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A Genealogy of Monotheism: of Secrets, Substitutes and Supplements

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A Genealogy of Monotheism: of Secrets, Substitutes and Supplements A Genealogy of Monotheism: Of Secrets, Substitutes and Supplements Marnie Anne Nolton B.A. (Hons), Murdoch University Grad. Dip. Arts, Edith Cowan University This thesis is presented for the degree of Master of Philosophy of Murdoch University, 2019 Declaration I declare that this thesis is my own account of my research and contains as its main content work which has not previously been submitted for a degree at any tertiary institution. Marnie Anne Nolton Abstract Jacques Derrida has noted of God that “God contradicts himself already ... only that which is written gives … [God] … existence by naming … [God]. It is simultaneously true that things come into existence and lose existence by being named” (Derrida 1978a: 70). Naming God can lose God. This is a significant insight for examinations of monotheism, drawing attention to its irrecusable contradictions, paradoxes and constitutive aporias. The significance of this insight is heightened when a second recognition is made regarding monotheism’s own discursive practices of exclusion and displacement, practices that are conventionally based on and legitimated by a narrative of presence. Together these points act to frame this dissertation insofar as they open the question as to their possible reconciliation. In this dissertation, then, I argue that Derrida’s deconstructive notion of supplementarity can support a genealogical analysis of this problematic informing traditional conceptions of God as the One and Only. God and monotheism – as I will demonstrate – are irrecusably haunted by their supplementarity. Hence, in this dissertation, via a genealogical analysis and close textual readings, I trace the supplementarity already present in the Hebrew Bible as well as in the theo-political, historical, theological and philosophical discourses that underpin and comprise the problematic of monotheism. Following Foucault’s and Derrida’s insights that analysis also facilitates a rethinking or an experiment, I conclude this work by sketching the outlines toward what could be called a deconstructed ethical monotheism. I name this thinking stance towards reconciliation of a One and Only thinking – a return to exile. 1 2 Contents Abstract 1 Contents 3 Acknowledgements 6 Abbreviations 7 Introduction 8 Genealogy and Eventalisation 15 Eventalising Monotheism 19 Events and Practices in Focus 25 Structuring a Monotheistic Genealogy 28 Chapter One: Sealings and Unsealings: Canonisation 34 Canons as Sealing 34 Inscribing 37 Canons in Antiquity 40 Canonical Processes 42 Sealing the Biblical Canon 47 Canons Uncovered 52 Bibical Commentary 53 Conclusion 57 Chapter Two: Eventalising the Bible as History 58 An Evental Problem: Bible as History 58 Albright’s Biblical Archaeology: One Event in the Problem of Bible as History 62 The Role of Archeaology in Biblical Scholarship 64 Surveying the Field: Interpretation of Monotheism and Archaeology 67 Developmental Narratives of the Emergence of Monotheism 74 Divergences 85 Continuity with Canaanite Beliefs 90 The Bible and History 93 Conclusion 95 Chapter Three: ‘Text’ and ‘Tradition’ 96 Convenantal Obligation 96 Biblical Claims for Monotheism: Exodus and Deuteronomy 100 The Divided Monarchies (ca. 928 to the Late Seventh Century BCE) 103 End of the Kingdom of Judah (Late Seventh to Early Sixth Centuries BCE) 105 The Persian Period (539-333 BCE) 106 3 The Forging of Monotheism 111 The Socio-politics of Monotheism 116 Problems for the One-ness of Monotheism 124 Conclusion 133 Chapter Four: The Theological (Re)Turn 134 Discursively Framing One-ness 134 The Hidden God and Negative Theology 135 The Neoplatonic Foreground to Negative Theology 139 Negative Theology in the Late Middle Ages 144 The Via Moderna: Further Divisions of Reason from Being 151 Kierkegaard’s Negative Theology 157 Negative Theology Returned 158 Conclusion 160 Chapter Five: Writing (and) the Dissonance of God(s) 165 A Genealogy for Presencing? 165 ‘Is God Dead’? 167 Nietzsche’s Death of God 170 Mapping Hegel’s Geist: Philosophy is Theology 172 Hegel’s Metaphysics 176 Hegel’s Death of God and the Dialectic 181 Conclusion 191 Chapter Six: Dis-closing Biblical Discourses 195 Onto-theology or Another Discourse for Presencing (as) Monotheism 195 Metaphysics and Onto-theology 197 Translation as Ontological Retrieval 201 Translation and Interpretation: Heidegger’s Retelling 205 Ereignis is not Another Name for Being 209 Ontological Difference and the Question of Naming: Exodus 3:11-4:17 216 Reorienting Thinking from Light (Licht) to Clearing (Lichtung) 219 The Heideggerian Filter: Explicating Divine Self-disclosure in Terms of Unconcealment 221 Conclusion 227 Chapter Seven: The Deconstruction of Presence and Divine Supplementarity 229 Introduction 229 Covenant: Presencing and (as) Obligation 231 Arche-writing, Différance, and the Disruption of Presence/ing 235 Of Structures, Signs and Play 242 Naming and Identity 246 Absence and Appeal 252 Hiding and Supplementarity 258 4 Chapter Eight: Supplementing Monotheism: Lawful or Just? 262 To Supplement Law 262 Of Deconstruction as Justice 264 Supplementing Torah in the Name of Law 268 Supplementing Torah in the Name of Justice 277 Welcoming in the Name of Justice 282 Final Reflections Toward an Open-Ended Future 289 Bibliography 295 5 Acknowledgments I would like to thank my supervisors Dr James Trotter and Dr Kathryn Trees for providing advice and guidance throughout, and to Emeritus Professor Horst Ruthrof who began this journey with me but was lured away by other adventures both maritime and bookish. I am grateful to the Graduate Research Office at Murdoch University who granted me extra time and support to complete this dissertation when I sustained a life- changing traumatic brain injury. I would like to acknowledge the support of a lively bunch of staff and students at Federation University Australia for adopting me and for their friendship, collegiality and hospitality when I was so far away from Murdoch University. I was blessed with the time I had with you in Ballarat – you challenged me in ways that made me a better listener, conversation partner and thinker. My time with you shaped me into the educator I am today. I am indebted to Professor Emerita Alice Mills whose constant encouragement and sharp eye assisted me greatly. I am thankful for my family and friends for being in my life and sharing the longue durée with me. In loving memory of friends Professor Niall Lucy and Dr Peta Bowden, and my family Jacques Pujol, Monique Pujol, E. Hope Shepperd, and my mother, Lydia Nolton who passed before this was completed. Merci maman. Lastly and by no means least, I extend profound gratitude and adoration to my partner Jane Mummery. Jane read and commented on countless drafts, endured epic brainstorming sessions, and sat through 997 photographs of clay cylinder seals and other ‘fascinating’ artefacts. I could not have done this without your unfailing belief in me. No statement, I think, could be more rewarding to you than the one I am about to make: I will learn to appreciate (and ethically manage) the forest as well as the trees. 6 Abbreviations ANESTP The Ancient Near East: Supplementary Texts and Pictures Relating to the Old Testament, J.B. Pritchard (ed.), Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1969a ANET The Ancient Near Eastern Texts Relating to the Old Testament, J.B. Pritchard (ed.), 3rd edn., Princeton: Princeton Univeristy, 1969b BAS Biblical Archaeology Society BAR Biblical Archaeology Review CTU The Cuneiform Alphabetic Texts from Ugarit, Ras Ibn Hani and Other Places, D. Manfried, O. Loretz and J. Sanmartín (eds.), 1995 DSS Dead Sea Scrolls DtrH Deuteronomic History JPS Jewish Publication Society LCL Loeb Classical Library NJPS TANAKH The Holy Scriptures: The New JPS Translation According to the Traditional Hebrew Text, New York: The Jewish Publication Society, 1988 JSOT Journal for the Study of the Old Testament JSOTSup Journal for the Study of the Old Testament: Supplement Series LXX Septuagint (Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible) NRSV New Revised Standard Version MT Masoretic Text (text of the Bible in Jewish tradition) 4QDeut Text(s) from Cave Four at Qumran SAA State Archives of Assyria SAAB State Archives of Assyria Bulletin SAAo State Archives of Assyria Online Rabbinic Writings (Mishnah, Tosefta) and Talmud b. Babylonian Talmud m. Mishnah Meg. Megillah Mid. Midrash Sanh. Sanhedrin t. Tosefta y. Yerushalmi Talmud yad. Yadayim 7 Introduction For what is put into question is precisely the quest for a rightful beginning, an absolute point of departure, a principal responsibility. (Derrida 1982a, 6) Counterbalancing the above problematic – which might be (and indeed has been) taken to mean that arbitrariness with regards to beginnings and structures cannot be overcome – Jacques Derrida has also proposed that “[w]e must begin wherever we are” (1997a, 162). In this case, with regards to the following project, this means to begin in the midst of what I am naming – with some difficulty (a difficulty Derrida too is also very aware of) – the monotheism of the Hebrew Bible. This could never be a simple beginning point insofar as the collecting and legitimating – the canonising, even – of the texts that are understood as comprising the Hebrew Bible has been a complex and contested process of identity creation and maintenance. Canons appear as naturalised collections and offer to the initiated recognisable (or to the outsider, unfathomable) ways of belonging to groups and communities in the way certain things are valued, that is, prioritised,
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