To Ilana Pardes, Associate Professor of Comparative Literature at
the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel isn't so much a land as
a complex collective character. 'The history of the children of
Israel is shaped as a biography,' she says in her introduction, and
she traces that history through close readings of the Bible and its
numerous metaphors, from birth in Egypt to the threshold of
maturity on the plains of Moab. Her readings of Genesis, Exodus and
Numbers are based on literary analysis and on psychoanalytic
theory. Thus she acknowledges a huge debt to Freud's
ground-breaking Moses and Monotheism, which applied Freud's
theories about the individual to what he termed 'mass psychology'
(rather like Jung's 'collective unconscious'). Pardes explores the
representation of 'collective murmurs', hidden desires, conflicting
memories, and the drama and ambivalence embedded in each phase of
the nation's life. She highlights the many anthropomorphisms by
which the collective character of Israel springs to life, and, from
the key metaphors and narrative details of the Old Testament,
teases out a compelling picture of the formation of the Israelite
nation. All of this is much less daunting than it sounds. What
seems on the surface an obscure academic exercise proves
surprisingly engaging and accessible. It is certain to be of
interest, not only to all biblical scholars, but to anyone
fascinated by the construction of Jewish identity, and national
identities in general. (Kirkus UK)
"Pardes has a remarkable gift for asking new questions about
familiar texts and providing fresh insights into old problems. By
looking closely at the key metaphors and the narrative details of
the biblical story of the formation of the Israelite nation, she
has teased out of the text a compelling biography."--Robert Alter,
Professor of Hebrew and Comparative Literature, University of
California, Berkeley
"Ilana Pardes elegantly recasts the mythic story of Israel's
emergence as the story of the birth, individuation, initiation, and
maturity of an emergent subject. Ambivalences, deferrals, power
struggles, and multiple memories all characterize Israel's
development and the stories told about it. Through a set of close
and graceful readings, Pardes persuasively argues that the first
five books of the Bible constitute, not the history, but the
biography of a nation." --Elizabeth A. Castelli, Barnard College,
author of "Imitating Paul: A Discourse of Power
"The book of books has generated many other works, but Ilana
Pardes's "The Biography of Ancient Israel" is in a class by itself.
In beautiful, spare prose, she reconstructs the way the biblical
authors imagined the history of ancient Israel. Artfully weaving
literary and psychological insights, she has given us an entirely
fresh view of the Bible as original as it is brilliant. This is a
book for every reader of the Bible who wishes 'to wrest tradition
away from a conformism that is about to overpower it.'"--David
Biale, author of "Eros and the Jews"
"This is a wonderful book and a delight to read. The idea of
treating the exodus story as a collective biography is quite
original, and makes possible a genuinely illuminating reading ofthe
story."--Michael Walzer, author of "Exodus and Revolution"
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