Seth - Biblical Item ID: #206The Invention of Hebrew (Traditions)Product Information:
Item Description The Invention of Hebrew is the first book to approach the Bible in light of recent findings on the use of the Hebrew alphabet as a deliberate and meaningful choice. Seth L. Sanders connects the Bible’s distinctive linguistic form–writing down a local spoken language–to a cultural desire to speak directly to people, summoning them to join a new community that the text itself helped call into being. Addressing the people of Israel through a vernacular literature, Hebrew texts gained the ability to address their audience as a public. By comparing Biblical documents with related ancient texts in Hebrew, Ugaritic, and Babylonian, this book details distinct ways in which Hebrew was a powerfully self-conscious political language. Revealing the enduring political stakes of Biblical writing, The Invention of Hebrew demonstrates how Hebrew assumed and promoted a source of power previously unknown in written literature : “the people” as the protagonist of religion and politics.
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Sanders argues against modern thinkers (Habermas, Anderson, and Warner) in showing that the ability to imagine and create a `public’ is not a new invention due to the advent of modern technology, but one of ancient origin which is still being perpetrated today. He takes the political study of texts and cultural formation to a new level, combining the two and creating a work that is well worth reading, referencing, and should serve as a catalyst of study for those who engage in the Hebrew Language and Old Testament formation.
“”"The call of Deuteronomy 6 is “Hear, O Israel!” Between “hear” and “Israel” is a moment of recognition…. The Bible is the first text to address people as a public. It is this call that the Bible’s audiences have been answering for more than two thousand years. pg 1- Preface”"”
While not strictly a theological book, Sanders’ work showcases the ancient Hebrew scriptures as a powerful text, itself transforming a people and political systems to the very day. This power is bound in the text because it `directly address a collective audience, a second-person plural “you” understood to be Israel. No literature addressed such a “you” before the bible. For biblical literature to become possible, fundamental assumptions about writing’s participants must have changed over the course of the Iron Age. (104)’ It becomes a political document in which for the first time the literature addresses not the king but the people. In doing so, the text becomes the mediator between God and humanity, almost ignoring the king. It wasn’t just Israel’s kings that God overruled, but so too those nations who were outside the land. By doing so, a collective `you’ was created, which is still heard today by those who read it. In other words, the text allowed the people to be under the authority of the God of the text.
For biblical students and political scientists alike, Sanders work stands as unifying work into what creates authority over a people. The author starts from the beginning by taking on Thomas Hobbs moving on to engage other current authors in the field. He acknowledges that others, such as Benedict Anderson `encourages us to think historically about the ways art and language help make forms of self-organization possible, without reducing them to mere ideological hoodwinking. (p34)’ Sanders has shown that because the style of address which the Hebrew Scriptures had, the bible itself contains inherent, albeit, political authority for those who have read it, either again and again or for the very first time. The speaker is God, whether through a prophet or a poet, addresses directly a people, or perhaps the individual holding a finely printed bible today, bypassing king and congress. Because of the collective you, the individual answers the call of the bible. The author writes, `It is this call that the Bible’s audiences have been answering for more than two thousand years. (pg1)’
A book on political authority inherent in an ancient document should be expected to be rather dry and academic, but the author’s style is comfortable. He introduces a cross-disciplinary approach to studying the ancient texts without diminishing his focus. He writes to the collective `you’ as well, carrying on a conversation with Hobbs who first attempted to undermine the authority the bible and the people who heard , engaging his reader and bringing them to the ultimate conclusion of just how important the Hebrew Scriptures are to understanding even our present political system.
Why has everyone from Haile Selassie to Martin Luther felt the bible was speaking to them, and why do we continue to find it powerful today? In this book, Seth Sanders combines anthropology and biblical studies to describe how Hebrew came to be used so widely, and to explain the unique status of the bible as a written document. According to Sanders, the bible was the first document to combine local Hebrew traditions of history telling and prophecy with imported Assyrian practices of addressing conquered people — as a result the bible put a people, rather than a king, at the center of history. Because it was one of the first books ever to speak directly to its readers, it makes anyone who reads it feels it is directed to them.
This book is extremely clearly written for an academic book, and even has a certain flair to it. It is also extremely short — 170 pages without the footnotes. Although at times it gets pretty technical, readers can easily skip the heavily epigraphic or theoretical bits and still keep up with the main argument because of the book’s clarity and structure. While over-educated Jews will realize that this book is actually a gigantic drosh on the shema, it will appeal to many, many other audiences as well: biblical scholars could read it, as could anthropologists — but the book is also perfectly approachable by anyone who studies the ancient near east or the bible seriously (not a little, but seriously) as a hobby. If it were available in softcover, or if you taught only certain chapters, it could be used in upper-level undergraduate courses in history, ancient near east, sociolinguistics, religion, political science, sociology — the list goes on and on.
In my opinion, this book is great. It combines so many fields that have been kept separate, compares ancient Israel with so many others cultures and societies. Reading Sanders’s book, you feel as if your eyes have been opened and the fog has lifted on a lot of ancient history. If you study the bible or the ancient near east, the book is a must-read. And if you do not, now is your chance to start: Sanders’s vision of the relation between politics and language is too good for anyone to pass up.