Über die Autorinnen und Autoren

Jan Assmann is Professor Emeritus of Egyptology at the University of Heidelberg. A prize-winning scholar, he has published extensively on religious history and ancient Egypt. Stanford published his Religion and Cultural Memory in 2006.

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THE PRICE OF MONOTHEISM

By Jan Assmann

STANFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS

Copyright © 2010 Board of Trustees of the Leland Stanford Junior University
All right reserved.
ISBN: 978-0-8047-6159-8

Contents

Translator's Note.........................................................................................ixIntroduction..............................................................................................11 The Mosaic Distinction and the Problem of Intolerance...................................................8How Many Religions Stand Behind the Old Testament?........................................................8What Is Truth?............................................................................................12Intolerance, Violence, and Exclusion......................................................................15Constructions of the Other: Religious Satire..............................................................232 Monotheism-A Counterreligion to What?...................................................................31Monotheism Versus Polytheism..............................................................................31Akhenaten and Moses: Egyptian and Biblical Monotheism.....................................................35Monotheism as Anti-Cosmotheism............................................................................39Monotheism as Political Theology: Ethics, Justice, Freedom................................................43Law and Morality in the "Pagan" World and the Theologization of Justice in Monotheism.....................483 The Clash of Memories: Between Idolatry and Iconoclasm..................................................57The Legend of the Lepers and the Amarna Trauma in Egypt...................................................57Iconoclasm and Iconolatry.................................................................................67Prisca theologia and the Abolition of the Mosaic Distinction..............................................76The Tightening of the Mosaic Distinction and the Rise of Paganology.......................................804 Sigmund Freud and Progress in intellectuality...........................................................85The Jewish and Greek Options..............................................................................87The Trauma of Monotheism: Analytic Hermeneutics and Mnemohistory..........................................89The Ban on Graven Images as Progress in Intellectuality...................................................975 The Psychohistorical consequences of Monotheism.........................................................104The "Scriptural Turn": From Cult to Book..................................................................104Into the Crypt............................................................................................109The Invention of the Inner Self...........................................................................112Counterreligion and the Concept of Sin....................................................................113Conclusion................................................................................................117Notes.....................................................................................................121

Chapter One

The Mosaic Distinction and the Problem of Intolerance How Many religions stand Behind the Old Testament? The shift from primary to secondary religion takes place in the Bible itself. Not one religion but two stand behind the books of the Testament. One scarcely differs from the primary religions that coexisted with it at the time in its adoration of a supreme god who dominates and far excels the other gods, without, however, excluding them in any way, a god who, as creator of the world and everything in it, cares for his creatures, increases the fertility of the flocks and fields, tames the elements, and directs the destiny of his people. The books and textual layers ascribed to the "priestly" traditional and redactional line are particularly shaped by this religion. The other religion, by contrast, sharply distinguishes itself from the religions of its environment by demanding that its One God be worshipped to the exclusion of all others, by banning the production of images, and by making divine favor depend less on sacrificial offerings and rites than on the righteous conduct of the individual and the observance of god-given, scripturally fixed laws. This religion is on display in the prophetic books, as well as in the texts and textual layers of the "Deuteronomic" line of tradition. As its name suggests, this "Deuteronomic" line has its center in Deuteronomy, the fifth book of Moses. This book breathes an unmistakably didactic and homiletic spirit that also animates other books and a specific redactional stratum. The texts ascribed to the priestly tradition lack a clear center, such as that represented by Deuteronomy, instead being dispersed throughout the first four books of Moses. Despite that, they have an all the more conspicuous center in the temple of Jerusalem. These texts belong to the cult of the temple and are addressed to a professional sacerdotal caste of readers, whereas the Deuteronomical tradition is pitched at a much wider audience. "The Deuteronomium," writes Gerhard von Rad, "has something about it that speaks directly to the heart; but it also satisfies the head through its continual willingness to explain itself. In short, it is perfectly adapted to its readers or listeners and their capacity for theological understanding. This vibrant will to interpretation is entirely missing from the writings of the priests. Their task was essentially limited to compiling, selecting and theologically classifying the relevant material." Whereas the priestly writings constitute a manual that serves as a foundation for the temple cult, the Deuteronomium is a prescriptive textbook and guidebook that purports to lay the foundation for the practical and social life of the entire community. Over and above these stylistic and functional differences, however, the two lines of tradition appear to derive from two different types of religious experience. Whereas the religion associated with the priestly writings aims to make its people at home in the world, to integrate all things human into the divine order of nature, the religion that announces itself in the Deuteronomic tradition aims to transcend the world, to release its people from the constraints of this world by binding them to the otherworldly order of the law. One religion requires its people to turn towards the world in rituals of cult and sacrifice, giving their rapt assent to the divine order of creation; the other demands, above all, that they turn away from the world by assiduously studying the writings in which god's will and truth have been deposited.

These two religions are not just placed side by side in the Hebrew Bible. Rather, they stand opposed to each other in a relationship of tension, since one envisages precisely what the other negates. That this antagonism does not break out into open contradiction is due to the fact that neither religion unfolds in its full purity and rigor in the writings of the old Testament. The archaic, polytheistic religion that seeks to make its votaries at home in the world is accessible to us only in fragments, having been painted over by the monotheistic redaction. It cannot be reconstructed in anything more than broad outline, with the help of numerous parallels drawn from neighboring religions. The post-archaic,...