TRABAJO DE CAMPO Y EJECUCIÓN DE LA PRÁCTICA

By definition, an etiology answers a question. An etiology is, according to the OED, “the assignment of a cause, the rendering of a reason.”2 Etiologies state the result of a series of events that caused a certain condition or caused a particular name to be what it is. Why do people speak so many languages? Why are people afraid of snakes but not of squirrels?

Or, why does a place have a name that sounds both like the number “seven” (šeba‘) and the

word “oath” (šebua‘)? Within the Genesis narratives, these actual questions are never verbalized. Compare, just for a moment, the fanciful Just So Stories by Rudyard Kipling.3 The stories themselves begin in “once upon a time” mode, and within the body of the stories, no etiological question is asked. Yet, Kipling alerted the reader as to what question he would be answering through each story’s title: “How the Whale got his Throat” or “How the Camel got his Hump” or “How the First Letter was Written.” Each story draws to a close as Kipling concludes his answer. In the Bible, although the question is only implicit, when the etiological answer is offered by the writer, the “answer” signals that now is a logical time to end the narrative.

Consider these examples: People speak so many languages because God confounded their speech, as explained at the end of the Tower of Babel narrative (Gen 11:8-9). People are afraid of snakes because God established enmity between people and serpents because of the actions of Eve and the serpent in the Garden of Eden in the end-section of the Adam and

2

Oxford English DictionaryOnline, “Aetiology.”

3 _{Rudyard Kipling,}

Eve narrative (Gen 3:14). Beersheba was given its name because Abraham gave seven ewes to Abimelekh in Beersheba and the two of them swore an oath (Gen 21:30-31); in addition, Isaac and Abimelekh later exchanged oaths there (Gen 26:33).4

The etiologies at the end of the narrative in which Jacob wrestles with a divine being function closurally: they end the action of the story, mark their role with specific language, and affirm the narrative’s credibility (Gen 32:23-33). In the story, Jacob is alone at the Jabbok River and a man or divine being wrestles with him until the break of dawn. When the being sees he has not prevailed against Jacob, he wrenches Jacob’s hip at its socket and strains it.5 As dawn breaks, Jacob asks for his blessing and the divine being changes Jacob’s name to Israel (32:29). He departs,6 and Jacob leaves limping.

The end-section begins when Jacob’s name is changed to Israel (Gen 32:29-33), and it has three etiologies. The first is directly related to the transforming step in the narrative. The divine being says, “Your name shall no longer be Jacob, but Israel, for (ki) you have striven with beings divine and human, and have prevailed” (32:29). This establishes a new equilibrium: “Jacob” becomes “Israel.” Jacob and Israel are identified as the same person, son of Isaac and grandson of Abraham, and now designated as the progenitor of the nation

4 _{In Hebrew the word “Beersheba” is a combination of two elements,}

be’er, meaning “a well,” and “sheba’,”

related to the number seven and also the word for “oath.”

5 _{The unnamed person,’}

iš, is described as a “divine being” (elohim) in verses 29 and 31.

6 _{After Jacob’s name has been changed, he asks the divine being for}

his name; the divine being refuses and

then departs. The second half of the verse in the Hebrew, םשותוךרביו, can be translated as “and there he blessed him” (Alter, Five Books, 181), or as “he took leave of him there” (NJPS, 68). Speiser, Genesis, 254-5,

of Israel. For readers, this transformation is a familiar process; God had personally changed the names of Abraham and Sarah, and now Jacob joins their ranks. 7

The latter two etiologies occur “outside of the plot,” that is, after the transformation. They add additional brakes to the action of the story because they are descriptive; they add information to which readers, ancient and modern, could or can connect. They include word markers typical of etiologies at the ends of narratives—the verb “to name” (q.r.’.), the conjunction “because” (ki), and the phrases “that is why” (‘al ken) and “until today” (‘ad hayom).

The first of these explains the punning name that is given to the place where the confrontation occurred. The narrator explains, “So Jacob named the place Peniel, meaning, ‘[Because] (ki) I have seen a divine being face to face (p.n.h. and ’El), yet my life has been preserved.’” In addition to being a pun, “Peniel” was a place ancient readers could have been aware of. In the biblical histories, the city Peniel/Penuel is mentioned in Judges 8:8, 9, 17, and 1 Kings 12:25, and the use of this name lends credibility of place to the story.8

In the last etiology, the narrator first observes that as the sun rose after the confrontation, Jacob/Israel walks off “limping on his hip.” The narrator uses linguistic markers of an etiology as he explains, “That is why (‘al ken) the children of Israel to this day (‘ad hayom), do not eat the thigh muscle that is on the socket of the hip, since (ki) Jacob’s

7 _{In the Genesis narratives, Abraham’s name is changed from Abram by God in Gen 17:5; Sarah’s is changed}

from Sarai in 17:15. Chapter 17 is a P-source narrative. In a later narrative, the P-source marks Jacob’s change of name to Israel, Gen 35:10. Gen 32:23-33 is attributed to the E-source

8 _{Both spellings are found in references in Genesis, Judges, Kings and 1 Chronicles. Anson F. Rainey, and R.}

Steven Notley, in The Sacred Bridge,115, identify Penuel as the administrative center in Transjordan for the

hip socket was wrenched at the thigh muscle” (Gen 32:33). The narrator also draws upon information he assumes that readers, “the children of Israel,” were familiar with—the tradition of not eating the hind quarter of an animal.

In the next pages, I will present a brief overview of the pertinent scholarship on etiology. Then I will demonstrate how specific etiologies at the ends of their narratives contribute to closure by ending the action of a story, adding a sense of truthfulness, providing an authoritative verification or objective affirmation of an event, affirming

readers’ values or knowledge, and providing entertainment with puns and literary allusions.