True Stories and the Poetics of Textual Discovery

Authors

  • Eva Mroczek University of California, Davis

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.1558/bsor.v45i2.28914

Keywords:

Dead Sea Scrolls, Cairo Geniza, Manuscripts

Abstract

As we know from the Nag Hammadi saga, there is something enchanting about telling find stories. This enchantment is part of the very reason “getting the story straight” is so difficult when it comes to manuscript discoveries: every story worth its salt will be transformed in the telling, and stories that are alive are reactive. If one way to approach these stories is to debunk those aspects that are products of embellishment and myth, another is to attend precisely to their affective power, seeing them as a narrative genre in the longue durée. Using examples from both pre-modern find stories and narratives about the discovery of the Cairo Geniza and the Dead Sea Scrolls, this essay discusses what the find story genre can tell us about how we imagine our relationship with a fragmented past. True or legendary, such stories are always imaginative products. Attending to this dimension can reveal a poetics of textual discovery that is ancient and widely shared--a vital link between modern scholarship, public interest, and ancient myth.

Author Biography

  • Eva Mroczek, University of California, Davis

    Eva Mroczek is Assistant Professor in the Department of Religious Studies at the University of California, Davis. Her first book, The Literary Imagination in Jewish Antiquity, will come out with Oxford University Press in May 2016.

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Published

2016-07-06

Issue

Section

Articles

How to Cite

Mroczek, E. (2016). True Stories and the Poetics of Textual Discovery. Bulletin for the Study of Religion, 45(2), 21-31. https://doi.org/10.1558/bsor.v45i2.28914