Contents -- Preface -- Notes on Translation, Transliteration, and Documentary Source Attributions -- Chapter One Introduction -- 1.1. Introduction -- 1.2. The Narrative Endings -- 1.3. Narratives in the Study -- 1.4. Closural Devices in the Cain and Abel Story -- 1.5. The Phenomenon of Ritual as a Closing Device -- 1.6. Popular and Academic Interest in "Closure" -- 1.7. Relevant Literary Studies -- 1.8. How this Book is Organized -- Appendix to Chapter 1: Narratives in This Study -- Chapter Two Issues and Methods -- 2.1. Overview -- 2.2. Delimiting a Narrative, Using Narratology -- 2.2.1. Defining a Narrative -- 2.2.2. The Beginning and End-Points of a Narrative, and Its "End-Section" -- 2.2.3. Causal Steps in a Plot-The Kafalenos Approach -- 2.2.4. The Kafalenos Paradigm -- 2.2.5. Equilibrium as a Marker of Beginning and End -- 2.2.6. Using the Kafalenos System to Delimit Gen 23, Abraham's Purchase of a Burial Site -- 2.2.7. Finding an Embedded Narrative Using the Kafalenos System: Gen 2-3, The Creation and Adam and Eve -- 2.2.8. What Happens after the Transformation -- 2.3. Alternate Approaches for Delimiting a Narrative -- 2.3.1. Yairah Amit and Robert Alter -- 2.3.2. Masoretic Tradition -- 2.4. Artistic and Didactic Strategy in a Biblical Narrative Ending -- 2.4.1. Moshe Greenberg and Robert Alter: Close Reading of a Biblical Text -- 2.4.2. Shimon Bar-Ephrat and Closing Formulas -- 2.4.3. Aharon Mirsky and Modified Syntax -- 2.4.4. Isaac B. Gottlieb and the Ends of Biblical Books -- 2.4.5. Adele Berlin and "Time-Bridges" -- 2.5. The Documentary Sources -- 2.5.1. J and P Endings in the Flood Story: Gen 6-9 -- 2.5.2. Efffect of a Source Insertion on the Next Narrative's End: Gen 12 -- 2.5.3. Addition of an Altar Ritual to a P-Source Narrative: Gen 35:9-15 -- Chapter Three Repetition -- 3.1. Introduction.

3.2. Repetition in Biblical Narrative -- 3.3. Repetition: What It Is and Why It Works -- 3.3.1. Repetition Defined -- 3.3.2. Precision -- 3.3.3. Time -- 3.4. How Repetitions Contribute to Closure -- 3.4.1. Truthfulness and the Integrity of the Narrative -- 3.4.2. Natural Ending Places -- 3.4.3. Remembering -- 3.4.4. Iteration: A Type of Repetition -- 3.4.5. Frames: A Repetitive Structure -- 3.4.6. Repetition that Does Not Lead to Closure -- 3.5. Closural Repetitions in End-Sections of the Genesis Narratives -- 3.5.1. Closural Repetition and the New Equilibrium -- 3.5.2. Integrity and Truthfulness -- 3.5.3. Stopping the Forward Momentum of a Narrative by 'Heaping Up' -- 3.5.4. Revealing the Author's Didactic Interests -- 3.5.5. Aesthetic Repetitions, Including Poetry, and Readers' Enjoyment -- 3.6. Conclusion -- Chapter Four Linguistic Devices -- 4.1. Introduction -- 4.2. Summaries: Recapitulation and Didactics -- 4.2.1. Summaries in Epilogues -- 4.2.2. Summaries from Diffferent Documentary Sources -- 4.2.3. Single-Word Summaries -- 4.3. Unqualified Assertions -- 4.3.1. Absolute Words -- 4.3.2. Hyperbole -- 4.4. Tone of Authority -- 4.5. Natural Stopping Points and Their Linguistic Motifs -- 4.5.1. The Motif of Goal Completed -- 4.5.2. The Motif of Death and Departure and Language Associated with It -- 4.5.3. Corollaries to Departure: A Return to Someplace or Remaining Someplace -- 4.5.4. Words and Motifs that Mean "End" or "Conclusion" -- Chapter Five Etiologies and Proverbs -- 5.1. Introduction -- 5.2. Etiologies -- 5.2.1. Introduction to Etiologies in Genesis -- 5.2.2. Biblical Etiologies: Scholarship -- 5.2.3. Closural Aspects of Etiologies -- 5.3. Proverbs as Closural Devices -- 5.3.1. Proverbs in the Genesis Narratives -- 5.3.2. Proverbs: Scholarship -- 5.3.3. Closural Aspects of Proverbs in the End-Sections of Narratives.

5.3.4. Proverbs as Closural Devices: A Summary -- 5.4. Summary -- Chapter Six Rituals at the Ends of Narratives -- 6.1. Introduction -- 6.2. The Term "Ritual" and Its Use in Biblical Scholarship -- 6.2.1. Overview -- 6.2.2. Milgrom and Others -- 6.2.3. Biblical Ritual Using Categories Designated by Catherine Bell -- 6.3. Literary Function of Ritual in Texts: Studies from the Ancient Near East and Classical Greece -- 6.3.1. Wright and Ritualized Feasts -- 6.3.2. Roberts and Culturally Constructed Burial Rituals -- 6.4. Rituals in this Study -- 6.5. How Rituals Are Closural in Their Narratives -- 6.5.1. Closural Efffects of Transformative Rituals -- 6.5.2. Closural Efffects of Non-Transformational Rituals -- 6.5.3. Closural Efffects When Rituals Establish Hierarchies -- 6.5.4. Closural Efffects When the Divine Is Invoked in a Ritual -- 6.5.5. Closural Efffects of the Ritual Discourse: Specific Language and Other Markers -- 6.6. Rituals That Are Not at the End of Their Narratives -- 6.7. Summary -- 6.7.1. Narrative Functions -- 6.7.2. Stability and Balancing Accounts -- 6.7.3. Natural Stopping Places -- Chapter Seven Closure and Anti-Closure: Philosophical, Psychological, Experiential, and Psycho-Linguistic Components -- 7.1. Introduction -- 7.2. Closure as a Process -- 7.3. Closure and the Integrity of the Narrative -- 7.4. The Expectation of Closure-Familiarity and Integrity -- 7.5. The Expectation of Closure -- 7.5.1. Metaphysics and Psychology -- 7.5.2. Gestalt Psychology and Its Temporal Implications -- 7.6. Anti-Closure -- 7.6.1. Overview -- 7.6.2. Closed Narratives that Have Anti-Closural Elements -- 7.6.3. Anti-Closure in the Dinah Story (Gen 34) -- 7.6.4. The Akedah and Its Unspoken Disquietude (Gen 22) -- 7.7. Closure in the Face of Anti-Closure -- 7.8. Openness as a Function of the Larger Context of the Genesis Narratives.

Chapter Eight Conclusion and Epilogue -- 8.1. Introduction -- 8.2. Conclusion -- 8.2.1. Closural Conventions -- 8.2.2. Rituals and Etiologies -- 8.2.3. Repetition and Other Linguistic Devices -- 8.2.4. Methodology -- 8.3. Narrative Poetics and Historical Criticism -- 8.4. The Question of Intentional Use of Conventions and Closural Devices -- 8.5. Further Study -- Bibliography -- Index of Biblical Narratives, Post-Biblical and Ancient Near Eastern Texts Cited -- Index of Subjects -- Index of Kafalenos Paradigms -- Index of Authors Cited.