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 nds 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 denition 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
376 ARSR 22.3 (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 less
than 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-condent 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 us
who 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 has
found is really in the eye of the beholder. Or is she being ironic?

Roland Boer
Monash University