Judges 18 as an Anti-Spy Story in the Context of an Anti-Conquest Story: The Creative Usage of Literary Genres ∗

Abstract

Using the example of Judges 18, this paper aims to show how an existing literary genre could be transformed into an anti-story. Six typical elements of the spy story genre are identified, of which three are used atypically in Judges 18. The spy story genre is classified as a subcategory of the Yhwh-war story genre, which in turn is a subcategory of the conquest story genre. Judges 18 uses some typical elements of the Yhwh-war story atypically. In the light of this, Malamat's thesis that Judges 18 represents a microcosm of a settlement campaign falls short, because he (differently from Pennant) fails to notice the anti-story effects.