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This book is a comprehensive study of 'oral tradition' in the narrative books of the Old Testament. "Oral Tradition in the Old Testament" attempts to understand the nature of oral tradition, the form it would have taken in ancient Israel, and the remains of it in the narrative books of the Hebrew Bible by addressing the indebtedness of biblical scholarship to the Oral Formulaic school of Milman Parry and Albert Lord. Three specific cases of oral/written interaction are presented that provide the best ethnographic analogies for ancient Israel: Homer, Icelandic Sagas, and Arabic epic poetry. Insights from these suggest a model of transmission in oral-written societies valid for ancient Israel. The author reconstructs what ancient Israelite oral literature would have been and considers criteria for identifying orally-derived material in the narrative books of the Old Testament, marking several passages as highly probable oral derivations. Using ethnographic data and ancient Near Eastern examples, he proposes performance settings for this material. The Epilogue treats the contentious topic of historicity and shows that orally-derived texts are not more historically reliable than other texts in the Bible. Over the last 30 years, this pioneering series has established an unrivaled reputation for cutting-edge international scholarship in Biblical Studies and has attracted leading authors and editors in the field. The series takes many original and creative approaches to its subjects, including innovative work from historical and theological perspectives, social-scientific and literary theory, and more recent developments in cultural studies and reception history.