifth-century reader's knowledge and concerns: Thucydides' readers were not Epicureans. I argue that Thucydidean narrative is therefore less friendly to Epicurean re-use than is sometimes assumed. Lucretius, the poet of the material, perceived this, and his reworking of Thucydides' powerful plague narrative aims to turn it to Epicurean ends.

Remembering Abraham: Culture, Memory, and History in the Hebrew Bible (review)

Reviewed by: Remembering Abraham: Culture, Memory, and History in the Hebrew Bible Ziony Zevit Remembering Abraham: Culture, Memory, and History in the Hebrew Bible, by Ronald Hendel. New York: Oxford University Press, 2005. 200 pp. $35.00. There are true memories and there are false memories, as in the case of false memory syndrome. True memories are constructed, a mélange of facts and [End Page 186] partial recollections, of reexperiences (since they are recalled) filtered through perceptions of the past. False memories are a mélange of fictions, construed the same way. Think "The Manchurian Candidate." To talk of memory is to evoke the presence of Freud and Nietzsche and to raise the possibility of the unreal as real. To talk of true memories is to talk of the past but to address it through ethereal, gossamer filaments of fact, interwoven with shafts of maybes, wafting in breezes of time. And that is what Ron Hendel undertakes in this interesting book. In this collection of six short studies, four of which were previously published, Hendel inquires whether or not historical-like narratives in the Bible, dependent largely on Israel's national and/or cultural memories, were true or false memories of real persons and events. And if true, in what way or with regard to what may they be considered historical. Chapter 1 situates ancient Israel in the cultural context of the Ancient Near East and illustrates well how the Bible's presentation of Israel as a people set aside, somewhat different from its neighbors, despite objective indicators that this was not necessarily the case, created a narrative framework through which Israel perceived the world and comprehended its evolving present and its evolving past. Chapter 2, "Remembering Abraham," written for this book, leads directly into chapter 3, "Historical Memories in the Patriarchal Narratives." The first of this pair explores how Israel's memories of Abraham function in the literature and how the earlier compositions in Genesis attracted later comments and reactions in texts that were composed later. The second focuses on the question of how much of what is predicated about Abraham may be considered factual. Hendel concludes that patriarchal names can be considered historical, that the "El" religion that they practice can be considered historical, and that an Egyptian "Fort Abram" mentioned by Pharaoh Sheshonk, the biblical Shishaq of 1 Kings 14:25–26, as being somewhere in the Negev ca. 925 BCE, imports a vague historicity to an actual heroic Abram, the self-same Abram/Abraham portrayed in Genesis. But when it comes time to parse the literary and archaeological data in order to discern when this character actually lived in the past, Hendel dates the patriarchal era to "the time forever recreated in the biblical narratives of Genesis 12–50. This era consists of myth and memory, mingled in a way far more compelling than ordinary history. It is an era in sacred time" (p. 55). Chapter 4 explores "The Exodus in Biblical Memory," and concludes on the basis of both biblical and extra-biblical data that some veracity may be assigned to the memories linking bondage and Egypt, even though there is no necessary truth to the Bible's claim that all of Israel was in Egypt and that all Israelites in the Central Highlands of Eretz Israel during the divided [End Page 187] monarchy were descendents of former Egyptian slaves. Some of them, however, may very well have been individuals with direct or indirect memories of Egyptian slavery (p. 62). Nevertheless, when the plague narratives and the signs and wonders are factored into the equation and the extant Exodus narrative is comprehended as a memory, Hendel concludes that "the memory of the Exodus is not just a memory of historical events, but a conflation of history and memory that suits the conditions of different qualities of time" (p. 73). In chapter 5, Hendel searches for Solomon in history and memory. Using literary hints and archaeological clues, he disentangles the shadowy historical figure barely discernible behind the elaborate Biblical narrative text from the fictional one. In chapter 6, a well-composed encapsulation of "The Biblical Sense of the Past," Hendel ties together the threads from...

Ytsyat mtsryM [The Exodus from Egypt: Reality or Illusion (Exodus 1-15)

Galpaz-Feller, both an Egyptologist and a biblioist by training, addresses the Egyptian background of Exod 1-15. Although a number of scholars have illuminated the Egyptian coloration of the exodus story before, Galpaz-Feller's work stands out because she offers a greater integration of Egyptology and biblical studies in a series of short essays that constitute a running commentary on Exod 15. Galpaz-Feller's analysis of the plague narratives shows her intellectual integrity. She examines and then dismisses the theory that each plague was directed against a particular Egyptian deity, showing that a number of plagues, such as lice, wild animals, and boils, cannot be linked to any Egyptian god. Rather, in Galpaz-Feller's analysis, the plagues are generated from the undoing of creation according to the biblical account of it. However, the special emphasis devoted to the plague of locusts reflects the special valence of locusts in Egyptian culture, and the biblical author's use of heavy and rigid verbs to characterize the pharaoh's heart portrays his guiltiness in the context of Egyptian death religion's emphasis on the lightness of an innocent heart. Galpaz-Feller's discussion of the origins of Israelite monotheism also exemplifies her reluctance to engage in Egypto-parallelomania. She argues that Israelite monotheism was influenced by many theological/cultic concepts of the religions of the ancient world, one of which happened to be Egyptian. The true name of the Egyptian god Ra is a secret, and Galpaz-Feller offers the suggestion that the secrecy of the true name of a deity might be reflected in the name YHWH. She asks whether the revealing of the name YHWH is a true revelation of the deity's name or whether the name YHWH lacks specificity and therefore should be linked to the concept of the secrecy of the true name of a deity. Galpaz-Feller also demonstrates that Akhenaten's religious revolution, worshiping the sun-disk via the king, died with Akhenaten and that certain fundamental aspects of his religion are contradicted hy the contours of Israelite religion in the Bible. Creation, for example, was not an issue for Akhenaten's monotheism, but was certainly a major facet of biblical religion. Galpaz-Feller argues that beyond the Egyptian coloration of the exodus narrative, there are elements that have historical value. Beyond the details that reflect ancient Egyptian culture as it was generally practiced throughout Egyptian history, there are elements that reflect Egyptian culture and history only in the time of Raamses II and the Nineteenth Dynasty. The particular cities that the Hebrew Bible records as having been built by the Israelites were attributed in Egyptian texts to Raamses II. A city in the Nile Delta, Pi-Raamses, not Memphis or Thebes, was the capital during the reign of Raamses, and the brevity of the journeys that Moses and Aaron undertook to visit the pharaoh implies that the capital was near the Israelites in the Nile Delta. …

Tendenz and Textual Criticism in 1 Samuel 2–10

A dominant feature of the stories in 1 Samuel 2–10 is the striking correspondence that they share with various Tetrateuchal accounts. Correspondences exist between the houses of Eli (1 Sam. 2) and Aaron (Lev. 10; Num. 25); the ark narrative (1 Sam. 4–6) and the plagues narrative (Exod. 5–12); as well as the rejection of divine kingship (1Sam. 8) and the rebellion concerning manna (Num. 11). Commentators have failed to note that many of the textual problems of the MT in 1 Samuel 2–10 surface precisely where these Deuteronomistic and Tetrateuchal accounts are parallel. Rather than being scribal errors, many textual problems in 1 Samuel 2–10 are thus the product of Dtr’s citation of, or allusion to, corresponding Tetrateuchal accounts.

Pericles and the Plague: Civil Religion, Anomie, and Injustice in Thucydides

This paper examines thc problems of rcligion,anfvmie, and injustice in Athenian society as presented in Thucydides's narrative of the Peloponnesian war. Thucydides juxtaposes Pericles's funsral oration, as an embodiment *)f Athenian civil with his description of Atherlian denwraliyation and during the subsequent plague. These c(mcepts are lirQd to thc problem of injustice in the which describes Athenian imperial behavior toward this small islarul people. The paper shows how Thucydides knks these ideas to the notion of Fortune in the ultimate collapse of the Athenian war effort. Thucydides is a pi(meer in the systenzatic use of these sc)ciological concepts and he is compared briefly to more recent sociologxsts, such as Durkheim, Mert(m, a7v1 Bellah. The concepts of religion and anomie are closely associated with the work of Emile Durkheim, although both have been subsequently developed in new directions by a host of writers, including Merton, Warner, Bellah, and others. From a systematic standpoint, the two concepts have a symmetrical quality. While religion points to the highest level of religio-political ritual and symbolism unifying a people, anomie reveals the fragility of social integration and asks us to examine the sources and manifestations of social dislocation and the collapse of the moral order. Indeed, the two concepts seem to work well when paired with one another. This paper examines these two concepts, along with several related ideas, as they appear in Thucydides's history of the Peloponnesian war. This text contains one of the most famous historical illustrations of religion, Pericles's funeral oration. In his discussion of the effects of the wartime plague on Athenian society, Thucydides also provides a vivid historical account of anomie as well as one of the first instances of this term's (i.e., anomia's) sys tematic use in the human sciences. Moreover, in the so-called Melian Dialogue, Thucydides presents the problem of justice and injustice in the individual as well as in the relations among Greek states, in a manner which echoes many of the themes of the funeral oration and the plague narrative.

The Context and Function of the Plagues Tradition in Psalm 78

The plagues narrative in Psalm 78 reflects the context of the Assyrian threat in the seventh century BCE and the tradition of Yahweh's punishment of the Assyrians has been incorporated into the recitation of the slaying of the Egyptian firstborn in Ps. 78.49-51 with the purpose of reaffirming the power and might of Yahweh to intervene on behalf of Israel.

Genesis i aNd the Plagues Tradition in Psalm Cv

Besides the Plagues narrative in Exod. vii-xii, Pss lxxviii and cv are the only two examples of a complete presentation of the Plagues in Egypt known to us. Ps. lxxviii and Ps. cv do not exactly correspond to the Pentateuchal traditions. Just by looking at the number of Plagues and their sequence in Pss lxxviii and cv, one may easily be led to conclude that they come from independent traditions. But a closer look at these two psalms and the Pentateuch will reveal that they cannot be totally independent of the Pentateuchal traditions. Moreover, they represent stages in the traditio-historical development of the Plagues and each of them in turn reflects the historicaltheological situations with which they are closely connected. Many scholars consider that the tradition behind Ps. lxxviii belongs to the older J (E) stratum while Ps. cv is based on the P Plagues narrative. In Ps. lxxviii 43-52 seven Plagues are mentioned as compared to eight in Ps. cv and ten in the book of Exodus. This article will mainly be on Ps. cv, leaving Ps. lxxviii for another article. B. Margulis2 has a detailed study of the Plagues tradition of Ps. cv, in which he is convinced that Ps. cv is based on the P tradition while Ps. lxxviii is independent of the P influence; probably, the J Stratum is preserved by Ps. lxxviii. But the question arises as to the absence of the sixth plague of Exod. ix 8-12 (P) and the transposition of the darkness plague to the beginning of the list in Ps. cv. In the Psalm Scroll of Qumran Cave II, Margulis finds that line 5 of Ps. cv 28-9 has more space than is required by the MT and the final word of line 4, sm, cannot be reconciled with the MT. Therefore, he reconstructs the two lines and retranslates v. 29 as follows:

The Plague Narratives of Defoe and Camus Illness as Metaphor

The Plague Narratives of Defoe and Camus Illness as Metaphor

The Priestly Redaction and Interpretation of the Plague Narrative in Exodus

The Priestly Redaction and Interpretation of the Plague Narrative in Exodus

The Traditio-Historical Character of the Reed Sea Motif

at the sea is to be regarded as the real nucleus of the Exodus theme ... 1). Yet in spite of the rather broad consensus of opinion represented by this statement 2), the precise nature of the relationship which it describes remains obscure. NOTH himself is fully aware of this problem. He readily admits that the Reed Sea event does not belong with the Passover traditions 3). And since he understands the plague narratives to be a secondary extension of the Passover traditions, he cannot very well deem the plagues the point of contact for the Reed Sea event either 4). In fact, he is forced to the conclusion that after the release of the Israelites effected by the plagues, the Reed Sea event appears quite unexpectedly and must be considered a postlude in the framework of the present narrative context 5). Dennis J. MCCARTHY argues against NOTH that the plagues do