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Moses and civilization : the meaning behind Freud's myth / Robert A. Paul.

Library at the Katz Center - Stacks BF175.4.R44 P38 1996
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LIBRA BF175.4.R44 P38 1996
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Format:
Book
Author/Creator:
Paul, Robert A.
Language:
English
Subjects (All):
Freud, Sigmund, 1856-1939--Religion.
Freud, Sigmund.
Moses (Biblical leader).
Moses.
Freud, Sigmund, 1856-1939.
Bible. Pentateuch--Criticism, interpretation, etc.
Bible.
Bible. Pentateuch.
Psychoanalysis and religion.
Religion and Psychology.
Freudian Theory.
Social Values.
Religion.
Medical Subjects:
Religion and Psychology.
Freudian Theory.
Social Values.
Local Subjects:
Moses (Biblical leader).
Genre:
Criticism, interpretation, etc.
Physical Description:
268 pages ; 24 cm
Place of Publication:
New Haven : Yale University Press, [1996]
Summary:
"Freud's major cultural books, Totem and Taboo and Moses and Monotheism, have long been viewed as failed attempts at historical reconstruction. This book, by an anthropologist and practicing psychoanalyst, offers a brilliant reinterpretation of these works, presenting them instead as versions and unwitting analyses of the great mythic narrative underlying Judeo-Christian civilization, found principally in the Five Books of Moses." "Synthesizing aspects of structural anthropology, symbolic anthropology, evolutionary theory, and psychoanalysis, Robert A. Paul reveals the numerous parallels between Freud's myth of the primal horde and the Torah text. He shows how the primal-horde scenario is the basis for the Christian myth of the life and death of Jesus. And he details the way Freud's myth corresponds to the unconscious fantasy structure of the obsessional personality - a style of personality dynamics Paul sees as essential to maintaining the bureaucratic institutions that comprise Western civilization's most distinctive features. Paul thus corrects and completes Freud's project, creating a valid psychoanalytic account of Western civilization that rests not on faulty speculation, as did Freud's, but on a detailed reading of the biblical text and of the legends, folklore, commentaries, and social practices surrounding it."--Jacket.
Contents:
Beyond Freud's Moses
The Primal horde
Israel in Egypt
Incest and its vicissitudes
Young man Moses
Death on the Nile
After the death of the primal father
Facing Mount Ainai
The living myth
Christianity and the prophet like Moses.
Notes:
Includes bibliographical references (pages 247-262) and index.
National Jewish Book Awards - Jewish Thought, Winner, 1996
ISBN:
0300064284
9780300064285
OCLC:
32859020

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