Description: The historical narratives of the Old Testament/Hebrew Bible have much in common with Icelandic saga literature: both are invested in origins and genealogy, place-names, family history, sibling rivalry, conflict and its resolution. Yet the comparison between these two literatures is rarely made, and biblical translations in Old Norse-Icelandic have been neglected as a focus of literary study. This book aims to redress this neglect. It shows how the likeness between biblical narrative and saga narrative has shaped the reception of the Old Testament in medieval Iceland, even through multiple layers of translation and exegesis. 0 It draws on a wide variety of texts, including homilies, saints' lives, world histories, encyclopaedic works, and the biblical translations collectively known as Stjâorn, to explore how medieval Icelanders engaged with Old Testament narrative in the light of their own vernacular tradition of storytelling. And above all, it argues that the medieval Icelanders understood and recognised in these well-known biblical stories a narrative art that was strikingly akin to their own.
Brief description: SIÂN ELIZABETH GRØNLIE is Associate Professor and Kate Elmore Fellow in Medieval Literature at St Anne's College, Oxford.
Review Quotes: Hopefully a few more OT scholars can read some Old Norse (though all texts cited here are glossed) and appreciate the importance of mediaeval European OT reception history. For them, this book offers much information, and perhaps even some inspiration towards culturally engaged and creative Bible products.-- "JOURNAL OF THE STUDY OF THE OLD TESTAMENT"