Seeing doubles: On two of a kind

Abstract

This article expands upon a previously published study in this journal that examined a literary strategy which employs linguistic devices of doubling in biblical narratives that reference twins. It demonstrated that Israelite authors employed several devices, including dual forms, gemination, doubled vocabulary, polysemy, and paronomasia on the number ‘two’, in order to match form to content. Here, we add studies of four biblical passages (Judges 5, Proverbs 20, 30, 31) as well as a brief excursus on a similar strategy in the Epic of Gilgamesh, and we argue that the strategy of doubling also appears in narratives that feature pairs or the doubling of amounts (i.e. not necessarily texts that employ the term ‘twin’).