Countertraditions in the Bible

A Feminist Approach

Ilana Pardes

• Publisher: Harvard University Press
• Year: 1993
• ISBN:
  9780674266407
• Topic: Teología y religión
• Subtopic: Crítica e interpretación bíblicas

In this eye-opening book, llana Pardes explores the tense dialogue between dominant patriarchal discourses of the Bible and counter female voices. Pardes studies women's plots and subplots, dreams and pursuits, uncovering the diverse and at times conflicting figurations of femininity in biblical texts. She also sketches the ways in which antipatriarchal elements intermingle with other repressed elements in the Bible: polytheistic traditions, skeptical voices, and erotic longings.

1

Preliminary Excavations

Very deep is the well of the past. Should we not call it bottomless? Bottomless indeed, if—and perhaps only if—the past we mean is the past merely of the life of mankind, that riddling essence of which our own normally unsatisfied and quite abnormally wretched existences form a part; whose mystery, of course, includes our own and is the alpha and omega of all our questions, lending burning immediacy to all we say, and significance to all our striving. For the deeper we sound, the further down into the lower world of the past we probe and press, the more do we find that the earliest foundations of humanity, its history and culture, reveal themselves unfathomable. No matter to what hazardous lengths we let out our line they still withdraw again, and further, into the depths. Again and further are the right words, for the unresearchable plays a kind of mocking game with our researching ardours; it offers apparent holds and goals, behind which, when we have gained them, new reaches of the past still open out.

—Thomas Mann, Joseph and His Brothers

The well of the past, as Thomas Mann beautifully puts it, lures us to probe and explore its depths, promising “significance to all our striving,” a beginning and an end to all our questions. And yet the further we go back in time, the more we realize that the past is a “bottomless” well, which can only frustrate our desire to retrieve lost depths. This quest turns out to be all the more frustrating when the voices we wish to draw up from the past are voices of women whose words were only rarely recorded. The expedition then becomes, I would suggest, far more archaeological in character; it involves a search for mutilated ruins and relics scattered about. It requires, much like the psychoanalytic reconstruction of the past, a hermeneutics which cautiously follows the traces of repression in an attempt to uncover buried scenes.¹

In my effort to retrieve the biblical past, I oscillate between a disturbing suspicion that this well is quite empty insofar as female sources are concerned and a fascination with the unexpected ways in which antipatriarchal perspectives have been partially preserved, against all odds, in the canon. Accordingly, my analyses entail both an examination of the marks of patriarchal modes of censorship and an attempt to reconstruct, in light of the surviving remains, antithetical undercurrents which call into question the monotheistic repression of femininity. I try, in other words, to avoid an all too common tendency of feminist critics to turn the remote past into the fulfillment of current dreams. This does not mean that the present has no bearing on my endeavors. Quite the contrary. Like any hermeneutic pursuit, my own pursuit entails an attempt to make sense of the present in light of the past, to explore a distant mystery which includes our own. I try, however, to engage in a dialogue with the past without idealizing it. I strive to listen to the otherness of past voices, though I realize, with Stephen Greenblatt (1988:1), that in our most intense moments of straining to listen to the dead, it is often our own voices that we hear.

Two major trends of feminist biblical criticism are challenged in my book. The one trend, whose prominent representative is Phyllis Trible, seeks to “depatriarchalize” biblical texts. In her seminal work, God and the Rhetoric of Sexuality (1978), Trible sets the ground for an alternative feminist hermeneutics of Scripture, but her readings of the Bible turn out to be most problematic insofar as they efface its patriarchal stamp and endorse an idyllic reconciliation between “Biblical faith and women’s liberation” (1976:218). I equally criticize the opposite trend, the approach of feminist critics such as Esther Fuchs who focus solely on the patriarchal presuppositions of biblical representations of female characters. Both approaches have similar drawbacks: their ahistorical examination of the Bible, and their homogenization of its striking diversity.

My readings call for a consideration of the heterogeneity of the Hebrew canon, for an appreciation of the variety of socio-ideological horizons evident in this composite text. The contribution of nineteenth-century German biblical scholarship, that is, of Higher Criticism, in exposing this heterogeneity cannot be overestimated.² In an impressive demystification of the origin of Scriptures, Higher Criticism shattered the traditional notion of the Bible as the Word of God, treating it as a composite work whose history may be examined like any other ancient text. Through an analysis of stylistic features, narrative consistency, and theological approach, “higher critics” identified four principal strata in the Pentateuch: the Yahwistic Document (J), presumably the earliest source, dating back to the tenth century B.C.E.; the Elohistic Document (E), from approximately the ninth century B.C.E.; the Deuteronomistic Document (D), which might date back to the seventh century B.C.E.; and the Priestly Document (P), the latest source, considered to be representative of priestly traditions from the sixth and fifth centuries B.C.E.

The “documentary hypothesis,” once taken to be a historical truth, has been criticized in the past few decades from various directions. First, the speculative character of Higher Criticism’s findings (and datings in particular) has been laid bare. Second, it has been challenged from a literary perspective. Thus, Robert Alter, in his groundbreaking The Art of Biblical Narrative (1981), aptly criticizes biblical scholarship for its “atomism,” for its lack of attention to the intricate interrelations between biblical strands, its failure to take into account biblical poetics.

I would like to add yet another critique by using Bakhtin’s observations concerning heterogeneity. In his challenge to traditional notions of unity, Bakhtin is, in a sense, a follower of Higher Criticism (see Hartman 1986:13). Yet unlike his precursors, he does not set limits to textual diversity. Language, for Bakhtin, “at any given moment of its historical existence … is heteroglot from top to bottom: it represents the co-existence of socio-ideological contradictions between the present and the past, between differing epochs of the past, between different socio-ideological groups in the present, between tendencies, schools, circles and so forth, all given a bodily form. These ‘languages’ of heteroglossia intersect each other in a variety of ways, forming new socially typifying ‘languages’” (1981:291).

The Bible is far more of a heteroglot text than Higher Criticism would have it. The stratification which biblical scholars have offered is a good point of departure, but it does not suffice. What Higher Criticism didn’t dream of dealing with (nor did Bakhtin for that matter) is the gender code, or rather the possibility of friction between heterogeneous perceptions of femininity. My goal is to explore the tense dialogue between the dominant patriarchal discourses of the Bible and counter female voices which attempt to put forth other truths. In some cases I trace these antithetical voices in texts such as “The Bridegroom of Blood” (Exod. 4) or the Song of Songs, which often have been defined as deviant but rarely from a feminist perspective. In other cases I try to tease out the antithetical character of stories or subplots whose otherness has been overlooked by biblical exegetes. In most chapters I sharpen the antithetical features of these exceptional texts through an intertextual analysis. Thus I consider the Priestly story of creation as a reinterpretation of the Yahwistic one, the Book of Ruth as an antithetical completion of Genesis, and the Song of Songs as a critique of the prophetic representations of the amorous bond between God and the nation.

Needless to say, my own study is only a partial account of biblical heteroglossia; it is an attempt to present a heterogeneity that hitherto has been mostly overlooked. I should add, however, that although I focus on biblical representations of femininity, I attempt to sketch the ways in which antithetical female voices intermingle with other repressed elements in the Bible, primarily polytheistic elements, but also skeptical voices, anticovenantal currents, and erotic longings.

I examine these dialogues by means of an interdisciplinary approach, relying on feminist theory, literary criticism, biblical scholarship, and psychoanalysis, setting these disciplines at times against each other in order to expose inevitable points of tension. This theoretical heterogeneity, I think, contributes to the understanding of the character and function of the countertraditions I wish to explore.

My work owes much to Mieke Bal’s brilliant trilogy: Lethal Love (1987), Murder and Difference (1988a), and Death and Dissymmetry (1988b). Bal brought to biblical feminist criticism a refreshing interdisciplinary approach, whose intricacies I discuss in detail in the following chapter. It will suffice to say in the meantime, by way of introduction, that I find her narratological method of opening the text to other “subject positions” as well as her semiotic critique of the monolithically misogynist view of biblical interpretations most intriguing and powerful. I also agree with her claim that a historical consideration of biblical texts can only invigorate the critical gesture of feminist readings of the Bible.

I have, however, two reservations. First, Bal’s insightful readings of biblical narrative occasionally turn out to be anachronistic. This is particularly evident at points where Bal uncritically uses Christian concepts in her analyses. The Original Fall, like the association of sin and sexuality—two notions which Bal relies on in her reading of Genesis 2–3—are foreign to the Hebrew Bible. Her anachronism is also apparent in a lack of attention to the influence of polytheistic texts—Mesopotamian and Egyptian mythologies in particular—on biblical figurations of femininity!

Second, I find Bal’s association of reading strategies with given ideologies problematic. I do not mean to suggest that interpretive methods are innocent of an ideological base, but rather that the interrelations between the two are far more complex than Bal would have it. This tendency becomes jarring when Bal defines Trible’s work as sexist (“despite its feminist intentions”), while valorizing Lacan’s brief analysis of Hugo’s interpretation of the Book of Ruth. Although Lacan’s reading of the Book of Ruth undermines the antithetical representation of female heroism in this text by fore-grounding Boaz’s needs, it is curiously presented in Lethal Love as a nonsexist interpretation. It is in fact the only reading Bal does not criticize in her keen analysis of modern reception of biblical texts.

Miriam and Her Brothers

As a preliminary presentation of my excavative mode of analysis, I will examine the history of Miriam the prophetess, Moses’ sister. Unlike the story of “Shakespeare’s sister,” Virginia Woolf’s brilliant creation, the fate of Moses’ sister does not have to be invented.³ Her deeds are recorded in the history of the house of Israel.

Miriam’s story, however, is very brief, fragmentary, and scattered.⁴ She first appears in Exodus 2:4. Her name is not mentioned. Defined as Moses’ sister, she stands at a distance, watching over the ark of her baby brother as it lies afloat on the Nile, hidden among the reeds. She reappears in Exodus 2:7–8, where she cunningly talks Pharaoh’s daughter into employing a Hebrew woman as Moses’ nurse. While Moses grows up at Pharaoh’s palace and exerts his burgeoning powers, first in slaying an Egyptian and later in bargaining with Pharaoh, we hear nothing of Miriam. Nor is she mentioned in the detailed descriptions of the various preparations for the exodus. Upon the crossing of the Red Sea, she bursts out with a name and a title, leading the women in song and dance: “And Miriam the prophetess, the sister of Aaron, took a timbrel in her hand; and all the women went out after her with timbrels and with dances. And Miriam answered them, Sing ye to the Lord” (Exod. 15:20–21).⁵ But her career as a leading poet is curtailed. She disappears from the picture for the rest of Exodus and is never mentioned in Leviticus.

In the midst of the wanderings in the wilderness, in Numbers 12, Miriam turns up again in a story which does not have a prominent status in the collective memory. It is not recounted in children’s Bibles, nor has it been a topic for literary or artistic interpretations.⁶ Why do readers rarely remember this episode? I will attempt to tackle this question later on. Let us first recollect this piece.

And Miriam and Aaron spake against Moses because of the Ethiopian woman whom he had married: for he had married an Ethiopian woman. And they said, Hath the Lord indeed spoken only by Moses? hath he not spoken also by us? And the Lord heard it. (Now the man Moses was very meek, above all the men which were upon the face of the earth.) And the Lord spake suddenly unto Moses, and unto Aaron, and unto Miriam, Come out ye three unto the tabernacle of the congregation. And they three came out. And the Lord came down in the pillar of the cloud, and stood in the door of the tabernacle, and called Aaron and Miriam: and they both came forth. And He said, Hear now my words: If there be a prophet among you, I the Lord will make myself known unto him in a vision, and will speak unto him in a dream. My servant Moses is not so, who is faithful in all mine house. With him will I speak mouth to mouth, even apparently, and not in dark speeches; and the similitude of the Lord shall he behold: wherefore then were ye not afraid to speak against my servant Moses? And the anger of the Lord was kindled against them; and he departed. And the cloud departed from off the tabernacle; and, behold, Miriam became leprous, white as snow: And Aaron looked upon Miriam, and, behold, she was leprous. And Aaron said unto Moses, Alas, my lord, I beseech thee, lay not the sin upon us, wherein we have done foolishly, and wherein we have sinned. Let her not be as one dead, of whom the flesh is half consumed when he cometh out of his mother’s womb. And Moses cried unto the Lord, saying, Heal her now, O God, I beseech thee. And the Lord said unto Moses, If her father had but spit in her face, should she not be ashamed seven days? let her be shut out from the camp seven days, and after that let her be received in again. And Miriam was shut out from the camp seven days: and the people journeyed not till Miriam was brought in again. And afterward the people removed from Hazeroth, and pitched in the wilderness of Paran. (Num. 12)

This chapter poses reading difficulties which are not uncommon in biblical texts. The first verse, dealing with the reservations of Miriam and Aaron with respect to Moses’ Cushite wife, is most obscure. We do not know whether or not this Cushite wife was Zipporah, nor do we know why Miriam and Aaron were critical of the marriage. The following verse sheds no light on these matters for it raises an entirely different issue: the respective status of the siblings vis-à-vis God. Biblical scholarship has suggested that Numbers 12 consists of two different Yahwistic traditions (see Noth 1968:92–97) which have been combined, because both deal with complaints on the part of Miriam and Aaron against Moses’ conduct.

Perhaps the first strand is meant to present yet another story of female rivalry, cognate with the stories of Sarah and Hagar, or Rachel and Leah. But Aaron’s participation in this scene (even if he is not the principal instigator, as seems indicated by the order in which the siblings are presented in 12:1 and the fact that the verb “spake against” appears in the feminine singular form) and particularly the foreign origin of the Cushite wife point to other possible plots. All in all, this verse is far too nebulous and fragmentary to lend itself to a plausible interpretation.

Luckily the second strand offers a more substantial drama, the kind Gerald Bruns (1984) would call a “canonization story.” “Hath the Lord indeed spoken only by Moses?” Miriam and Aaron ask, protesting against the privileged status of Moses’ discourse. Their discourses too, they seem to claim, should be considered as authoritative and binding. They too, not unlike Moses, have been speaking under divine inspiration. Moses does not reply. Instead, God intervenes in this drama of sibling rivalry, reaffirms His favoritism, chastises the two rebels, and ends up striking Miriam with leprosy for seeking an equal footing with Moses. Exclusion from the canon is not necessarily a female issue, and yet the fact that Miriam is punished while Aaron is spared suggests that the Law has even less sympathy for oppositional female voices.

God’s punishment of Miriam is strikingly harsh, so much so that Aaron pleads on her behalf. Having learned a lesson about canonical hierarchies, however, he addresses Moses instead of God: “Let her not be as one dead, of whom the flesh is half consumed when he cometh out of his mother’s womb” (12:12). If Miriam plays a maternal role both in watching over Moses in Exodus 2 and later, on a national level, in her leading of the women in Exodus 15, the leprosy, as Aaron’s simile make...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Acknowledgments
• Contents
• 1. Preliminary Excavations
• 2. Creation according to Eve
• 3. Beyond Genesis 3: The Politics of Maternal Naming
• 4. Rachel’s Dream: The Female Subplot
• 5. Zipporah and the Struggle for Deliverance
• 6. The Book of Ruth: Idyllic Revisionism
• 7. “I Am a Wall, and My Breasts like Towers”: The Song of Songs and the Question of Canonization
• 8. Conclusion
• Notes
• Bibliography
• Index