Abstract
Recent years have seen a burst of scholarly and popular interest in the Book of Genesis, manifested in nuanced, annotated translations; a Public Affairs Television discussion series; and multifaceted interpretations.1 The present essay continues the enterprise of exploring and reflecting on the intricacies of this ancient and venerable text.
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The Five Books of Moses: Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy: A New Translation with Introductions, Commentary, and Notes by Everett Fox (New York: Schocken Books, 1995) Robert Alter (ed.), The Five Books of Moses: A Translation with Commentary (New York: W.W. Norton, 2004)
Public Affairs Television, Talking about Genesis: A Resource Guide (New York: Doubleday, 1996)
Burton L. Visotzky, The Genesis of Ethics: How the Tormented Family of Genesis Leads Us to Moral Development (New York: Crown, 1996)
Alan M. Dershowitz, The Genesis of Justice: Ten Stories of Biblical Injustice that Led to the Ten Commandments and Modern Law (New York: Warner Books, 2000)
Leon R. Kass, The Beginning of Wisdom: Reading Genesis (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2003)
Thomas L. Pangle, Political Philosophy and the God of Abraham (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2003)
George Anastaplo, The Bible: Respectful Readings (New York: Lexington Books, 2008).
Nosson Scherman (ed.), The Chumash (Brooklyn, NY: Mesorah, 1996
See, for example, Richard Elliott Friedman, Who Wrote the Bible? (New York: Harper & Row, 1989)
For a more elaborate and philosophic discussion of this pattern, see Leo Strauss, “On the Interpretation of Genesis” and “Jerusalem and Athens,” in Jewish Philosophy and the Crisis of Modernity: Essays and Lectures in Modern Jewish Thought, edited by Kenneth Hart Green (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1997), pp. 362–67, 382-84.
J.H. Hertz (ed.), The Pentateuch and Haftorahs (London: Soncino Press, 1981), p. 2.
Jules Harlow (ed.), Siddur Sim Shalom: A Prayerbook for Shabbat, Festivals, and Weekdays (New York: Rabbinical Assembly, United Synagogue of America, 1985), p. 326.
Paul Johnson, A History of the Jews (New York: HarperPerennial, 1988), p. 17.
Nahum Sarna, Understanding Genesis: The World of the Bible in the Light of History (New York: Schocken Books, 1970), p. 12.
Jules Gleicher, “Moses Rhetor” Interpretation 31, no. 2 (Spring 2004), pp. 133–34.
Judah Gribetz et al. (eds.), The Timetables of Jewish History: A Chronology of the Most Important People and Events in Jewish History (TJH) (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1993), pp. 24, 28, 32.
The logical link is that just as kings exercise arbitrary sexual dominion over their subjects’ daughters, so commoners will behave toward the living beings that they rule. This possibility is congruent with the nondestruction of marine life in the sequel catastrophe. Before the LORD God forms Eve from Adam’s rib, He forms and brings to him “all the wild beasts and all the birds of the sky... to see what he would call them.” But from among them “no fitting helper” to man was found. Apparently, marine nature is so different as not even to be considered a “fitting companion” pervertedly (Gen. 2:18-22; but cf. 1:26-28). On royal conduct being reflected in that of subjects, see Esther 1:10-22; Aristotle Politics 1252b1-9; Jules Gleicher, “Mordecai the Exilarch: Some Thoughts on the Book of Esther,” Interpretation 28, no. 3 (Spring 2001), p. 191.
See, for example, Gilgamesh: A Verse Narrative by Herbert Mason (New York: Mentor, 1972), pp. 76-79; the Hindu story of Manu, told in the Agni Puranas; and the Greek myth of Deucalion. Sir James G. Frazer, Folk-Lore in the Old Testament: Studies in Comparative Religion, Legend and Law (New York: Macmillan, 1927), pp. 48–131
I am informed by Professor Paul Gottfried that the identification of this curse with black descendants of Ham was the view, not only of nineteenth-century Southerners, but also of ancient Babylonian Rabbis, medieval Christians, and others who came across or learned about sub-Saharan Africa and took a dim view of its inhabitants. Professor Eric Pullin has called my attention to Talmudic discussions of the curse of Ham in Midrashim Bereishit Rabbah and Sanh, 108b, and to a description of late medieval-early modern Spanish use of the myth in David Brion Davis, Inhuman Bondage: The Rise and Fall of Slavery in the New World (New York: Oxford University Press, 2006), pp. 55, 64-72.
This should not obscure the equally evident fact that all human beings speak some language or other. As Martin Heidegger observes, when we overhear people conversing in a foreign tongue, we instantly recognize their activity as engaging in human speech. Martin Heidegger, What Is Called Thinking? (New York: Harper Torchbooks, 1972), p. 130.
See also Jules Gleicher, “Moses Politikos,” Interpretation 26, no. 2 (Winter 1999), pp. 149–51, 164.
I believe that the source of this expression is the Sherlock Holmes story entitled “Silver Blaze.” William S. Baring-Gould (ed.), The Annotated Sherlock Holmes: The Four No-pels and the Fifty-Six Short Stories Complete by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (New York: Clarkson N. Potter, 1967), v. II, p. 277.
Jack Miles, God: A Biography (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1995), p. 59.
The Yom Kippur liturgy emphasizes the supposed voluntary nature of Isaac’s submission. See Philip Birnbaum (trans.), High Holyday Prayer Book (New York: Hebrew, 1951), pp. 628, 920, 926, 984, 996.
Aharon Yisroel Kahan, The Taryag Mitzvos (Brooklyn, NY: Keser Torah, 1988).
W. Gunther Plaut (ed.), The Torah: A Modern Commentary (New York: Union of American Hebrew Congregations, 1981), p. 218.
Aaron Wildavsky, “What Is Permissible So That This People May Survive? Joseph the Administrator,” PS: Political Science & Politics 22, no. 4 (December 1989), p. 781.
Elie Wiesel, “Joseph, or The Education of a Tzaddik,” in Messengers of God: Biblical Portraits and Legends (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1976.), pp. 136–69.
Alfred J. Kolatch, The Jewish Book of Why (Middle Village, NY: Jonathan David, 1995), v. I, pp. 49–50, 57.
Harold Bloom, The Book of J, Translated from the Hebrew by David Rosenberg, Interpreted by Harold Bloom (New York: Grove Weidenfeld, 1990), pp. 9–55, 220-23.
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© 2010 Jules Gleicher
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Gleicher, J. (2010). The Book of Origins. In: Political Themes in the Hebrew Scriptures. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230105980_1
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