Genesis och Jernet : ett möte mellan Sara Lidmans Jernbaneepos och bibelns berättelser

Sammanfattning: The subject of this dissertation is intertextuality between the Hebrew Bible and a piece of twentieth century Swedish fiction. The main purpose is to create analytical tools and to find a way to deal with fragmentary intertextuality between bible and literature. The material dealt with is a modern suite of novels, Jernbarneeposet (“The Railroad Epic”) by Sara Lidman, on the one hand, and the stories about Abraham, Sarah and Hagar in Genesis 16 and 21 on the other.I suggest a model for analyzing fragmentary references, arguing that the process of interpretation becomes more transparent, and thus more open to critical discussion, if the interpreter deals with each separate reference on three levels – “marker”, “means” and “effect”. It is assumed that the reader of fragmentary intertextuality becomes engaged in a number of small hermeneutical operations. The purpose of systematization is to organize and articulate each step in such an operation.The second half of the dissertation takes its point of departure from an observation that the failure to interpret the significance of the personal relationships indicated in several Genesis stories is common to both traditional and postmodern biblical scholarship. Therefore, I investigate the possibility of using modern literary fiction as a tool in interpreting the emotional aspects of the Abraham, Sarah and Hagar stories. I propose that it is possible to make use of modern literary works in biblical scholarship, not as commentaries, but as inspiration. The question discussed is: How then, can this inspiration be integrated in serious biblical scholarship?