History As Art - Plot Parallelism

[This post is the beginning of a longer work that I plan to do. This post is just a draft with errors, inconsistencies and missing elements. I plan to address these, but I wanted to just get this out. It has been in gestation way to long.]

When I was a child, I went to school and I learned that that there were two kinds of narratives—history and literature. History was true, but it was sterile and boring. The purpose of a history book was to present the just the facts, and nothing but the facts, in chronological order. History was a sequence of names and dates and places with a little bit of action. Literature on the other hand was far more interesting and entertaining, but in its narrative form—novels and short stories—literature was fiction. For the most part, it was not true. As I got older, I learned that literature was not just entertaining, but it was also art. Good authors use a variety of literary devices to paint pictures on the canvas of the page.  

Admittedly, I had no teacher who explicitly taught her class that there are two kinds of narratives, but it was ingrained in the culture of education.  So I grew up with this dichotomy in my mind that is also pervasive in Western civilization—truth is artless and art deviates from the truth. Art and truth do not go together. There is a genre in Western literature known as historical fiction, where writers of literature have taken a hand at writing books presenting history in a way that is interesting and entertaining to their readers using all their literary skills to produce a work of literary art. But the writers are expected to use their artistic license to embellish, adjust, interpret, or otherwise deviate from the recorded historical truth to for the sake of their art. Nobody expects these works to be a reliable source of information.

As a young man, when I started reading the Old Testament, I encountered very similar stories appearing in multiple places. I interpreted these occurrences from my Western point of view as the same story being retold in different places with different facts, flaws in the text that gave evidence that the stories were probably not historically accurate. It wasn’t until much later that I learned that the Hebrew people were not bound by the dichotomy that art and truth do not go together, and that their historical narratives were rather full of artistic literary devices, and what I had initially interpreted to be flaws was actually the application of literary devices.

One class of literary devices that is well known to be a major feature of Hebrew literature is parallelism, where the author deliberately makes two or more elements of the text parallel in one way or another, whether it be syntactically, lexically, phonologically, or semantically, or some combination thereof. Two well-known types of parallelism in Hebrew literature are the poetic couplet and the palindrome or chiasmus.  Another type of parallelism that occurs in the book of Ruth is what I call plot parallelism. When employing plot parallelism, the author composes the story line of two pericopes in a way that maximizes their similarity. The author first develops a single skeletal plot or storyline template and develops the storylines of each pericope around that one template. The two pericopes can be developed very differently, but they each have the same template.

One example of a Hebrew historical narrative that is written as literature is the book of Ruth, which uses a rich variety of literary devices including various kinds of parallelism, one of those being plot parallelism.  It is a story about a family from the town of Bethlehem[1]. In the first paragraph we learn that there is a famine in the land and the family leaves Bethlehem and goes to Moab where the husband and two sons die, leaving the wife Naomi alone with her childless daughters-in-law. So in the first paragraph, Naomi loses both food and family. The rest of the story is about the restoration of food and family to Naomi and her daughter-in-law Ruth.

Chapters two[2] and three of Ruth contain an excellent example of plot parallelism. Each chapter represents a pericope or mini-story, and each chapter has three parts or scenes. In both chapters, the first part is an introduction in which Naomi and Ruth plan what Ruth is to do, the second part is the story of Ruth implementing the plan, and the third part is a summary in which Ruth reports to Naomi about happened (see Table 1). Within the middle part of each chapter, there are three sections: a) Boaz meets Ruth, b) Boaz and Ruth’s dialogue, and c) Boaz provides for Ruth. The breakdown is shown in the following table.

Table 1 - Overview of Chapters 2&3

Chapter 2	Chapter 3	Storyline Template
1.22b – 2.2	3. 1-5	Naomi and Ruth plan what Ruth is to do.
2.3-17	3.6-15a	Ruth implements the plan
2.3-7	3.6-9	a. Boaz encounters Ruth
2.8-13	3.10-13	b. Boaz and Ruth dialog
2.14-17	3.14-15a	c. Boaz provides for Ruth
2.18-23	3.16-18	Ruth reports to Naomi

The parallelism does not stop there. Within each pair of corresponding pericopes, there are additional points of parallelism. In the first pericope in both chapters it is mentioned that Naomi has a kinsman named Boaz (see Table 2). A suggestion is made that Ruth go to where he works. In chapter two Ruth makes the suggestion, and Naomi agrees, and in chapter three Naomi makes the suggestion and Ruth agrees. In chapter two the place of work is Boaz’s field where the barley is being harvested, and in chapter three the place is Boaz’s threshing floor where the barley is winnowed. In chapter two Ruth merely hopes to find favor in a land owner’s sight and be permitted to glean. In chapter three, Naomi wants Ruth to do things deliberately to gain Boaz’s favor, by getting all dressed up and perfumed, and going to lie at his feet. In chapter two, the plan is to solve the problem of their lack of bread (food), while in the third chapter, the plan is to solve the problem of their lack of house (family).

Before proceeding any further, I would like to introduce some terminology that I will be using throughout my writing.

Pericope – a part of a larger written work that is structured as a standalone story, and can be analyzed and studied as a standalone story. Chapters two and three of Ruth are each pericopes.

Template – plot skeleton that is shared by two or more pericopes. A template is a sequence of story elements that occur in each pericope. There is a single template that chapters two and three are built on. Three of the elements in this template are 1) Naomi and Ruth plan what Ruth is to do, 2) Ruth implements the plan, and 3) Ruth reports to Naomi concerning the success of the plan.

Correspondence pair – the story elements in each of the pericopes that correspond to an element in the template. For example, an element in the template for chapters two and three is “Naomi’s kinsman Boaz.” The pair of story elements that correspond to this template element are “Naomi had a kinsman of her husband…whose name was Boaz” in chapter two, and “Boaz our kinsman” in chapter three.

Points of similarity – how the correspondence pairs are similar. In order for a correspondence pair to be associated with an element in a template, they must be similar in some way. A correspondence pair frequently has multiple points of similarity. For the template element Naomi’s kinsman Boaz (2.1, 3.1), there are three points of similarity: 1) the word kinsman, 2) the word Boaz, and 3) the fact that the kinsman is related to Naomi. The first two points of similarity are very explicit and easy to see, but the third one is less explicit. In chapter two the text says, “Naomi had a kinsman”, while in chapter three the text says, “our kinsman”. In both elements the relationship is stated, but different words and syntax are used.

The manner in which elements in a correspondence pair are similar to each other varies quite a bit. Sometimes the points of similarity are specific words such as kinsman and Boaz (2.1, 3.1), or a phrase such as “went into the city” (2.18, 3.15). At other times a point of similarity is a lot less explicit and may be based on references to the same person, place, thing or activity, or even references to semantically similar people, places, things, or activities. One example of this is references to Ruth—“Moabite maiden” (2.6) and “Ruth your maidservant” (3.9), and another is references to barley work—“barley harvest” (1.22) and “winnowing barley” (3.1)  A point of similarity may even be based on similar grammar such as similar questions like “Whose maiden is this?” (2.5) and “Who are you?” (3.9). Sometimes the point of similarity is simply an idea.

The reader may be skeptical that all these template elements and points of similarity that I am identifying were consciously composed by the author of Ruth to be deliberately parallel. I admit that I may be seeing a few points of similarity that the author never intended to be parallel. There are some that I personally find questionable, but I challenge the reader to patient and consider the overall picture that I am presenting, and realize that something is going on here that does not occur in Western literature. The plot parallelism that occurs in the book of Ruth is only the tip of an iceberg that extends throughout Hebrew historical narratives.

I need to clarify a significant point here. The Hebrew narratives were written in the Hebrew language, and not in English. The parallelism was composed in Hebrew. For English readers, this parallelism can best be observed in a highly literal English translation, like the RSV, that preserves much of the underlying Hebrew structures. The parallelism may be more difficult to identify or be missing altogether in a more dynamic translation like the TEV or paraphrase like the Message.

Table 2 - Introduction

Chapter 2	Chapter 3	Storyline Template
Naomi had a kinsman of her husband's … whose name was Boaz. (2.1)	is not Boaz our kinsman (3.1)	Naomi’s kinsman Boaz
Ruth the Moabitess said to Naomi, “Let me go to the field, and glean among the ears of grain …” (1.2)	Then Naomi her mother-in-law said to her, “My daughter, should I not seek a home for you, that it may be well with you?...” (3.1)	A plan for Ruth is suggested.
barley harvest … go to the field and glean (1.22b, 2.2)	winnowing barley … go to the threshing floor (3.1,2)	The setting and destination is where barley work is occurring

In section a) of the middle part

Table 3 – a) Boaz enounters Ruth

Chapter 2	Chapter 3	Storyline Template
4 Boaz came	7 Boaz … went to lie down at the end of the heap of grain.	Boaz came to where Ruth was
5 Then Boaz said … “Whose maiden is this?”	9 He said, “Who are you?”	Boaz asks Ruth identity
6 And the servant … answered, “It is the Moabite maiden, who came back with Naomi	And she answered, “I am Ruth, your maidservant;	Ruth is identified
She said, ‘Pray, let me glean and gather among the sheaves after the reapers.’ 2.7	… spread your skirt over your maidservant, for you are next of kin.	Ruth’s request made to Boaz

I have labeled section b) of the middle pericope, “Boaz and Ruth Dialog,” even though in chapter 3, Boaz does all the talking. There are several points of similarity between the two sections that are not quite so obvious at first glance, mainly because the points of similarity do not occur in the same order in both chapters.

Table 4 – b) Boaz and Ruth dialog

Chapter 2	Chapter 3	Storyline Template
my daughter (2.8)	my daughter (3.10,11)	Boaz addressed Ruth as “my daughter”
do not go to glean in another field or leave this one (2.8)	Lie down until morning (3.13)	Boaz tells Ruth to stay with him
Have I not charged the young men not to molest you? (2.9)	you have not gone after young men, whether poor or rich. (3.10)	no interaction between Ruth and young men
All that you have done for your mother-in-law since the death of your husband has been fully told me (2.11)	for all my fellow townsmen know that you are a woman of worth (3.11)	Boaz tells Ruth the good things  about her he has heard from others.
The Lord recompense you for what you have done, and a full reward be given you by the Lord, the God of Israel (2.12)	May you be blessed by the Lord (3.10)	Boaz blesses Ruth
You are most gracious to me, my Lord, for you have comforted me and spoken kindly to your maidservant (2.13)	you have made this last kindness greater than the first (3.10)	kindness appreciated

In section c) …

Table 5 - c) Boaz provides for Ruth

Chapter 2	Chapter 3	Storyline Template
she sat (2.14)	she stayed (3.14)	Ruth relaxes in Boaz’s presence
she arose (2.15)	she arose (3.14)	she arose
Come here, and eat some bread, and dip your morsel in the wine. (2.14)	Bring the mantle you are wearing and hold it out. (3.15)	Boaz gives a command to Ruth to come so he can give her food
Let her glean even among the sheaves, and do not reproach her (2.15)	Let it not be known that the woman came to the threshing floor. (3.14)	Boaz gives a command concerning Ruth, guarding her reputation.
an ephah of barley (2.17)	six measures of barley (3.15)	amount of barley Ruth takes home
she … went into the city (2.18)	she[3] went into the city (3.15)	she went into the city

In the final part, Ruth reports to her mother-in-law Naomi.

Table 6 - Ruth Reports to Naomi

Chapter 2	Chapter 3	Storyline Template
her mother-in-law said to her, “Where did you glean today? And where have you worked? (2.19.)	… her mother-in-law, she said, “How did you fare, my daughter?”  (3.16.)	Her mother-in-law asked Ruth for a report
she showed her mother-in-law what she had gleaned, and she also brought out and gave her what food she had left over (2.18.)	These six measures of barley he gave to me (3.17)	Ruth showed/gave Naomi the barley she had acquired.
So she told her mother-in-law with whom she had worked, and said, “The man's name with whom I worked today is Boaz.”  (2.19)	she told her all that the man had done for her (3.16)	Ruth reported to her mother-in-law about the man
It is well, my daughter, that you go out with his maidens  (2.22)	Wait, my daughter, until you learn how the matter turns out (3.18)	Naomi told her “daughter” what to do

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[1] Bethlehem literally means House (Beth) of Bread (Lehem). Bread in Hebrew culture can be used to refer to food in general. House in Hebrew culture is frequently used to refer to one’s family, and more specifically to one’s male descendants. For a woman, her house is composed of her husband, her sons, and their male descendants. The author uses the name Bethlehem as part of his presentation of the theme of the book which is loss and restoration of house and bread.

[2] For the purposes of this study, I am considering the last phrase of chapter 1, “at the beginning of barley harvest,” to be part of chapter 2. Syntactically, the phrase is part of chapter 1, but topically it is part of chapter 2 because it introduces the setting of chapter 2, the barley harvest.

[3] There is a textual variant here. The MT says “he”, but many other ancient manuscripts say “she”. Either way, the parallelism is still apparent.