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UC Berkeley UC Berkeley Electronic Theses and Dissertations Title Weak Prophecy: Recasting Prophetic Power in the Classical Hebrew Prophets and in Their Modern Reception Permalink https://escholarship.org/uc/item/33x7c1pk Author Raz, Yosefa Publication Date 2013 Peer reviewed|Thesis/dissertation eScholarship.org Powered by the California Digital Library University of California Weak Prophecy: Recasting Prophetic Power in the Classical Hebrew Prophets and in Their Modern Reception by Yosefa Raz A dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree of Joint Doctor of Philosophy with the Graduate Theological Union in Jewish Studies in the Graduate Division of the University of California, Berkeley Committee in charge: Professor Ronald S. Hendel, chair Professor Robert Alter Professor Chana Kronfeld Professor Steven Goldsmith Professor Naomi Seidman Fall 2013 Weak Prophecy: Recasting Prophetic Power in the Classical Hebrew Prophets and in Their Modern Reception c2013 by Yosefa Raz Abstract Weak Prophecy: Recasting Prophetic Power in the Classical Hebrew Prophets and in Their Modern Reception by Yosefa Raz Joint Doctor of Philosophy in Jewish Studies with the Graduate Theological Union University of California, Berkeley Professor Ronald S. Hendel, Chair This dissertation is concerned with moments of prophetic failing, weakness, and undoing both in the biblical text and in its reception in modernity. Rather than a monolithic testimony to the manifestation of divine will in history, or a grand and unified moral vision, the prophetic corpus is riddled with failure. At the same time, the destabilizing elements of prophecy can function as creative, generative forces, fashioning both literary richness and political significance and influence. My primary theoretical model for the generative power of weakness is derived from Walter Benjamin's articulation of the power of weak messianism as a way to radically reformulate the categories of weakness and strength, success and failure. The redaction of the prophetic text is often a record of anxiety, an attempt to impose a coherent, strong vision on an incoherent, difficult oracle. This secret struggle between strong and weak prophecy is replicated at key moments in biblical reception. Thus, specific moments in the reception of a prophetic text can flare up and help explain the political stakes of a biblical text both in the past and in the present. In Chapter One, I take in the figure of the ideal prophet from a distance by considering the phantasmagoric construction of Moses in the Deuteronomistic redactions of the Book of Jeremiah. I show how the idea of a strong prophet, or a strong prophetic lineage, has been imposed by late, melancholic redactions that read and write the golden age of prophecy from the distance of national catastrophe and exile. In Chapter Two, I discuss Isaiah's call narrative, the site of both great prophetic strength and prophetic weakness. The Book of Isaiah assumes key significance for Lowth, the eighteenth century scholar, exegete, cleric, and politician. Through Isaiah's mastery of poetic forms, the Book of Isaiah becomes representative of a biblical sublime that sets the stage for the yoking of prophecy to poetry and the Romantic figure of the poet-prophet. Yet Lowth's imposition of the genius of authorship on the multi-layered biblical text comes at the expense of repressing unruly English outbreaks of prophetic enthusiasm as well as the troubling theological questions posed by the text. 1 Chapter Three examines nineteenth century biblical scholarship's valorization of the original oral prophets over a later written prophecy, degraded by a priestly scribalism. Oral prophecy has been characterized by a situation of social authenticity, a face-to-face conversation, whether with God, or with an audience. For scholars following Wellhausen, the prophet Ezekiel marks the moment of transformation from oral to written prophecy. I examine and critique this teleological view of prophecy by returning to Ezekiel's apostrophes. As opposed to a deadening scribal effect I show Ezekiel's apostrophe to the mountains of Israel is a text in the process of unraveling, and paradoxically, in its weakness, creating a generative "line of flight" marked by the prophet's averted face. Chapter Four takes up the reinscription of prophecy in the literature of Hebrew Revival, at the turn of the twentieth century and its reception in Hebrew modernism. While public intellectuals tried to create a cultural Bible that would help guide the Jews to national revival, the practice of the prophetic mode in Hebrew was an encounter in precariousness. The fragmented modern selves of the poets, assailed by secular doubt and ambivalence about aspects of Zionist nation-building, activated the destabilizing elements of the prophetic texts themselves. Rather than presenting the heroic face-to-face prophecy of Moses, the Hebrew prophet-poets, through a complex intertextuality, illuminated a biblical prophecy that stutters, fails, averts its face, addresses the disintegration of the nation rather than its formation. Seizing up this moment of prophetic weakness in the decades before Israeli statehood is a form of remembrance and a way to enable a transformation of the future. 2 TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS..........................................................................................ii INTRODUCTION.........................................................................................................iii CHAPTER ONE Strong Prophecy as a Melancholic Ideal: Jeremiah Writes Moses............................1 CHAPTER TWO Isaiah's Call Narrative and the Stutters of the Prophet-Poet...................................35 CHAPTER THREE Ezekiel's Apostrophe, Textuality, and Distance........................................................70 CHAPTER FOUR Treading on Thin Ice: The New Hebrew Poetry and Prophetic Weakness..........94 BIBLIOGRAPHY........................................................................................................131 i ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS The sentences of this dissertation are maps and records of my numerous exciting and sustaining conversations from Berkeley to Jerusalem to Tel Aviv. Many people offered me their wisdom, encouragement, and teachings during these extraordinary years of study. At Berkeley, I was privileged to have a group of unusually kind and inspiring teachers reading and commenting on my work. Foremost, I want to thank Ron Hendel, my dissertation chair, whose generous listening enabled me to find an academic voice. He showed me how to work on a text with patience, humor, and rigor. Chana Kronfeld provided a model for a life lived in poetry and in translation, and for scholarship that creates true community. I am grateful for her care about my well-being, intellectual and otherwise, and for welcoming me into the family of her students. Robert Alter's beautiful sentences first made me want to write about the Bible, and I am honored to be his student. Steve Goldsmith's consistent encouragement, devoted professionalism, and intellectual rigor made him an invaluable reader, and I will treasure our conversations. Naomi Seidman's guidance was surprising, always incisive, playful, invaluable in spotting my blind spots. Ilana Pardes helped formulate the project in its early stages and provided a welcoming base-camp at Hebrew University, my old alma mater. During my semesters in Israel, classes with Ronnie Goldstein and Baruch Schwartz provided vital scholarly tools. I am grateful to have also studied with Avraham Leader, who helped me weave the scholarship back to my life. Steve Weitzman responded to my work at a key moment in the development of the project, and Karen Feldman asked valuable questions about Benjamin and shared her writing process. I am thankful for the support of the Joint Doctoral Program in Jewish Studies and the Near Eastern Studies Department in the form of in-depth seminars, wonderful teaching opportunities, fellowships, and literary salons. The Newhouse and Koret fellowships held the shape for these formative years of walking, thinking, and reading, and Diller and Taube travel grants made translation projects and language study possible. I am especially grateful to Shorena Kurtsikidze who eased transitions between countries and departments. My students at Berkeley were always interesting and often delightful. The Haas Koshland Memorial Award facilitated an important semester in Israel, and a fellowship from the Maurice and Marilyn Cohen Fund sustained me in this last intense year. Sara Weinrib, Rhiannon Graybill, Ramsey McGlazer, Caroline Knapp, Megan O'Connor, Michelle Ty, Chaya Gusfeld, Laura Woltag, Adena Steinberg, Naama Hochstein, and David Crane commented on my work, talked me and fed me through grad school, inspired me with their thoughts and their lives. Henry Wasserman charmingly and crankily marked up my drafts. Alana Seigel proofread as poet. Maya Barzilai has been a loyal reader and friend for almost two decades, for which I am very grateful. David Brazil, study partner, kept track of critical dissertation paralipomena. Shaul Setter provided rare and superb conversation. My family let me go into realms unfamiliar while still staying connected, and all my friends in both countries held the disjuncts and intimacies of immigration. Yonatan Wasserman did my vowels and my laundry and came on for the scariest, most important parts. I dedicate these years of study and writing to Rabbi Abraham Ruderman z"l,