The Catholic Biblical Quarterly

Beldman's monograph on Judges is a revision of his dissertation completed at the University of Bristol (2013). He takes a literary approach to the final chapters of Judges, since "the end of a narrative is the goal or telos of reading" (p. 1). The ending of Judges is similar to many other OT books because "it appears at first glance to be incongruous or even at odds with what precedes it" (p. 7). B. argues, however, that these chapters are integral to the rhetorical purpose of the book. He does so by considering various literary strategies of ending: the strategy of completion, the strategy of circularity, and the strategy of entrapment.

The book begins with extensive introductory material consisting of a chronological survey of literature on the composition of Judges, which constitutes a third of the volume, as well as an overview of literary theories of time in narrative. According to B., the general trend in scholarly opinion has been toward a synchronic literary approach (p. 51). He identifies general agreement on four issues: that Judges has a tripartite structure, that the function of the introduction is to present "an initial hermeneutical schema" (p. 51) for the body of the book, that the book evinces a pattern of deterioration as the narrative progresses, and that the final chapters epitomize "the moral, spiritual, and social disintegration of Israel" (p. 51). Nevertheless, B. notes continuing disagreement as to the function of the final chapters, especially in regard to issues such as the function of monarchic references and the asynchrony of the recorded events.

Thus, B. adopts a literary methodology in addressing these questions in order to challenge [End Page 305] and expand scholars' "implicit conceptions of narrative ending" (p. 52). In the second chapter, "The End of Narrative: Emplotment and the Configuration of Time in Narrative Theory," B. reviews key works and theories of narrative ending. Particular attention is given to works by Frank Kermode (The Sense of an Ending: Studies in the Theory of Fiction [The Mary Flexner Lectures, 1965; New York: Oxford University Press, 1967]), Barbara Herrnstein Smith (Poetic Closure: A Study of How Poems End [Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1968]), and Marianne Torgovnick (Closure in the Novel [Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1981]). B. also draws extensively on the works of Paul Ricoeur, particularly his concept of "threefold mimesis": "the interrelation between the configuration of narrative (mimesis₂) and its prefiguration in human experience (mimesis₁) and the effect of its reconfiguration on the reader (mimesis₃)" (p. 62). According to Ricoeur's theory, the readers of a narrative are led to indwell the narrative world, which then leads to a reconfiguring of their perception of their own "real" world (p. 64). According to B., the "crux of the disagreements in modern Judges scholarship over the interpretation of Judges (and its ending)" is located in mimesis₂ (p. 64). Relevant to this are Gérard Genette's dimensions of narrative time: order, duration, and frequency (p. 69). In Judges, past, present, and future time are key, and therefore B. argues that "the aim of Judges is not to portray the utter hopelessness of time lost. Rather, for the audience of Judges, the book holds out the hope of time redeemed for those who respond to the summons of the text" (p. 76).

After this analysis of the literary configuration of time, B. moves on to consider three specific "strategies of ending" that are relevant to the Book of Judges: the strategy of completion, the strategy of circularity, and the strategy of entrapment, which may all function together in a given narrative. Little time is spent on the strategy of completion, which considers how the author weaves together threads of events that stretch throughout the narrative into a meaningful conclusion, since it is more common and less controversial (p. 78). The strategy of circularity, which considers links between the narrative's beginning and ending...