Friday, February 06, 2004

"A TALE OF TWO TABLETS": Professor Yair Hoffman of Tel Aviv University and Seminar Hakibuzim College, reviews:

"Milhemet Haluhot: Hahagana Alhamikra Bame'a Hatesha Esrei Upulmoos Bavel Vehatenakh" ("The War of the Tablets: The Defense of the Bible in the 19th Century and the Babel-Bible Controversy") by Yaacov Shavit and Mordechai Eran, Am Oved, 305 pages, NIS 84


(In Ha'aretz, heads up, Jim West.)

This is a remarkable review of what sounds like a remarkable book that deals with the politics of biblical scholarship, Jewish identity, and anti-Semitism from the 19th century to the present. The review is very long, but worth the read. The book sounds fascinating but it also clearly has some flaws, which the reviewer comments on in the final section. The review is hard to excerpt, but here are a few extracts and comments:

This book by Yaacov Shavit and Mordechai Eran transports us to the late 19th and early 20th centuries and presents us with yet another of the many biblical debates - an internal Jewish, internal Christian and, in some respects, a Jewish-Christian debate. At the center stands, Friedrich Delitzsch (1850-1922), one of the most renowned Assyriologists of his time. In the appendix to their book, the authors state that the scholarly research "on works dealing with the reaction of Germany's Jews to modern anti-Semitism and on works about the intellectual history of Germany's Jews" treats this debate as "nothing more than a footnote." The very creation of "The War of the Tablets: The Defense of the Bible in the 19th Century and the Babel-Bible Controversy" challenges the justification behind this assumed marginality and redeems the Delitzsch debate from the oblivion of history's abyss.

[...]

Delitzsch delivered two lectures in Berlin, on January 13, 1902 and April 17, 1903, before large audiences of distinguished individuals. The lectures were given under the auspices of the German Oriental Society and under the patronage of Kaiser Wilhelm II, who granted the events the status of something approaching "an official declaration from the Kaiser and the State." The lectures, under the rubric "Bible and Babel," "aroused a storm of controversy ... appeared in several editions and were published in tens of thousands of copies. They were also translated into many languages. Delitzsch estimated that by 1904 he had received responses in 1,350 short articles" and hundreds of other publications in Germany and elsewhere.

[...]

However, underlying his scholarly observations was the undisguised current of anti-Jewish and anti-biblical polemics. He argued that the source of both the biblical perspective and biblical law was Babylon - not Mount Sinai, which was what Moses wrongly claimed, and not the original creative spirit of the Jewish people. Therefore, the source of the cultural influence on Christianity was not Judaism, but "Babel" (for example, the Code of Hammurabi), the code name for the ancient Mesopotamian cultures. As the authors write: "The only element of `racist' ideas in the first lecture was the allusion to the Assyrians' Aryan origin."

[...]

This motif, evident in his book entitled "The Great Deception," which appeared in 1920, developed into the argument that there is a similarity between the Samaritans (who were not Semites) and the Germans. Delitzsch's lectures sparked a wave of protests and the book in question here surveys, in a matter- of-fact way and from a sociological viewpoint, which groups mounted the attack against Delitzsch, who wanted to replace the tablets of the Ten Commandments with the clay tablets of Mesopotamian culture.


A note here: the Samaritans were not Jews, but they were certainly "Semites." They were descended from ancient Israel and spoke Hebrew (and still are and still do).

The authors see the "War of the Tablets" as a central theme from the chronological standpoint, in terms of both the cultural background and the reactions that this war aroused. (It is curious that the book makes no mention of another Friedrich - Nietzsche - who made a crucial contribution to the "neo-paganic" thinking in Germany in his day, to which Shavit and Eran frequently refer.) The focus on this "war" makes eminent sense: The intellectual background to it - the highly respected standing that biblical criticism was starting to acquire and the bitter opposition to its conclusions, primarily from Jewish groups (not necessarily Orthodox) - provided the soil in which the Delitzsch polemical debate sprouted and, without knowledge of that background, it is difficult to understand the debate. The reactions to the debate and its later reverberations prove the authors' argument concerning its importance in the cultural history of both Germany and the Jewish world.

[...]

A second fascinating aspect of the Delitzsch debate is the following question: To what extent do arguments denying the antiquity of the Jewish people, as opposed to the Bible's cultural and religious "primacy" (not necessarily superiority), conceal anti-Semitic sentiments? Granted, these motives can be seen in the words of Appius, who clearly expresses anti-Jewish views; however, even here, we must exercise caution. Today, no biblical scholar - whether "Jewish," "Israeli" or even "Zionist" - would hesitate to point out that foreign cultures influenced the ancient Israelites and their culture, or would feel that stating such a view undermines the primacy of Israelite culture. Nevertheless, we would be burying our heads in the sand if we were to deny that some scholars use biblical criticism to serve a political agenda that may reflect elements of an anti-Israeli and/or anti-Zionist attitude, which, as we know, is sometimes a camouflage for anti-Semitism.

I am referring here to people like Thomas L. Thompson, Niels Peter Lemche, Michael Prior (note, for example, the title of a book written by Keith W. Whitelam that appeared in 1996: "The Invention of Ancient Israel: The Silencing of Palestinian History"). In an obvious attempt to deny the primordial nature of the Bible, they date its composition as late as the Hellenistic period and hint that important archaeological finds supporting the historiography's antiquity (for example, the Mesha stele and the Tel Dan inscription) are forgeries. Similarly, they present hollow arguments not backed by any empirical evidence.


I haven't read Whitelam's book. I'm aware that some people have argues that the Tel Dan inscription is a forgery, but has any scholar seriously argued this about the Mesha Stele? That strikes me as a view that would be extremely hard to defend.

Anyhow, there's lots more. Do read it all.

No comments:

Post a Comment