Walter Kaufmann is probably best remembered as a translator and biographer of Nietzsche. What most people don't realize is that, among his other accomplishments, he also created not one but two perfect puns on the word "Mosaic."
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The traditional belief regarding the origin of the Torah/Pentateuch is that it is largely the work of one man, Moses. This is of course the Mosaic theory, and it is no longer considered academically respectable.
Since the 19th century, the orthodox "scholarly" view has been the documentary hypothesis: that the Torah was cobbled together from a number of (hypothetical) older documents. This began with fairly reasonable suggestions -- such as that Deuteronomy was by a different author, or that the two creation stories with which Genesis opens came from different sources -- but evolved into something increasingly ridiculous, with different verses in the same chapter, or even different clauses in the same verse, being ascribed to different authors. In Genesis 25, for example, we are meant to believe that vv. 1-4 are from the Elohist; vv. 7, 9-10, 13-18, 20, and parts and 8 and 11, from the Priestly source; 21-34 and the other parts of 8 and 11, from the Jahwist; 12 and 19, from the Book of Generations; and 5-6, added by the Redactor. This would make the Torah resemble nothing so much as one of those ransom notes created by cutting out individual words and letters from magazines, and so Kaufmann dubs it -- with reference to the art form which it also calls to mind -- the mosaic theory.
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Elsewhere, in a discussion of the prophets of the Old Testament, Kaufmann classifies them into two broad groups. First come the leaders and miracle-workers in the tradition of Moses himself, including such prominent figures as Elijah and Elisha. These are, naturally, the Mosaic prophets.
Later a different sort of prophet would arise -- independent and unorthodox, often scathingly critical of the religious establishment and the Temple cult, and focused on what used to be called "social justice" back in the days when that term referred to something good. Isaiah and Jeremiah are the most illustrious members of this group, but the first of them all was Amos, and so Kaufmann refers to them as -- wait for it -- the Amosaic prophets.
2 comments:
Good puns indeed. In what context were they made? Was K an Old Testament scholar as well as Nietzschian? (I've read several translations and his N biog.)
I am being forced to confess a considerable indifference to matters of spiritual truth wrt the OT. It contains (in the AU) first rate poetry and prose - but I regard Judaism as, in the deepest sense, accidental to the Christian's primary task of following Jesus. If someone wanted to omit the OT from their reading, as many Evangelicals do in practice, then they are as likely (or more likely) to gain as they are to lose from it. (Because the OT is so chock-full or wrong morals, ideas, doctrines, perspectives...)
Kaufmann was raised a Lutheran, converted to Judaism out of personal conviction, and only later found out that all four of his grandparents had been Jews. Later he became an atheist but retained an interest in and respect for the Bible -- rather like myself a few years ago. The puns I cite come from his Critique of Religion and Philosophy and/or The Faith of a Heretic. (I'm not sure which, as I no longer have either book in my library.)
I also lean towards the view that there is nothing uniquely true in the Old Testament religion, and that if Jesus had been born Greek or Chinese he could just as well (or nearly as well) have used either of those religious traditions as foundation on which to build.
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