Hypertextuality And The "Parabiblical" Dead Sea Scrolls

Abstract

The term paratext, preferred by some scholars, might be suitable for speaking of some kinds of literary activity, but it is not really adequate for the task of categorizing literary activity that involves imitation and dependence of one sort or another. By paratextuality Gerard Genette indicates all the liminal devices and conventions, both within the book and outside it, that mediate the book to the reader: titles and subtitles, pseudonyms, forewords, dedications, epigraphs, prefaces, intertitles, notes, epilogues, and afterwords. Some of these items are preserved in the Dead Sea Scrolls, but it is wrong to suggest that the move from parabiblical to paratextual can be made by the scholar of ancient Jewish texts without causing confusion. Thus the label to be preferred is it is this term that seems to be useful for insisting that texts are related to other texts interpretatively, a fact which can easily be forgotten. Keywords: hypertext; parabiblical Dead Sea Scrolls; paratextuality

Cite this work

No public copy is stored for this record, so only the metadata is cited.

Stored only when both papers are in the corpus — 6 citations exist upstream.