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The Legitimacy of Solomon Some structural aspects of Old Testament history

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 July 2009

Edmund Leach
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Extract

I must start with a personal disavowal. This essay employs an explicitly Lévi-Straussian procedure but it is not intended as a guide to wider aspects of Lévi-Strauss thought. Although I feel reasonably safe with Lévi-Strauss's concept of structure, I am quite out of my depth when it comes to the related but subtler notion of esprit. Lévi-Strauss's esprit appears in sundry guises. In 1952, originally in English, he/it was a personalized “human mind”, an uninvited guest who took his place around the conference table among a group of American linguists and anthropologists (1); in the earlier chapters of La pensée sauvage he is perhaps the bricoleur—handiman—who is busy contriving culture from the junk of history and anything else that comes to hand (2); at the conclusion of Le cru et le cuit (3), in more abstract and more serious vein, esprit seems to be a kind of limiting characteristic of the human brain mechanism and appears as part of an extremely involved interchange relationship in which it (esprit) is the causal force producing myths of which its own structure is a precipitate. Elsewhere again (4) esprit seems to correspond to that very mysterious something which is a mediator between “praxis et pratiques” and which is described as « le schème conceptuel par l'opération duquel une matière et une forme, dépourvues l'une et l'autre d'existence indépendante, s'accomplissent comme structures, c'est-à-dire comme êtres à la fois empiriques et intelligibles ».

Type
Aliénation et Structure or Conscience and Consciousness
Information
European Journal of Sociology / Archives Européennes de Sociologie , Volume 7 , Issue 1 , May 1966 , pp. 58 - 101
Copyright
Copyright © Archives Européenes de Sociology 1966

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References

(1) Lévi-Strauss, C., Anthropologie structural (Paris, Plon, 1958), p. 81.Google Scholar

(2) Lévi-Strauss, C., La pensée sauvage (Paris, Plon, 1962).Google Scholar

(3) Lévi-Strauss, C., Mythologiques: Le cru et le cuit (Paris, Plon, 1964), p. 346.Google Scholar

(4) Lévi-Strauss, C., La pensée sauvage, p. 173.Google Scholar

(5) Ryle, G., The Concept of Mind (London, Hutchinson, 1949), pp. 15 sqq.Google Scholar “The dogma of the Ghost in the Machine” is Professor Ryle's label for what he calls “the Official Doctrine”, deriving from Descartes, which treats mind and body as separate entities. Ryle's book is designed to demonstrate that this dogma “is entirely false”.

(6) Ginsberg, Morris (On the Diversity of Morals, London, Heinemann, 1956, p. 239)Google Scholar has translated a passage from Durkheim, 's Sociologie et philosophie (Paris, Presses univ. de France, 1924), pp. 74–75Google Scholar, as follows:

“Kant postulates God because without this hypothesis morality would be unintelligible. I postulate a personality, specifically distinct from individuals, because otherwise morality would have no object and duty, no point of attachment.”

Pocock, D. F. in his translation of Sociology and Philosophy (London, Cohen and West, 1953) pp. 51–52Google Scholar substitutes for the word “personality” the word “society”, thus quite altering the degree of reification implied.

(7) These comments are a free interpretation of part of what is argued at length by Paul Ricœur in “Structure et herméneutique” in Esprit, 11 1963, pp. 596–628.Google Scholar Ricœur makes extensive references to Gerhard von Rad, Tkeologie des Altes Testaments Bd. I, Die Theologie der gesckichtlichen Überlieferungen Israels (Munich, Chr. Kaiser Verlag, 1957)Google Scholar which has been translated into English as Old Testament Theology Vol. I, The Theology of Israel's Historical Tradition (London, Oliver and Boyd, 1962).Google Scholar Von Rad, like all orthodox Biblical scholars, takes it for granted that a fundamental core of “real history” underlies the narrative at least from the time of David onwards. My own scepticism is far more radical: King David and King Solomon are no more likely to be historical than are King Agamemnon and King Menelaus.

On the other hand, I share Finley, M. I.'s view (e.g. “Myth, Memory and History”, History and Theory, IV (1965), pp. 281–302)CrossRefGoogle Scholar that the distinction between myth and history is not necessarily clear cut. It need not be inconsistent to affirm that an historical record has mythical characteristics and functions. In point of fact Von Rad's historical assumptions, when modified by his refined techniques of textual criticism, often lead to conclusions which are entirely in accord with the implications of the “structuralist” procedures exemplified in this essay.

(8) Leach, E. R., “Lévi-Strauss in the Garden of Eden”, Transactions of the New York Academy of Sciences, 1961, 23–24, pp. 386–396.Google ScholarLeach, E. R., “Genesis as Myth”, Discovery, XXIII (1962), pp. 30–35.Google Scholar

Lévi-Strauss seems to regard ethnology and history as complementary but quite distinct forms of enquiry [La pensée sauvage (Paris, Plon, 1958), p. 39].Google Scholar This may explain why he uses a narrow definition of myth which makes it appear that the myths of contemporary Amerindians are cultural products of an entirely different kind from the mythical-historical traditions of the Jewish people in the first century b.c. My own view is that this distinction is quite artificial and that the structural analysis of myth should be equally applicable to both the time of men and the time of gods. (Cf. Finley, , op. cit. p. 288.)Google Scholar

(9) Apart from the sources mentioned in the text, the commentaries which I have found most useful are:

Hastings, James, A Dictionary of the Bible, 5 volumes, (New York, T. and T. Clark, 1898–1904)Google Scholar.

Cheyne, T. K. and Black, J. S., Encyclopaedia Biblica, 4 volumes (London, A & C Black, 1899–1903)Google Scholar.

Strong, James, The Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible (London, Hodder and Stoughton, 1894).Google Scholar

Driver, S. R. and others, The International Critical Commentary (London, T. and T. Clark, 1895–1951).Google Scholar

Two useful bibliographic sources of a different kind are: Widengren, G. “Early Hebrew Myths and their Interpretation” in Hooke, S. H., Myth, Ritual and Kingship, (Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1958), pp. 147–203Google Scholar.

Graves, R. and Patai, R., Hebrew Myths: The Book of Genesis (London, Cassell, 1964).Google Scholar

(10) For a recent full examination of the evidence see Bentzen, Aage, Introduction to the Old Testament, 4th Edition (Copenhagen, G. and C. Gad, 1958).Google Scholar It is probable that a substantially orthodox text had been established by 400 b.c. but modifications were still being introduced in the first century a.d. and there was more than one canonical orthodoxy.

(11) Graves, and Patai, (op. cit., 1964, p. 25)Google Scholar take note of the antiquity of this style of analysis. They are plainly scornful: “This scheme and others like it, prove the Rabbis' desire to credit God with systematic thought.” As my citation from Leo Strauss shows, there is more to it than that.

(12) Strauss, Leo “Interpretation of Genesis” (typescript of a lecture delivered at University College, University of Chicago, 01 25, 1957).Google Scholar

(13) If Nehemiah was a flesh and blood historical character then he lived about 400 B.C.

(14) Cook, S. A., Article “Jews”, Encyclopaedia Britannica, 14th edition.Google Scholar

(15) From the point of view of general communication theory randomly distributed minor textual inconsistencies may be looked upon as Gaussian noise. For a non-technical explanation of this point see Cherry, C.On Human Communication (Cambridge, Mass., M.I.T. Press and John Wiley and Sons Inc., 1957), p. 198.Google Scholar

(16) E.g. Evans-Pritchard, , The Nuer (Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1940).Google ScholarPeters, E., “The Proliferation of Segments in the Lineage of the Bedouin of Cyrenaica.” Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, XC (1960), pp. 23–53.Google ScholarFortes, M., The Dynamics of Clanship among the Tallensi (London, Oxford University Press, 1946).Google Scholar

(17) It deserves note that the fully historical Kingdom of Judaea of Simon Maccabaeus (second century b.c.) consisted of territory which, in the traditional narrative, was allocated to Judah, Benjamin and Ephraim. Samaria was at that time a separate province to the north. Ahab, the prototype “bad” northern king in the traditional history, is specifically described as King of Samaria (I Kings XVI, 29–30; XXI, 1).Google Scholar

In the genealogy, the tribe of Benjamin is linked with the tribes of Ephraim and Manasseh in that all are descended from Rachel, but Ephraim and Manasseh are the descendants of Joseph who becomes a foreigner. Joseph is the first of Jacob-Israel's sons to become separated from his father and the land of Israel. He becomes ruler of Egypt and marries an Egyptian. In contrast, Benjamin is the last of Jacob-Israel's sons to become separated from his father and his homeland (Genesis XLIII, XLVII, 20).Google Scholar

(18) In Hebrew as in English the phonemic difference between Zeruah and Zeruiah is slight, indeed in the lexicon of Biblical Hebrew the two words appear as adjacent entries. Some ancient texts imply that Zeruah was a harlot, but in Biblical contexts this too has ambiguous implications (see p. 87).

(19) There is a flat contradiction between Genesis XXIIIGoogle Scholar and L, 13 on the one hand, and Genesis XXXIII, 18–20Google Scholar and Acts VII, 16Google Scholar on the other. The first reference makes Abraham purchase a grave-site from the Hethites (Hittites) at Hebron; the second reference makes Abraham purchase a grave-site from the Shechemites at Shechem. David was first crowned king at Hebron; the secessionist Jeroboam was crowned king at Shechem. This contradiction, like the Calebite inconsistencies, must be a residue of editorial attempts to justify simultaneously two rival claims to the same title of ancestral right. As will be seen from the map Hebron and Shechem are symmetrically located north and south of the east-west frontier.

(20) In the story of Naboth's vineyard Naboth's virtue lies in the fact that he denies the right of King Ahab to buy out his inheritance with money (I Kings XXI, 2–3).Google Scholar

(21) Cf. von Rad, , op. cit. p. 64Google Scholar, also von Rad, G., Genesis (London, S.C.M. Press, 1961), p. 107.Google Scholar

(22) Orthodox scholarship here presumes a corrupt text and would substitute “Jesse” for “Nahash”.

(23) Cf. Schapera, I., “The Sin of Cain”, Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, LXXXV (1955)Google Scholar, Part I, Jan.–Dec., pp. 33–43. discusses sociological explanations of the fact that blood revenge cannot be taken against a fratricide.

(24) Modern Biblical scholarship recognises this material as having a distinct and unitary core referred to by von Rad and others as “The Succession Document”.

(25) Cf. Propp, V., The Morphology of the Folktale (Bloomington, Indiana University Research Center in Anthropology and Linguistics, 1958).Google Scholar

(26) Cf. Hooke, , op. cit.Google Scholar; also Raglan, Lord, The Hero (London, Methuen, 1936).Google Scholar

(27) von Rad, , Theologie des Altes Testaments, p. 325.Google Scholar

(28) Pfeiffer, Robert H., Introduction to the Old Testament (London, A. and C. Black, 1952), pp. 342–359.Google Scholar