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    Robertson on Freud Moses

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    Robertson on Freud Moses

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as PDF or read online from Scribd
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    Download as pdf
    2 views10 pages

    Robertson-Sources of Moses and Monotheism

    Uploaded by

    jipnet
    Robertson on Freud Moses

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    © All Rights Reserved
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    of 10
    13. On the Sources of Moses and Monotheism Ritchie Robertson ‘Moses and Monotheism is related to a wide range of prior texts, many of which could be called sources of various kinds. Limitations of space and knowledge oblige me to deal only with three. First, since the book is presented as an amateur’s incursion into Biblical scholarship, the most obvious sources would be those scholarly works on the Old Testament that Freud drew on when planning and writing it. However, we also need to know how Freud used them and in what spirit he approached them; and for this we need to consider Freud’s view of the historical process that connected Old Testament times with the twentieth century, and the sources from which, at an carly age, he derived this conception of history. Secondly, we may note how far Freud’s familiarity with classic German literature affected the composition of Moses and Monotheism, And thirdly, we may consider Moses and Monotheism as a text launched against rival texts, and in particular against an alternative theory of mono- theism which Freud knew of and detested. ‘There are of course many other intertextual relationships that have been or could be investigated. One could regard the Bible itself asa source and try to describe the status it had for Freud, as neither a fully sacred nor a fully secular text; this would mean examining the edition of the Bible by Ludwig Philippson, with parallel Hebrew and German texts and German commentary drawing heavily on Talmudic and subsequent ‘exegeses, that Freud read in childhood, and considering how the text was ‘mediated by Philippson’s Enlightenment convictions, his respect for the ‘Talmud and his belief in the historicity even of the Creation narrative." 266 (On the Sources of Moses and Monotheism 267 More diffusely, one could inquire into the general climate of opinion, in ‘which the idea that Moses was an Egyprian turns our to have been wide- spread before Freud advanced it.* And one could consider also Freud’s reliance not only on his own psychoanalytic theories but on those de- ‘veloped by his followers: Orto Rank’s The Myth of the Birth of the Hero, which Freud acknowledges, and Karl Abraham's argument that Jewish monotheism originated in Egypt. This argument, closely anticipating Freud's, was put forward in 1912 in an article in Imago which Freud edited and discussed with Abraham, yet in Moses and Monotheism Freud makes no reference to it, perhaps because he felt that Abraham had subsequently treated him disloyally.? ‘Although this chapter is not primarily an interpretation of Moses and Monotheism, one can hardly ignore the interpretations that have so far been proposed, These range from the narrowly personal to the broadly cultural, Since Freud surmises that the Jews killed Moses, the text has inevitably been interpreted as expressing Freud's oedipal hostility towards his father.* This would be difficult o dispute, yer such interpretations have surely long since lost their power to illuminate. More interesting is 4 recent interpretation in which Freud’s emphasis on the murder of Moses is taken as a disguise for his ambivalence towards his mother, who is symbolically represented by the monotheistic religion.* When family dy- nnamies are combined with cultural pressures, the text can be read as a symbolic rejection of the Galician origins of Freud’s father.* It has also been seen as expressing Freud’s ambivalence towards Judaism and Jew- ishness in general.” I have myself tried to interpret it as a meditation on the underlying paradoxes of Jewish identity, and on how doctrines (in- cluding that of psychoanalysis) may survive despite temporary oblivion.” Accordingly, I am inclined to find more plausible those interpretations that are furthest from ‘vulgar Freudianism” and make Moses and Mon-

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