Helge S. Kvanvig
act. I have here chosen a terminology borrowed from H. Lindemann Nelson.
She analyzes the relationship between what she designates as master narra
tives, counterstories, and alternative stories.^1 She uses these designations to
analyze social interaction, how narrative identities could be oppressive or
liberating. I use these designations purely as literary categories. A master
narrative is a foundational story in a larger community. It is at interplay with
other narratives of a similar kind. Together they summarize shared under
standings in the community and exercise authority over moral norms. They
have the capacity to present a worldview that seems self-evident.^2 A
counterstory is a story that contests the worldview of the master narrative,
not by trying to erase the narrative itself, but by making significant changes
in its literary web. The result is that the new restored narrative communi
cates something entirely different. The counterstory is definitely in opposi
tion to the master narrative, but not necessarily polemical. It works counter
in a more subtle way by dissolving the communicative force of the master
narrative, through displacement of plots and characters.^3 Alternative stories
also deviate from master narratives, but they do not contest them. They can
add, move, and remove features from the master narrative to make new ac
cents in it, but not to dissolve its communicative force. Alternative narratives
can live together and lend authority to each other.
C. A. Newsom has made a somewhat similar distinction in her book
about the construction of religious identity in Qumran. She distinguishes be
tween dominant discourse and counterdiscourse. The Qumran community
created a counterdiscourse over against the dominant discourse of the Judean
society.^4 Her definitions of "dominant" and "counter" are close to those
found in Lindemann Nelson's approach, bearing in mind that discourse is a
much broader category than narrative. It is also a more demanding one, since
a dominant discourse of "normal" Judaism has to be constructed.
In the following we will apply the categories of master narrative,
counterstory, and alternative story to three texts: Neh 8 -10, the Book of the
Watchers (1 En 1-36), and the Apocalypse of Weeks (1 En 93:1-10 + 91:11-17).
The focus will be on how the Torah and the temple are contextualized in
these texts.
- H. L. Nelson, Damaged Identities, Narrative Repair (Ithaca, N.Y., and London: Cor
nell University Press, 2001), 6-20, 150-88. - Cf. Nelson, Damaged Identities, 6f.
- Nelson, Damaged Identities, 152ft.
- C. A. Newsom, The Self as Symbolic Space: Constructing Identity and Community at
Qumran (Leiden: Brill, 2004), 17-21.