Story as Torah...

In his book Story as Torah, Gordon Wenham sets out to propose a methodology for reading Old Testament narratives ethically. Wenham points out that Jewish and Christian interpreters have always done this in their attempts to "instill ethical principles in their hearers" (1). While I'm unsure about looking for "models" or "examples" in biblical narratives to imitate (cf. Sidney Greidanus' book Sola Scriptura which critiques the "we-need-to-have-courage-like-David" approach to scripture), I think Wenham is correct to underscore the moral/ethical worldview of the implied author (i.e., the author that the real author projects into the text). Surely as part of a normative text, the narratives contained in the Torah have ethical goals for their readers. (Again, to avoid a moralistic emphasis, I'm using the term "ethical" in a deliberatively broad way--i.e., encompassing core beliefs which create certain patterns and habits of behavior.)

Having just started the book, I look forward to seeing how Wenham works out and applies his methodology. In the meantime, I thought I would share a wonderful little quote from chapter 3 where Wenham is busy dealing with the rhetorical features of Genesis. Speaking of the similarities between Adam and Noah in the narrative, Wenham writes:

[After the flood] It is not long before the ubiquity of sin is illustrated. The blameless Noah falls victim to the fruit of the vine. The ironic similarities to and differences from Adam's eating of another fruit show that we are dealing with another fall. For example, whereas Adam's fruit made him aware of his nakedness so that he tried to cover it up, Noah's fruit led him to uncover himself unwittingly. As in Adam's case the son's behaviour is even more reprehensible than the father's and leads to dissension among the three brothers. And just as Cain's descendants appear to be the ungodly line in Genesis 4, Ham's descendant Canaan is cursed by Noah.

This is a wonderful insight into the text. While many people catch the New Adam language surrounding the flood, etc., I don't think I have heard anyone outline all of the other ironic similarities and dissimilarities.