Dialogue on Monarchy in the Gideon-Abimelech Narrative: Ideological Reading in Light of Bakhtin’s Dialogism

In Dialogue on Monarchy in the Gideon-Abimelech Narrative, Albert Sui Hung Lee applies Bakhtin’s dialogism to interpret the unfinalized dialogue on monarchical ideologies in the Gideon-Abimelech narrative. Lee associates a wide scope of Bakhtinian concepts with the dual images of the protagonists and the unique literary features of the dialogical narrative to illustrate the dialogue of genres as well as that of ideological voices, wherein the pro- and anti-monarchical voices constantly interact with each other. Studying archaeological evidence and literary examinations of prophetic books together, Lee explores the narrative redactor’s intention of engaging both remnant and deportee communities in an unfinalized dialogue of different forms of polity for the restoration of their unity and prosperity in exilic and post-exilic contexts.