Deuteronomy 32: A Genre Analysis

Abstract

For the last two hundred years, a taxonomical view of genre has dominated thefield of biblical studies and contributed to the unhelpful emphasis on historicism. This project advances on the work of Dr. Will Kynes by articulating an intertextual view of genre. The first chapter advances this view of genre in contrast with alternative proposals and the standard taxonomical view. In this chapter, I first summarize the inadequacy of the taxonomical view of genre followed by an analysis of competing proposals. Finally, I explain the intertextual view. In the second chapter, I provide a brief survey of the history of interpretation of The Song with an emphasis on genre designations. The chapter starts with a focus on ancient interpretation and then covers interpretation in the modern era. In the final chapter, I applied the intertextual view of genre to one of the more difficult texts in the Old Testament from a genre perspective. The result of the inquiry is an illustration and confirmation of the effectiveness of the intertextual view of genre in bringing forward the meaning in Deuteronomy 32.