Harvard Divinity School

This dissertation is a study of the systematic repetitions of the exodus motif in the Hebrew Bible. I argue that the textual enmeshing of the past exodus event within the biblical legal material is both innate to the fuller expression of the exodus tradition and further developed in the Hebrew Bible for the strategic purpose of shaping the future identity and covenantal obligations of its receivers. The dissertation itself is composed of three case studies. The first (chapter 2) addresses the enmeshing of sea and Sinai through constructed monuments in the Former Prophets. Specifically, it examines how these monuments became lieux de memoire (sites of memory) that mark epochs within a helical model of time—a historical slinky—capable of memorializing covenant renewals through allusions to the exodus event. I argue that each of these monuments functioned to signify what I refer to as parallel loops of a temporal slinky. The second case study (chapter 3) scrutinizes how the temporal slinky articulated in chapter 2 is subsequently codified within the prophetic literature. This chapter demonstrates how allusions to portions of the Holiness Code—specifically Leviticus 18–20—in Ezekiel’s so-called revisionist history (Ezekiel 20) function to reemphasize the relationship between the redemption schema of the exodus event—both its past and future iterations—and the legal obligations tied to that experience. In the third case study (chapter 4), I argue that the Chronicler recasts events not previously understood to be cyclical as a later iteration—or loop—of the temporal slinky. This chapter establishes Josiah’s death in 2 Chronicles as an inversion of the exodus, a significant departure from 2 Kings 22–23. My conclusion considers this habitual pattern of associating the legal corpora with the exodus event through allusions to both traditions. What precisely is gained by repeatedly combining these two phenomena? Ultimately, the practice demonstrates an ability to constructively reimagine the past for the purpose of shaping the identity of its future receivers.

This dissertation maps the functions of spirit language, rituals, and myths in the Hebrew Bible and in Second Temple Jewish literature. Most studies of these phenomena aim to decode them using modern categories (e.g., mental health, symbolization of oppression, demonization of the ‘other’). In contrast, this project applies models from cultural anthropology and ethnography on possession, trance, and other similar practices from around the world in order to reveal functions not usually associated with spirit texts (e.g., “technologies of the self,” social commentary, therapeutic self-othering, a means to reembody the past). It argues that this literature was a crucial component for constructing conceptions of the self in early Judaism and Christianity. Further, it demonstrates how the problematization of the self in biblical literature led to the enigmatic conceptions of spirit possession and exorcism found in Second Temple Jewish Literature. Chapter one, “Unfamiliar Spirits,” positions this project at the intersection of two contemporary scholarly discussions in biblical studies that have often proceeded separately (studies on conceptions of “the self” and of “evil”). Chapter two, “What are Spirit Phenomena?” defines the terms “possession” and “spirit phenomena” as they are used in the project and lays out the underlying investigative method of the dissertation. Chapter three provides an overview of previous scholarship on spirit phenomena in both biblical studies and the study of religion. Chapter four, “The Spirit and the Self,” demonstrates how spirit-language is a common mode for articulating notions of personhood in biblical literature. This conception is labelled the “animating spirit,” because it is conceived as material-like and as a bodily organ that is imparted at birth and extracted at death. Chapter five, “Possessing Spirits,” describes those spirit possession episodes in biblical literature that are temporally limited and imparted for a specific purpose. These spirits can be characterized as good, bad, or morally neutral and their presence is signaled by possession or trance behavior. Chapter six, “Demonizing the Self,” surveys biblical literature and select examples from the Dead Sea Scrolls, showing how the animating and possessing modes of spirit phenomena are not mutually exclusive but rather exist on a spectrum.