This book provides a lucid guide to its interpretative possibilities. It tries to be both theoretical and practical, combining discussion of method and the business of reading in general with numerous illustrations through readings of particular texts.

Part 1 Strategies for reading: narrative; biblical narrative; historical criticism, literary criticism and the meanings of the text; varieties of interpretation - "Genesis" through 2000 years; similarity and difference. Part 2 Tamar and Judah - "Genesis 38". Part 3 Characters and narrators: readers and people; the narrator; the characters; reconstucting characters; reconstructing YHWH. Part 4 Abraham and Sarah - "Genesis 11-22". Part 5 Designs on the plot: reading for the plot - desire for order; plots and points of view - "Judges 10-12"; fracturing the plot - the codas to "Judges" and "Samuel". Part 6 Jonah and God - the "Book of Jonah". Part 7 The lure of language: repetition and variation; multivalence, ambiguity and metaphor; reading for the metaphor - "Judges 1"; allusion and intertextuality; reading between words and stories - the house of David. Part 8 Nebuchadnezzar and the three Jews - "Daniel 3". Part 9 Readers and responsibility: literature and ideology; the Bible and ideology; "Genesis 2-3" - women, men and God.