Abstract
A number of recent literary readings of the Elijah's narratives have argued that the prophet is presented as selfish and disobedient. This is not a convincing interpretation of the final form of the text, which presents Elijah in positive light. These readings highlight a problem in the way narrative criticism is often practised, as it does not sufficiently take into account into account the composite nature of the biblical text. There are indeed oddities in 1 Kings 19 but it is very difficult to find satisfactory explanations for most of them on a purely literary level. A reading strategy needs to be adopted which recognizes that some of these may simply be the result of the text's pre-history and does not force upon them significance they were not meant to possess.
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