From Hebrews to Israelites

Chapter 10 Abraham/Moses
Emily Kessler
English 308J

Summary:
Schlain begins the chapter by saying that the Hebrews "are the only people of antiquity whose fundamental belief system has survived the scouring of centuries... despite a litany of calamities that should have extinguished them (Schlain 87)." The Old Testament and the origins of Judaism are important because at a time when the goddess was still held in high regard, Judaism was founded on the claim that "a masculine deity created life without any female participation (Schlain 88)." Schlain argues that the Old Testament is a literary narrative and combines parts that can be regarded as myth, legend, and history. Schlain claims that the crossover from myth to legend begins with Abram. Abram grew up in Ur and was the son of Terah, a man who carved sacred images out of wood. Due to his fathers profession, Schlain speculates that Abram could read cuneiform and that he looked down on those who believed that his fathers wood carvings could emanate the divine. Terah's family moved from Ur to Canaan and when Terah died, Abram became the leader of the clan. When Abram was ninety-nine, Yahweh appeared to him and said that the childless Abram would spread his seed and that one day his heirs would possess the land of Canaan. Twenty-four years later, Yahweh appeared to Abram again and they made a non-written covenant that promised Abram the things he had previously been told he would receive if all the males of this new faith sacrificed the foreskin of their penises. This marks a shift to a patriarchal society, because since the females had no foreskin to offer, they were powerless over this covenant (Schlain 92). Abram's clan held true to their part of the covenant and Abram and his wife Sarai were told to change their names to Abraham and Sarah and they became the first Israelites. To their delight, their first born son, Isaac, was born. Yahweh then told Abraham that he must sacrifice Isaac, and just as he was about to kill him, Yahweh stopped Abraham and told him it was a test of faith. Isaac then went on to marry Rebecca and have two sons, Esau and Jacob. Jacob inherited the clan and journeyed to Haran, where he fell in love with Rachel. Jacob returned to Canaan with two wives, Rachel and her sister Leah. They bore him eight sons and one daughter. Jacob's favorite son was Joseph. Joseph's brothers were jealous of him and decided to throw him into a well and leave him for dead, but Joseph was rescued and taken to Egypt. There he ended up in a prison where he interpreted dreams of other prisoners. The pharaoh was so impressed with Joseph that he became the second most powerful leader in Egypt. Joseph told the pharaoh of a famine that was coming and warned him to save food. When the famine occurred, the Egyptians traded their land to the pharaoh for food. During this time Joseph's family, the Hebrews, also moved to Egypt. Schlain believes that the Old Testament gains credibility if we assume that the Hyksos invasion of Egypt had already occurred and a Hyksos king was the leader of Egypt at the time of Josephs arrival there. The Hyksos king would have been more likely to trust someone of another ethnicity than one of his conquered native Egyptians (Schlain 96). Joseph and the pharaoh both died and the new pharaoh forced the Hebrews into slavery where they worked at camps until death, and the new pharaoh also ordered all the first born sons of Hebrew women to die. One woman, afraid of what would happen, set her son afloat down the river where he was discovered by the pharaohs daughter and named Moses. Years later, Moses defended a Hebrew laborer and killed an Egyptian overseer. He fled the kingdom and settled in a Midianite camp. One day while walking, Moses came across a burning bush. Yahweh spoke from the flames and told him that he had been chosen to liberate the Hebrews. Yahweh again promised that he would provide a homeland for the Hebrews if Moses followed his directions. Moses went to the pharaoh and demanded that his people be let go. The pharaoh refused and a series of plagues struck Egypt. The pharaoh still would not let the Hebrews go, so Yahweh came and killed all of the Egyptians first born sons, including the pharaohs son. The Hebrews were released from slavery and started on their journey to Mount Sinai. The Egyptians were chasing after them when they came to an uncrossable sea. Moses parted the sea for the Hebrews to get through and then had it come crashing down on the pharaoh, killing him and his troops. The Hebrews made it to Mount Sinai where Moses ascended the mountain and came back down with two stone tablets containing the ten commandments, or rules from Yahweh. To his surprise, when he descended the mountain he found that his people had fashioned a golden calf to worship while he was gone. Moses was angry about this and broke the stone tablets against the golden calf, destroying it too. "When the Hebrews' first written words confronted their last image, the resulting collision destroyed them both (Schlain 100)." Moses ascended back into the mountain to write a new set of commandments, and as his last act he wrote down the whole Hebrew history on a scroll so that his people could read it regularly. Yahweh commanded that the Canaanites be slaughtered for worshipping an image, and that the Israelites take over their land. The Israelites were successful and "words triumphed in this first of many confrontations between pictures and text (Schlain 102)."

Schlain has a strong pathos appeal in this chapter because it delves very deeply into the depths of religion and the persecution of the Hebrews by the Egyptians. There is also a lot of talk about death and dying in this chapter. Especially with first born sons it seems like. I believe Schlains ethos becomes a little shaky in this chapter since most of his information comes from the Old Testament and he himself admits that the authors are unknown and that parts of the book are most likely myth. "The unknown authors of the Old Testament conjoined myth, history, and legend so artfully that it is impossible to tell where one ends and another begins (Schlain 89)." He does however build his ethos back up by citing three specialists that take his side regarding Hyksos rule during the time of Joseph's reign. "A few specialists, such as Martin Bernal, Cyrus Gordon, and Donald Redford, have indeed proposed that the Exodus was coterminous with the Hyksos rule in Egypt (Schlain 97)."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6VTH5SWDFq4

Why do you think it is that the written word prevailed over images? Is it strictly because the commandments prohibit the worship or "idols", or is there something else to it?

Schlain, Leonard. The Alphabet Versus The Goddess. New York: Penguin, 1998. Print.

"Prince Of Egypt"- The Burning Bush. youtube.com. 10 June 2008. Web. 5 Oct. 2010.