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Book Reviews 375

Equinox Publishing Ltd 2010.

Carolyn J. Sharp, Irony and Meaning in the Hebrew Bible. Bloomington: Indiana

University Press, 2009, pp. xiv + 357, ISBN 978-0-253-35244-6. Review doi:

10.1558/arsr.v22i3.375.

On page 9 of Carolyn Sharps enticingly written book, she writes, My study of irony in

the Hebrew Bible will address itself to two arenas in which the presence of textual irony

will be seen to have import for the act of reading: rhetoric and theological hermeneutics.

The rhetorical concern explores the ways the ironic word of the biblical text deftly

undermines the stated and dominant position of the text and thereby opens new and freer

possibilities for interpretation. There are, argues Sharp, ironic invitations abounding in the

texts that so many of us have not heeded, being content as we are with the dominant

voice. On the hermeneutical front, Sharp still finds herself caught between authorial

intention, which turns out to be far more complex and negative in light of irony, and the

readers agency, which comes out the real winner when irony is its partner.This less-than-ironic reader found an author who obviously loves to read and write

very well. The sentences drew me in, teasing me, urging me to follow. In doing so I came

across a series of well-known and rather obscure literary theorists who contribute to the

ever-changing definition of ironySren Kierkegaard, Edwin M. Good, D.C. Muecke,

Wayne C. Booth, Paul de Mann, Linda Hutcheon and Roland Barthes. In light of these

theorists one biblical text after another became ironic in the process of interpretation. It

may be Genesis 13 (Chapter 1), or the struggles between David and Saul in 1 Samuel,

the wifesister stories in Genesis 20, 22 and 26, the narratives of Daniel and Esther (all in

Chapter 2), the prostitute narratives of Tamar, Rahab, Jael, Gomer and Ruth (Chapter 3),

the inherently ironic prophetic utterances of Balaam, Amos, Jonah, Jeremiah or Ezekiel(Chapter 4), the mockery, dry wit, local ironies, and ironic juxtapositions of aphorisms in

the wisdom literature, especially Qohelet (Chapter 5).

It is a quite a collection, is it not? Almost all the biblical literature to which Sharp turns

her hand becomes ironic. Scripture constantly undoes itself in the very utterance of its

sacred word (p. 239). Let me consider three examples. The prostitute stories covered in

Chapter 3 become a code for the risks of exposure and transgression of social, predomi-

nantly male, social boundaries. In other words, irony in the case of the prostitutes

becomes a term that means subversion of the dominant patriarchal ideology of the text. A

comparable argument appears with the wifesister stories in Genesis 20, 22 and 26

(Chapter 2). Here the patriarchsI cant help notice the irony here, for now a patriarch is

a good guydeceive the ruler of a foreign land by claiming that their wives are their

sisters. This move, argues Sharp, ironises power and offers a mode of resistance in a

foreign land. However, when we come to the prophets (Chapter 4) a very different irony

appears, for now the prophets double voice God; God ostensibly speaks, but the

prophet actually speaks. The outcome is that the subject is destabilised and in the process

we learn a valuable theological lesson, namely that we can trust God while not taking

God for granted. I could multiply examples in which irony becomes an umbrella term for

a host of different literary features: parody, undecidability, subversion, underhand

resistance, self-conscious textuality and so on.

Once I had sunk myself well into the book a persistent thought kept recurring: many of

these readings are remarkably close to those biblical interpretations inspired both by

Mikhael Bakhtin and postcolonial readings. Here too we come across subversive ironies

that undermine power: the mimicry of overlords by the powerless, the subtle undermining

of dominant voices, the tracing of a counter-voice in the same words as the dominant

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376 ARSR22.3 (2009)

Equinox Publishing Ltd 2010.

voice. I was surprised not to see the connections made, especially since both postcolonial

readings and Bakhtinian ones have swept through biblical criticism like a thunderstorm.

What is the ultimate purpose of this book? Is it to offer some careful readings of a whole

range of biblical texts? Of course it is, but there is also an effort to construct nothing lessthan a doctrine of scripture. Sharp is very fond of her Bible, but it is a Bible where the

unspoken is powerful, where the text constantly destabilises the over-confident subject,

and challenges nationalistic understandings of the tradition. It reminds its readers (who all

too often end up being Israelites) that they have a default tendency towards self-deception.

In other words, there is a deep theological agenda in Sharps book. For Sharp, the Bible

speaks of a God who invites his readers into a worthy covenant, where worthy means a

healthy sense of ones failings and pretensions. This motley collection of texts is about

building communities that are not given to bibliolatry. Unfortunately Sharp falls back on

the hackneyed theological position that God cannot be domesticated or contained, even

in the Bible. If one is going to offer a theological argument (which excludes those of uswho dont read the Bible theologically) then one can do better than this.

Let me return to the tension I noted at the beginning, the tension between authorial

intention and readerly agency. Ultimately this tension is unresolved. Unfortunately it also

assists in a sleight of hand towards the close of the book. Sharp asks, But is there truly so

much irony in the Hebrew Bible? (p. 241). Given that irony is a fundamental texture of

human existence outside the Garden [of Genesis 23] (p. 42), we may expect that the

Bible too is saturated with irony. The skeptical reader, among whom I count myself, could

be forgiven for thinking that Sharp thinks she has found irony in nearly every nook and

cranny of the Bible, and that such irony is very much part of the various biblical authors

achievements. But not so, for she tries to escape by suggesting that the irony she hasfound is really in the eye of the beholder. Or is she being ironic?

Roland Boer

Monash University