The extreme compactness of biblical narrative is likely to strike almost any modern reader. Some, naively, will attribute it to the relatively rudimentary state of ancient literature that lacks the means to elaborate the details of the stories it tells. The last several decades of literary analysis of the Bible have shown that this is by no means the case. Still, this is not the kind of narrative with which most modern readers are familiar. At least since the eighteenth century the predominant reading matter for narrative literature has been novels, and they typically proceed through a rich accumulation of descriptive details, narratorial comment, and extended dialogue. There is nothing like such novelistic abundance in the Bible. Thomas Mann deployed four volumes and a few thousand pages to tell the story of Joseph and his brothers, while the biblical narrative with great effectiveness makes do with thirteen brief chapters. What is impressive is how the Hebrew writers were able to convey a fullness in the evocation of emotions, relationships, and motives in just a few words, often only a single brief sentence, or even the strategic choice of one term.
The Power of Succinctness
