According to Medvedev and Bakhtin, genre involves two components: a reduction of life to a thematic framework, and an orientation toward a defined performance situation. However, a cultural artifact is subject to a blind process of replication and descent that has little to do with its designer's intention. What survives is that which happens to thrive in a given environment, whether it was designed for that environment or not. A text's ‘genre’ might change radically even when not a word of the text has been altered or omitted. In this case, genre involves only one component, the community's response to the text, as argued by Stanley Fish and others. So it is with the biblical scrolls of Samuel. That which appears, from all available evidence, to have begun as a relatively secular form of traditional storytelling, has been preserved and replicated well beyond any reasonable life-expectancy because it was reinterpreted as divinely authored authoritative religious literature offering a revelatory glimpse at the methods by which the God of the universe interacts with creation.

Over the centuries, rabbis, priests and laity have wrestled with the Bible's various and often conflicting portraits of the God Yahweh. The social sciences suggest that each Yahweh text reflects the needs of the communities that formulated the text. Also, academic research has explored the reception of the complete Bible by religious communities. With the exception of so-called canonical criticism, very little work has been done on the transition between these two stages of the Bible's (and Yahweh's) evolution, from initial composition of texts to complete biblical canon. But canonical criticism usually presumes, a priori , that any text later deemed biblical was in some sense religiously useful from the day of initial composition, became (or continued to be) religiously authoritative as it evolved toward final edited form, and only increased in sacredness as it moved toward canonization. This study disputes that presumption, suggesting that the anthology was produced by a group of literati whose motivation was both socio-ideological and aesthetic, but not religious. This motivation best explains the extreme diversity of Yahweh personalities in the Hebrew canon.

Canaanite religion" is a controversial term because the Bible and some religious scholars distinguish between Canaanite and Israelite religions. However, biblical and archaeological data suggest that Israelite religion was one local variety of the larger, regional Canaanite religion. Canaanite religion is the religion of all peoples living on the eastern Mediterranean seaboard prior to the Common Era. The gods and the myths in this region display some stable characteristics, yet evolved new details and changing divine relationships throughout ancient times. At the center of Canaanite religion was royal concern for religious and political legitimacy and the imposition of a divinely ordained legal structure, as well as peasant emphasis on fertility of the crops, flocks, and humans. I. Sources for the Study of Canaanite ReligionANCIENT SOURCES Archaeological excavations have exposed Canaanite household religious shrines, personal religious artifacts such as amulets, rural religious shrines, large urban temples with public altars, ritual utensils and divine statues, as well as documents. Religious documents from ancient Canaan range from stone inscriptions to personal correspondence on broken pottery. In one important case, an archive of ancient clay writing tablets has been recovered. These tablets from a city called Ugarit contain poetic narrative myths, lists of the gods, and descriptions of rituals. The Bible is another significant literary resource, as well as texts from various sites such as Emar. Although the ancient literature is valuable, almost all ancient peoples were illiterate and therefore did not read these documents, which were composed by and for the wealthy. The documents depict the religious beliefs and rituals of the upper classes, and it is difficult to know how far down the social ladder such beliefs and rituals extended. The beginning student is especially encouraged to consult two bibliographical sections at the conclusion of this article:"Ancient texts in English translation" and "Reference works." RESEARCH METHODSAny investigation of religion, regardless of historical period or geographic focus, requires attention to questions of research method. Although the

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The Preface of John Bright's popular textbook, A History of Israel, states that Bright targeted the "undergraduate theological student." Although presented as an academic history textbook, the content of the book amounts to a theology of the Protestant Old Testament, written in accord with a popular Protestant movement of the mid-twentieth century. This study examines Bright's motives for composing his History as discerned from unpublished letters of the period, and as discerned from a rhetorical evaluation of the textbook. Apparently, Bright did not consider himself a historian; rather, he thought himself to be a theologian who theologizes about history. Critical evaluation of Bright's effort concludes that Bright misconstrued the role of the historian precisely because he viewed that role through the eyes of a theologian. Nevertheless, he models an approach to the presentation of history that is valuable for future writers of textbooks targeted at theology students.