The Book of Samuel and the Three-Actor Rule in Classical Greek Tragedy

ABSTRACT

Following a two-part 2022 publication which argues that portions of biblical literature may be written in the style of Classical Greek theatre plays, this paper seeks to demonstrate that 1 and 2 Samuel consistently adhere to the distinctive three-actor rule of Greek tragedy. The number of countable speaking actors present in any given scene from 1 or 2 Samuel never appears to exceed three actors at a time, provided that (1) only speaking actors are included in the tally, (2) group speech is treated as that of a single actor, and (3) scenes are parsed into episodes following regular criteria.

Key words:

• Three-actor rule
• Attic Theatre
• performance
• biblical Psalms
• biblical minimalism