Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Dedication
- Contents
- Acknowledgments
- About the Cover
- List of Abbreviations
- Introduction
- Prologue: The Prehistory of Power: Souls Spirits, Deities
- Part One Kings and Emperors
- 1 Divine Kingship in Mesopotamia
- 2 Pharaohs among the Indestructibles
- 3 Kingship among the Hebrews
- 4 The Deification of Roman Emperors
- 5 The Deva-Rajas in India and Southeast Asia
- 6 The Chinese Mandate from Heaven
- 7 The Japanese Imperial Cult
- Part Two Empires before the Common Era
- 8 The Legendary Empire of the Sumerians
- 9 Legendary Empires of Preclassical Greece
- 10 Patriarchs, Exodus, and the Epic of Israel
- 11 Legendary Empires of Ancient India
- 12 The Legendary Founding of Rome
- Part Three Founders
- 13 Moses: The Israelite Lawgiver
- 14 Buddha and Legends of Previous Buddhas
- 15 The Savior Narratives
- 16 Muhammad, the Qur’an, and Islam
- 17 The Virgin Mary through the Centuries
- 18 Tonantzin and Our Lady of Guadalupe
- Part Four Empires of the Common Era
- 19 Narrative Inventions of the Holy Roman Empire
- 20 The Epic of Kings, Alexander the Great, and the Malacca Sultinate
- 21 The Franks, Charlemagne, and the Chansons de Geste
- 22 The Legendary Kingdom of King Arthur
- 23 Ethiopian Kings and the Ark of the Covenant
- 24 Narratives of the Virgin Queen
- Part Five Ideologies
- 25 Discovery: The European Narrative of Power
- 26 Epics of the Portuguese Seaborne Empire
- 27 Dekanawida and the Iroquois League
- 28 The New England Canaan of the Puritans
- 29 The Marxist Classless Society
- 30 Adolph Hitler: Narratives of Aryans and Jews
- Epilogue: A Clash of Narratives
- Bibliography
- Index
- About the Author
10 - Patriarchs, Exodus, and the Epic of Israel
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 15 December 2020
- Frontmatter
- Dedication
- Contents
- Acknowledgments
- About the Cover
- List of Abbreviations
- Introduction
- Prologue: The Prehistory of Power: Souls Spirits, Deities
- Part One Kings and Emperors
- 1 Divine Kingship in Mesopotamia
- 2 Pharaohs among the Indestructibles
- 3 Kingship among the Hebrews
- 4 The Deification of Roman Emperors
- 5 The Deva-Rajas in India and Southeast Asia
- 6 The Chinese Mandate from Heaven
- 7 The Japanese Imperial Cult
- Part Two Empires before the Common Era
- 8 The Legendary Empire of the Sumerians
- 9 Legendary Empires of Preclassical Greece
- 10 Patriarchs, Exodus, and the Epic of Israel
- 11 Legendary Empires of Ancient India
- 12 The Legendary Founding of Rome
- Part Three Founders
- 13 Moses: The Israelite Lawgiver
- 14 Buddha and Legends of Previous Buddhas
- 15 The Savior Narratives
- 16 Muhammad, the Qur’an, and Islam
- 17 The Virgin Mary through the Centuries
- 18 Tonantzin and Our Lady of Guadalupe
- Part Four Empires of the Common Era
- 19 Narrative Inventions of the Holy Roman Empire
- 20 The Epic of Kings, Alexander the Great, and the Malacca Sultinate
- 21 The Franks, Charlemagne, and the Chansons de Geste
- 22 The Legendary Kingdom of King Arthur
- 23 Ethiopian Kings and the Ark of the Covenant
- 24 Narratives of the Virgin Queen
- Part Five Ideologies
- 25 Discovery: The European Narrative of Power
- 26 Epics of the Portuguese Seaborne Empire
- 27 Dekanawida and the Iroquois League
- 28 The New England Canaan of the Puritans
- 29 The Marxist Classless Society
- 30 Adolph Hitler: Narratives of Aryans and Jews
- Epilogue: A Clash of Narratives
- Bibliography
- Index
- About the Author
Summary
Through the Jewish Torah, known also as the Pentateuch, runs a literary narrative that forms the core of the Epic of Israel. It does not present a history but an accumulation of myth, legend, prophecy, and narrative brought to its present form toward the middle of the first millennium BCE to form a “late Judean literary tradition” (Peckham 1993). Its features include a mythic antiquity from the beginning of the world, a covenant with the Hebrews by a powerful deity, and alleged origins for the Hebrews and Israel shaped as an epic narrative. These include genealogies stretching millennia into the past; eponymous ancestors for the Hebrews, Israel, and their enemies; chronometric inflation in ages attributed to ancestors; and gigantism associated with the size of armies, wars, numbers of captives, and conquests. Recognizing these requires demythologizing the text, shearing away sections on ancient Israelite law and ritual, and penetrating the naïve realism of setting and custom to expose its underlying fabric of imaginative narrative. What is left are narratives of power preceding and surrounding the Israelite empire of desire brought to a devastating end in 586 BCE, just before its compilation.
The Greek term Pentateuch means five books, the first five in the Bible. Genesis and Exodus provide the main part of the narrative. Leviticus and Numbers include interspersed continuations of the narrative separated by chapters setting out ancient Israel's legal code. These include laws, rituals, and practices from several different periods in Israel's history. During Moses’ second climb up Mount Sinai Yahweh instructs Moses to “cut two tablets of stones like the first ones” upon which he says “I will write on the tablets the words that were on the first tablets, which you broke” (Exod. 34:1–2), referring to the commandments received earlier (Exod. 20:3–17). However, Yahweh's second version (Exod. 34:14–26) is different from the first. The second version is originated in an earlier nomadic period of Hebrew history. Like most narratives accumulated over centuries, the Pentateuch retains earlier along with revised materials. Rather than older laws being eliminated or repealed, they have been preserved within a revelatory template, implying that both the originals and their updated versions were revealed to the Israelites before their conquest of Canaan.
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- Invented History, Fabricated PowerThe Narratives Shaping Civilization and Culture, pp. 111 - 126Publisher: Anthem PressPrint publication year: 2020