King and Kin: Political Allegory in the Hebrew Bible

278 Pages·1986·1.15 MB·English

by  Joel Rosenberg

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title: King and Kin : Political Allegory in the Hebrew Bible Indiana
Studies in Biblical Literature
author: Rosenberg, Joel.
publisher: Indiana University Press
isbn10 | asin:
print isbn13: 9780253146243
ebook isbn13: 9780585108438
language: English
subject Abraham,--(Biblical patriarch), David,--King of Israel, Bible.--
O.T.--Criticism, interpretation, etc, Politics in the Bible,
Symbolism in the Bible, Eden.
publication date: 1986
lcc: BS1199.P6R67 1986eb
ddc: 221
subject: Abraham,--(Biblical patriarch), David,--King of Israel, Bible.--
O.T.--Criticism, interpretation, etc, Politics in the Bible,
Symbolism in the Bible, Eden.
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Indiana Studies in Biblical Literature
Herbert Marks and Robert Polzin,
General Editors

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Rembrandt, The Sacrifice of Abraham
(reproduced by permission of Graphischen Sammlung Albertina, Vienna)

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King and Kin
Political Allegory in the Hebrew Bible
Joel Rosenberg
INDIANA UNIVERSITY PRESS
BLOOMINGTON & INDIANAPOLIS

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Disclaimer:
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For Donald and Ellen
friends and fellow readers
© 1986 by Joel Rosenberg
All rights reserved
No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including
photocopying and recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the
publisher. The Association of American University Presses' Resolution on Permissions constitutes the only exception to this
prohibition.
Manufactured in the United States of America
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Rosenberg, Joel, 1943
King and kin.
(Indiana studies in biblical literature)
Bibliography: p.
Includes index.
1. Politics in the Bible. 2. Symbolism in the Bible.
3. Eden. 4. Abraham (Biblical patriarch) 5. David,
King of Israel. 6. Bible. O.T.Criticism, interpreta-
tion, etc. I. Title. II. Series.
BS1199.P6R67 1986 220.8'32 85-45160
ISBN 0-253-14624-0
ISBN 0-253-20396-1 (pbk.)
1 2 3 4 5 90 89 88 87 86

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CONTENTS
Preface ix
Acknowledgments xiv
A Note on Transliteration of Hebrew Words xv
Preliminaries: the Question of Biblical Allegory 1
I. The Garden Story Forward and Backward: The Non-Narrative
Dimension of Gen. 23 47
II. Is There a Story of Abraham? 69
III. David without Diagrams: Beyond Structure in the Davidic History 99
From House to House 113
Going Indoors 124
YHWH's Anointed 133
Amnon and Tamar 140
Nabal and Abigail 149
Absalom 156
The Imperium 160
The Sons of Zeruiah 164
"This Way and That" 172
"Good and Evil" 182
The Garden 189
Epilogue: The Nature of an Allegorical Relation 201
Abbreviations 211
Notes 213
Index 250

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Page ix
PREFACE
Some years back, I became convinced of a simple and yet fundamental truth about the Hebrew Bible's continuous narrative:
that, regardless of the alleged multiplicity of its sources, it formed a single, coherent, and integrated argument, of what I would
call today "political" import. At the time, the larger contours of that argument were unclear to me, and at first I restricted my
interest to what is commonly called the "Tetrateuch" (Genesis through Numbers). At the time, I also imagined I was dealing
with a literary source in the conventional sense of the term: i.e., a document penned by a single author, bearing the hallmarks of
a distinctive and idiosyncratic literary stylea terse, wryly ironic, and allusive style that required something of an esoteric, or, if
you will, allegorical interpretation. Time and experience with biblical texts required me to modify my views somewhat,
including both my sense of the text's message and my sense of its ''authorship," but my basic conviction of its unity, style, and
purposeful indirection has remained essentially unchanged. The present work seeks to demonstrate the shape, style, and
argument of three narrative complexes taken from the larger continuous narrative of Genesis through II Kingsnamely, the
Garden story, the Abraham cycle, and the Davidic historyand to show their interrelation.
The first fruit of my researches was a doctoral dissertation in the History of Consciousness at the University of California at
Santa Cruz, completed in 1978. 1 The present work began as a revision of that work, but, as such things often happen, the
revision became a wholly new and unforeseen treatment of the subject. In the final paragraph of the dissertation, I suggested,
perhaps somewhat tongue-in-cheek, that the Hebrew Bible was "the first work of rabbinic literature." By this I meant that it
evinced an underlying critical intelligence that weighed, balanced, and contrasted traditionary2 variants in a manner much
analogous to that found in a page of Talmud. This critical intelligence, moreover, performed its work under cultural
assumptions, and under historical and religious imperatives, also analogous to those of rabbinic literature; it affirmed similar
values, and bespoke a comparable program of education for the people of its milieu and era. Although it would be tempting to
try a rigorous and considered comparison of the two modes of dis-

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course, biblical and rabbinic, it is neither feasible nor necessary to do so in the present work. It is sufficient to try to evaluate
how biblical narrative talks and what it is saying. 3 The differences between the two modes, moreover, are as instructive as the
similarities: the Talmud names its sources, the Bible does not; the Talmud is addressed to legal specialists, the Bible is not; the
Talmud makes no attempt to maintain a continuous story, the Bible does. The end comment of my dissertation, however, is in
some sense the point of departure for the innovations attempted here. I want to explore the Hebrew Bible's own internally
exegetical dimension.
What, then, do I mean by "political import"? The makers of biblical literature were not solely concerned with advancing a
particular view of God, or religious ritual, or moral law; on another plane, they were not solely concerned with telling a good
story. Rather, they were deeply preoccupied with the nature of Israel's political community and were interested in the premises
of political existence, addressing themselves to readers who thought about such things as leadership, authority, social
cohesiveness, political order, rebellion, crime, justice, institutional evolution, and the relation of rich and poor. Any attempt to
characterize biblical religion and culture that does not take into account the political dimension, that speaks in "eternal" verities
and purely "spiritual" categories, will deeply misunderstand the subject. Similarly, any purely "literary'' approach that sees in the
biblical text a form of art and entertainment, or a purely psychologized kind of irony, or that tries to examine the narrative in
isolation from its accompanying non-narrative materials, will likewise fall short of the mark. Biblical thought is rooted in its
time and place, and, as such, is addressed to a particular kind of reader, one willing to undertake the deeply philosophical task of
knowing "Israel'' in all her dimensions. As such, this reader must be willing to ask what forces bind or divide the members of a
political communityfrom the smallest scope of household and family, to the wider scope of village, tribe, and tribal
confederation, to the widest scope of nation-state and kingdom.
For reasons obvious enough, the most sensitive period of Israel's development was her transition from confederation to kingdom,
and it is no accident that the greatest narrative space is lavished on the figure who effected that change: King David. A study
focusing on MosesIsrael's other formative leaderwould have decidedly different contours from one focusing on David. If Moses
and David are in some respects parallel figures, they are, in other respects, polar opposites: Moses was a reluctant leader, David
an ambitious one; Moses was humble, David self-promoting; Moses clumsy of tongue, David a maker of songs and a genius of
public relations; Moses a prophet who challenged a king, David a king who subverted the institutions of the prophets. Moses'
grave-site is unknown, David's is Mt. Zion; Moses yielded to a successor from another

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