The Original Torah: The Political Intent of the Bible's Writers

Abstract

Original Torah: Political Intent of Bible's Writers, by S. David Sperling. Reappraisals in Jewish Social and Intellectual History. New York/London: New York University Press,1998. Pp. xiv + 185. $40.00. generating insight of this interesting and provocative book is that the authors of set their tales in times and places far removed from their own, its stories are best described as allegories, narratives contrived to describe second order of meaning from what they present on surface (p. 8). According to Sperling, allegorical reading is not an option but requirement because [the Torah] cannot be read historically, critical scholarship having demonstrated that nothing in is historical. It is this involvement with results of historical critical study that differentiates Sperling's method from other, more traditional modes of allegorical reading. I find myself secularizing he writes with reference to use of typology in 1 Cor 10:11. The things that supposedly `happened' were `symbolically recorded for us,' that is, if we understand `us' to be earliest and primary audiences of writers of Torah (p. 9). Sperling not only secularizes Paul; he also stands apostle's method on its head. Whereas Paul, like all ancient allegorists, sought to show applicability of narratives beyond their own time, Sperling consistently and univocally restricts their meaning to situation in which they were composed and, moreover, insists that political function of texts is their sole meaning. His reduction of significance to realm of politics is so thoroughgoing that he can even assert that [w]hen contemporary readers try to discover ancient agenda, they are, in fact, coming closer to understanding [YHWH], since [YI-IwH] always stands for agenda of individual writer (p. 136). In each of six studies that comprise core of book, Sperling's method is twofold. He first demonstrates lack of historicity in pentateuchal narrative under discussion and then correlates narrative with later political situation that he thinks unlocks its real meaning. In chapter 3, The Allegory of Servitude in Egypt and Exodus, for example, he builds upon absence of evidence for an origin of outside Canaan and for an Israelite enslavement in Egypt to argue that these notions constitute ideological statement of group of dissident elements in Late Bronze Age Canaan (pp. 47, 52). Pharaoh's imposition of corve (mas) on for his forced-labor projects (sebel, Exod 1:11) thus does not refer to institutions of subjugation in Egypt proper at all. Rather, it is an allegorical representation of Israel's withdrawing from Egyptian system [of political domination in Canaan] . . . as withdrawal from land of Egypt itself (p. 56). inspiration for Israelite ideologues lay in arrival from abroad of Aramaeans and sea peoples (Amos 9:7; p. 57). Similarly, chapter 4 argues that covenant of with YHWH is properly understood as the religious expression of mundane cultic and military union of different groups that merged to form people of Israel (p. 71). fifth chapter develops multiple points of connection between Abraham and David, some of them novel and some not, in order to present Abrahamic narratives as subservient to political needs of David and his dynasty. patriarch's covenant with Abimelech in Gen 21, for example, as an apology for David's pact with Philistines (p. 89). On basis of I's association with Penuel (1 Kgs 12:25), site of Jacob's struggle with divine being (Gen 32:23-33), Sperling maintains in chapter 6 that Jacob serves here as an of Jeroboam (p. 93). But same chapter sees Joseph story, too, as a thinly veiled allegory of I, northern king whose ascent to power was foretold by prophet and who, like Joseph, had been protected by Pharaoh and risen to great power under ultimate protection of [YHWH] ( 1 Kgs 11-12; p. …