2. Literature Review
2.5 Examining biblical textual materiality in an ecological context
2.5.3 Anne Elvey, ‘A Material Intertextuality’
‘A Material Intertextuality’ is the second chapter of Elvey’s 2011 monograph The Matter of the Text. This chapter is devoted to the topic of biblical textual
materiality within an ecological context and offers the most sophisticated study on the topic published to date.113 As discussed above, a version of this chapter that is slightly modified to suit an ecocritical audience appears in the anthology Ecocritical Theory: New European Approaches; I shall refer to Elvey’s original study here.114
Elvey’s study begins by briefly discussing different physical forms of biblical texts, charting the technological progression from papyrus scrolls to papyrus codices to codex manufactured from parchment.115 Elvey identifies the tremendous resources needed to produce a parchment codex, both in
112 Muers, ‘The Animals We Write On’, p. 145.
113 Elvey, ‘A Material Intertextuality’.
114 Elvey, ‘The Matter of Texts’.
115 Elvey, ‘A Material Intertextuality’, p. 28.
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terms of animal lives (Codex Sinaiticus, for example, would require at least 365 sheep or goat skins to produce its estimated 730 folios) and human labour.116 She proceeds to ask the question:
If we were to read the written text of a Bible in the mode of scholarly criticism or prayer, how would our reading account for, or open itself to, the myriad more-than-human others [animals] whose lives, labours and deaths form an understory for the text?117
Elvey engages with the semiotic theory of Julia Kristeva in her monograph Revolution in Poetic Language in order to explore this question.118 Kristeva’s theory is highly sophisticated and Elvey first outlines the concepts and terms central to Kristeva’s work before applying it in the context of biblical interpretation, looking at the parable of the sower in the Gospel of Luke (Lk.
8:4–15).119 It is not necessary to discuss this analysis here as it is primarily concerned with the relationship between the semiotic and the symbolic.
However, the analysis culminates in a discussion about the relationship between biblical textual materiality and interpretation, which is of great relevance to this study and requires further attention.120
Elvey begins by acknowledging that biblical scholarship has tended to focus upon the interplay of author, text, and reader, acknowledging the social and cultural contexts of each.121 Elvey then argues that biblical scholars are more concerned with examining the written text of the Bible in contrast to
116 Elvey, ‘A Material Intertextuality’, pp. 28-29.
117 Elvey, ‘A Material Intertextuality’, p. 29.
118 Julia Kristeva, Revolution in Poetic Language (New York/Chichester: Columbia University Press, 1984).
119 Elvey, ‘A Material Intertextuality’, pp. 29-34, 34-39.
120 Elvey, ‘A Material Intertextuality’, pp. 39-43.
121 Elvey, ‘A Material Intertextuality’, p. 39.
2. Literature Review
79 examining the materiality of biblical text.122 I agree with Elvey on this point, and the scarcity of studies on biblical textual materiality over against the vast corpus of historical and narrative analyses of biblical text within the field of biblical scholarship is testament to this.
Elvey then proceeds to assert the following hypothesis: that the materiality of a biblical text exerts some degree of influence upon how it is interpreted, connecting biblical textual materiality to wider ecological and cultural contexts.123 She gives three examples:
(1) The interpretation of parchment codices issued at the order of Constantine in the establishment of Christianity as the religion of his empire.
These codices could be produced only through the giving of animal life and slave labour; how might this influence the interpretation of animals and slaves in biblical narratives?124
(2) The interpretation of Bibles illuminated with plants, animals, and human scribes throughout their pages; how might these inspire differing interpretations of animal and slave characters to those in the first example?125
122 Elvey, ‘A Material Intertextuality’, p. 39; Elvey proposes that biblical textual materiality has been effaced in contemporary biblical studies due to the historical transferability of biblical text across a range of material media and reading contexts, though this effacement of the material is not unique to biblical studies and is evident in literary criticism as a whole; I return to this point below.
123 Elvey, ‘A Material Intertextuality’, p. 39.
124 Elvey, ‘A Material Intertextuality’, p. 39.
125 Elvey, ‘A Material Intertextuality’, p. 39.
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(3) The interpretation of modern mass-produced Bibles with wafer-thin pages; how might this medium, which to the reader may appear detached from the natural world, influence the manner in which the physical environments of biblical narratives are interpreted?126
Elvey acknowledges that it is beyond the scope of her study to test this hypothesis and whilst I agree with Elvey’s hypothesis wholeheartedly, there are difficulties with demonstrating this relationship empirically.127 Whilst we can readily access historical interpretations of biblical texts from a variety of historical, cultural, and theological perspectives, it is less easy to determine the specific physical forms of biblical texts that historical interpreters engaged with in the process of reaching these interpretations. Because there are insufficient data sources, then, (sets of historical biblical texts and corresponding interpretations of these texts) it is difficult to establish that a statistically significant relationship between historical biblical textual materiality and interpretation existed. Nevertheless, Elvey’s assertion about the connection between textual materiality and interpretation remains compelling and a small, but increasing, group of scholars also hold this view.128
126 Elvey, ‘A Material Intertextuality’, p. 40.
127 Elvey, ‘A Material Intertextuality’, p. 39.
128 Most notably in a biblical studies context, Hindy Najman acknowledged this connection in her plenary address at the annual conference of the European Association of Biblical Studies; Hindy Najman, ‘The Transformation of the Self and Practices of Reading’, paper presented at the annual conference of the European Association of Biblical Studies, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, 20 July 2016. There is also a small group of scholars in the field of literary criticism who have acknowledged this relationship, see Jonathan Walker,
‘Reading Materiality: The Literary Critical Treatment of Physical Texts’, Renaissance Drama, 41.1 (2013), pp. 199-232 (199-203).
2. Literature Review
81 Finally, Elvey proposes that a (biblical) text represents a ‘complex relationship of dependence on, and embeddedness in, a more-than-human Earth community’; she acknowledges the interconnectedness between a biblical text as a material object and the natural materials used in its construction.129 Similarly, on the interpretation of biblical texts, Elvey argues that reading remains an embodied process and bodies, embedded in the wider physical world, are affected by reading. These two observations are therefore consistent with material ecocritical theory and these parallels underscore the potential for this study to explore these ideas through an engagement with material ecocritical theory.130
Elvey’s study is highly sophisticated from a theoretical perspective and highly innovative, pre-dating material ecocritical theory, but consonant with it. The materiality of biblical text and its influence on the reader and the connection of a biblical text to the natural world and wider cultural systems and processes are both concepts that I shall explore in this study. However, I shall explore these concepts not through an engagement with Kristeva, but with material ecocritical theory and, building upon the work of Elvey, I shall develop a methodology for conducting this analysis.
2.5.4 Summary
Adams, Muers, and Elvey each acknowledge the ecological connection between the materiality of a text and wider physical world, and the
129 Elvey, ‘A Material Intertextuality’, p. 40.
130 Elvey, ‘A Material Intertextuality’, p. 42.
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relationship between textual materiality and textual interpretation. Whilst their observations predate material ecocritical theory they are wholly consistent with it. Building on this work, I shall employ material ecocritical theory and develop material ecocritical methodologies to explore Elvey’s theses concerning the materiality of biblical text and its influence on the reader, and the connection of a biblical text to the natural world and wider cultural systems.