Ring Structures

This paper seeks to build on D. W. Gooding’s well-known proposal (Eretz-Israel 16, 1982) that the book of Judges exhibits a chiastic structure with the Gideon narrative in the central position.  Recently, anthropologist Mary Douglas made a significant contribution to our understanding of complex chiastic devices in ancient Mediterranean literature (Thinking in Circles; Yale, 2007), and she calls these patterns “ring compositions.”  Based on her exposition of the essential components of ring compositions, it is here suggested that the entire book of Judges also follows the same pattern.  It will be demonstrated that the same themes which appear in the prologue and epilogue of Judges also appear in the centrally located Gideon narrative.  Also many common motifs will be noted between the parallel accounts of Othniel/Samson, Ehud/Jephthah and Deborah/Abimelech.

This study strives to show the culturally reflexive properties of mythological narratives by describing the dynamism stemming from the simultaneous inclusion of various types of temporality and specific usage of space. The basic premise is that any symbolic system/culture contains antithetical principles which are nevertheless upheld simultaneously (in case of ancient Egypt exemplified by the " positional succession " phenomenon). These cultural paradoxes are both a source of discomfort to the system (as they show its incongruence and thus contingency), but also a source of alternative symbolical layout and thus of great power (because they transcend the given social structures). Certain phenomena, myth being one of them, enable to both cope with these paradoxes and utilise their transformative potential. To exemplify how exactly such a process occurs, I provide an analysis of the papyrus d'Orbiney, also known as the Tale of Two Brothers, subsequently identifying it as a " ring-composition ". Consequences of such an identification in relation to the reflexive quality of mythological narratives are then discussed.