The Phallacy of Genesis: A Feminist-Psychoanalytic Approach (review)

Abstract

Hebrew Studies 37 (1996) 161 control by the Israelite rulers and cult officials, rather than the divine care of the people of the land. On the whole, this is an excellent book, accomplishing what it sets out to do economically and effectively. Students will be led to consider key issues of biblical scholarship, past and present, under the guidance of an openminded mentor. Heather A. McKay Edge Hill College. Ormskirk Lancashire L39 4QP UK THE PHALLACY OF GENESIS: A FEMINIST-PSYCHOANALYTIC APPROACH. By Ilona N. Rashkow. Literary Currents in Biblical Interpretation. Pp. 144. Louisville: Westminster/lohn Knox, 1993. Paper, $15.99. Overlaying feminist psychoanalytic Freudian theory and a version of reader-response criticism, Ilona Rashkow in the role of reader/analyst offers readings/interpretations of Genesis passages as psychoanalytic processes . Aware that a reading of a "reading of [a/]this reading" flirts with the danger of double distancing, this reader/reviewer tries to resist the temptation of psychoanalyzing reader/writer and reading yet again. Chapter I explores parallels between reading the Bible and "the psychoanalytic process." "See[ing] reading as a replication of the psychoanalytic process itself' (p. 22), Rashkow utilizes such Freudian categories in her analysis/reading of the Bible as the reader's "unconscious" and "selfconsciousness ," "identification," "wish gratification," and openness to "the process" as a prerequisite for possible change. For example, she links Aristotle's "catharsis" with "pleasurable relief' via readers' identification with (biblical) narrative. Chapter 2 offers a reading/analysis of Gen 12:10-20 and 20:1-18 in the context of the psychoanalytic concept of "transference" (and by implication "countertransference," I would think), tracing the transference between reader and text in a "constant exchange." It is this interdependence that Rashkow identifies as constituted by intertextuality. "A reader re-creates a text. combining intertextual episodes with his or her own characteristic process of mind (transference)" (p. 37). A triangular schema of "powerful male"t'powerless female"/"sexual exploitation" ensues. Transference supposedly results in empathy with the silencing of Sarah on all levels of the Hebrew Studies 37 (1996) 162 Reviews story (narrative, textual, lexical, and editorial) and/or in identification with Pharaoh who opposes sexual exploitation by refusing her. Understanding "the immorality of adultery" probably better than Abraham, the main actor himself, indeed, "a reader's innocence cannot remain intact" (p. 48) (if that was a desirable goal in the first place). Freudian dream analysis functions as a model for reading Abimelech's dream (Gen 20) in Chapter 3. Interpretation of dreams as symbolic fulfillment of unconscious wishes leads Rashkow to read Gen 20:3 as Abimelech's "unconscious desire" for "sexual possession of Sarah" (p. 54). His skilled use of "regression in the service of progression" in the secondary process of dreamwork (20:4-5) and waking action (20:6-7), however , allows the king to "rebuke" Abraham and "vindicate" himself by avoiding the divine punishment, which he had anticipated by gUilt (according to Freud)-all thanks to sensitivity to dream analysis. In Chapter 4, Freud and the biblical narrator(s)/editor(s) play musical chairs as Rashkow parallels "the narrative erasure of biblical daughters" in Genesis with "Freud's rejection of the seduction-theory of hysteria" (p. 66). Noting the "conspicuous absence of daughter" in Leviticus 18 incest taboos (pp. 70-71), she shows biblical (Deut 22) and Freudian instances where the female filial threat leads to paternal abandonment and accusation of seduction. The most daring (and somewhat confusing) interpretation cites Genesis 1-3 as another example where "seduction is displaced first onto the (phallic) serpent" (p. 76) (implying Adam as "father" of the first woman, thus reorganizing somehow the creation events). An interpretation of the fate and relationships of Lot's daughters in Genesis 19 serves as the final biblical reference in a chapter where the intriguing thesis of psychoanalytic parallelism of erasure of biblical daughters with Freudian rejection of seduction-theory of hysteria loses some of its power due to added cognitive dissonances. Various issues regarding female sexuality as problematic for Freud as well as for the Hebrew Bible are addressed in Chapter 5 under the umbrella of "Oedipus." Rashkow sees the Freudian Oedipus conflict as "strikingly parallel to the family...