SOURCE: "Torah as Narrative and Narrative as Torah" in Old Testament Interpretation: Past, Present, and Future; Essays in Honor of Gene M. Tucker, edited by James Luther Mays, David L. Petersen, and Kent Harold Richards, Abingdon Press, 1995, pp. 13-30.

In this essay, Eskenazi surveys the literary approaches to the Torah that have recently emerged in an effort to understand how they provide for a fuller religious and historical appreciation of the text.

When, in time to come, your children ask you, "What mean the decrees, laws, and rules that YHWH our God has enjoined upon you?" you shall say to your children, "We were slaves to Pharaoh in Egypt and YHWH freed us.…" (Deut 6:20, TANAKH)

Poised ready to possess the promised land, Israel on the plains of Moab receives, again, the command to tell the story of its past: "We were slaves …" The meaning of the "decrees...