{'fraction_non_alphanumeric': 0.03576982892690513, 'fraction_numerical': 0.004665629860031105, 'mean_word_length': 4.908256880733945, 'pattern_counts': {'":': 0, '<': 0, '<?xml version=': 0, '>': 0, 'https://': 0, 'lorem ipsum': 0, 'www.': 0, 'xml': 0}, 'pii_count': 0, 'substrings_counts': 0, 'word_list_counts': {'cursed_substrings.json': 0, 'profanity_word_list.json': 0, 'sexual_word_list.json': 0, 'zh_pornsignals.json': 0}}
Robert Alter's, the Art of Biblical Narrative

The publication of Robert Alter’s The Art of Biblical Narrative is a considerable event, not only for the book’s intrinsic value, but as a marker of the ’paradigm shift’ in biblical studies from a predominantly historicist to a literary or more generally synchronic approach (cf. Robertson: 4-5; all references are to the appended bibliography). My major purpose here is to assess his work from another point of view within the same paradigm shift, a broadly structuralist position (Part 2, below). But I shall begin with a more general response, mainly an appreciation, but with certain caveats.