Rewriting Moses : the narrative eclipse of the text / Brian Britt.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Britt, Brian M., 1964-

Series:

Journal for the study of the Old Testament. Supplement series ; 402.

Gender, culture, theory ; 14.

Journal for the study of the Old Testament. Supplement series ; 402

Gender, culture, theory ; 14

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Moses (Biblical leader).

Moses.

Bible. Old Testament--Criticism, interpretation, etc.

Bible.

Bible. Old Testament.

Physical Description:

x, 208 pages : illustrations ; 24 cm.

Place of Publication:

London ; New York : T & T Clark Internationa1, [2004]

Summary:

Exalted for centuries as a hero and author of the Bible, Moses is inspearable from biblical tradition itself. Yet he is also an inherently ambiguous figure and a perennial focus of controversy, from ancient disputes over leadership and identity to modern issues of class, gender and race.

In Rewriting Moses, Brian Britt analyses elements of poelmic and writing in the Moses of the Bible, of film, novel, visual art and scholarship. He argues that the biblical Moses lives within writing, while the post-biblical Moses lives more often in biography. However, later rewritings of Moses refract biblical traditions of writing in surprising ways. Rewriting Moses provides an original account of the Freudian insight that traditions preserve what they repress.

Contents:

1 The Biblical Moses 5

2 Moses in Post-Biblical Tradition 7

Part I Contemporary Images of Moses

Chapter 1 Subverting the Great Man: Violence and Magic in Moses Fiction 13

1 Ancient Polemical Roots of the Modern Moses Novels 19

2 Idealism and the Egyptian Moses 21

3 Identity and Recognition 23

4 Stock Endings and Ideology 25

5 Violence, Magic, and Critique 27

a Socialism, Fascism, and Violence: Steffens and Mann 27

b Moses and Magic: Hurston 32

Chapter 2 Double-Moses: Gender and the Sacred in Moses Films 40

1 Doubling 43

2 The Ten Commandments (1956) 46

3 Moon of Israel 52

4 Prince of Egypt 54

Chapter 3 Legend and History in Modern Scholarly Portraits of Moses 59

1 Myth, Legend, and History 62

2 Julius Wellhausen 64

3 Hugo Gressmann 68

4 Martin Noth 71

5 Gerhard von Rad 73

6 Martin Buber 77

Interlude: Biblical Text, Biblical Tradition

Chapter 4 Concealment, Revelation, and Gender: The Veil of Moses in the Bible and in Christian Art 82

1 The Exodus Episode 84

2 Post-Biblical Legacy/History of Interpretation 87

a Jewish Interpretation 87

b Christian Interpretation 88

3 Images 91

a Early Images (Ninth-Twelfth Centuries) 91

b Moses and Synagogue 98

c Later Images (Fourteenth, Fifteenth, and Twentieth Centuries) 103

d Images with the Veil Apparently Pulled Back 107

e Analysis of Veiled Moses Images 109

4 Beyond the Veil of Moses: Enlightenment Hermeticism and the Unveiling of Nature 111

Part II Uncanny Biblical Texts

Chapter 5 Moses' Heavy Mouth: Discourse and Revelation in Exodus 4.10-17 117

1 Moses' Objection 118

2 Moses and Aaron 124

3 Discourse and Revelation 125

Chapter 6 The Torah of Moses: Deuteronomy 31-32 as a Textual Memorial 131

1 The Question of Narrative Chronology 132

2 The Question of Reference: Torah and Song 137

3 Redactional Harmonization in 32.44-47? 138

4 The Question of Genre 139

5 Literary Concerns 141

Chapter 7 The Song and the Blessing: Poetic Discourse in Deuteronomy 32-33 144

1 Parallelism and Biblical Poetry 146

2 Deuteronomy 32: The Song of Moses 148

3 Deuteronomy 33: The Blessing of Moses 158

Chapter 8 The Birth, Death, and Writing of Moses 165

1 Language, Structure, and Meaning of the Birth Story 166

2 Language, Structure, and Meaning of the Death Story 168

3 The Death of Moses and the Writing of Moses 171

4 Writing and Memory 174

5 Patterns in the Birth and Death Stories 177

6 Body of Moses, Text of Moses 178.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages [188]-200) and indexes.

ISBN:

0567081818

0567080870

OCLC:

56601316