Dischronology and Dialogic in the Bible's Primary Narrative offers a reassessment of Moses' book-of-the-law from a narrative theory perspective. Concerned for the long-term viability of his people, Moses legislates a public reading of his document which is deposited next to the Ark of the Covenant as a national testament. Through the mechanics of narrative mediation, the narrator reveals to the reader of Deuteronomy the contents of Moses' enshrined publication. Deuteronomy's simulcast of Moses' book invites external readers to compare and evaluate their readings with storyworld readers who access the same text within the Bible's Primary Narrative.

In reading Deuteronomy as narrative, Dischronology and Dialogic highlights the dialogic struggle between Moses and God over the welfare of Israel's relationship with land and landlord. In the second chapter, frameworks are established that envelop the central "statutes and ordinances" section of Moses' book. The third chapter sleuths through important cues in ch. 31 to rechronologize the speech and writing events performed by Moses and God. Chapter four offers a rechronologized reading of the Deuteronomic narrative, one in which God's theophany plays a pivotal expositional role for Moses' publication, transforming his written effect (complete with injunctions for annihilation, centralization, and theophanous expectation of the Name) into an innovative counter-response to God's prior prediction of apostasy and occultation. The concluding chapter presents a brief exegesis of Josiah's discovery of Moses' book, demonstrating the outcome of a dramatic irony that shadows the storyworld of the Primary Narrative readers. In reading the drama, the biblical reader detects a skeptical critique of the normative status of humanly-contrived texts.

David A. Bergen is an instructor of biblical studies and religion at the University of Calgary (Canada).