The Narrative Poeitics Of Joseph Story And It's Ideology

There is little doubt that, second only to the account of creation and its aftermath in the fall, the Joseph material is popularly the best known segment of the book of Genesis. What attracts us most is it's wonderful plot and full-fledged world of people. In addition, set in its context in the Torah as a bridge between the patriarchal stories in the book of Genesis and the account of Israel's deliverance from bondage in the opening segments of the book of Exodus, the Joseph story is very important in theology and history. Therefore, studying the way the story being organized and told, and digging out the ideology hidden under the narrative techniques is quite useful to learn the narrative poetics of the Holy Bible and understand the inner meaning of the Torah. This paper will set studying the narrative poetics and the ideology of Joseph story as it's goal, and will attempt to solve some arguable problems about it.The whole thesis will be divided into there parts: introduction, text and conclusions.The introduction will firstly go for terminological clarity, such as the term"poetics","narrative poetics"and"ideology". What's next is the recent situation of the study realm, and why I chose this topic and what I expect after this research. There are seven chapters in the text. The first chapter talks about the integrity of Genesis 37-50 as a literary Unit; The second chapter clarifies the genre of the Joseph material—"the historical novella"with"wisdom-like elements"; The third chapter analyzes the parallel pattern of it's plot on the basis of renewing the understanding of it's content; The fourth chapter talks about the"agents","types"and"full characters"in the novella and the relationship between the characterization and the complexity of human beings; The fifth chapter analyzes the repetition in the story, especially the repetition of key words, motifs and successive plot; the sixth chapter talks about the "perceptual point of view", the"conceptual point of view"and the"interest point of view"in the story and the interactions between them; the last chapter goes back to the basic problem under the narrative poetics, that is how to theologically explain the secular character of the story. The intersection of Divine activity and human's initiative can greatly explain this phenomena.The conclusions then sums up all the arguments I have got and proves that the Joseph story is a wonderful novella indeed.