Misusing Science
LEVIANT, CURT
Misusing Science Moses: The Man and His Vision By David Daiches Praeger. 264 pp. $19.95. Reviewed by Curt Leviant Professor of Hebraic Studies, Rutgers; literary critic and translator...
...Regarding the slaying of the firstborn, Daiches writes: "Some fierce and bitter national memory surely lies behind this vivid picture...
...That is why any novel, any Midrash or any chapter of the Bible for that matter is far more credible and readable than a pseudoscholarly work...
...Hence, if an author seeks to produce a book like Yigael Yadin's Bar Kochba (which Daiches' volume, I suspect, tries to emulate, pictures and all), he cannot possibly succeed...
...Reading this work, we must continually remember that there is merely internal evidence regarding Moses...
...Only speculation upon speculation can be presented to us, and that is Daiches' approach...
...No heavy tomes or other scholars' interpretations weigh Daiches down here...
...In retelling and attempting to explain the Moses story from the hero's birth, through the desert wanderings, to the time of his death, he relies heavily on the interpretations and findings of others...
...There are, for instance, no Egyptian sources that discuss or even mention him...
...nor will the skeptic be convinced, for there are infinite gaps and ifs...
...Similarly, of the reaction to the spies who return with the report on the Promised Land, the author asserts: "This must be an echo of a real historical situation...
...What he has given us is neither readable from a scholarly point of view nor poetically heightening from an imaginist's point of view...
...The believer accepts on faith...
...He is at last free to indulge in personal and not semi-scholarly speculation...
...In sum, the text is dull and the long paragraphs are tedious...
...One line in the book, describing the crossing of the Jordan, is a paradigm for his entire approach: " the account is presented in a confused mass of material from different sources...
...He would have had further linguistic and literary evidence as well to bolster his case for the existence of the man and leader Moses...
...His belief will not be strengthened by Daiches' shaky account...
...I regret that the author did not read the work of Umberto (Uriel) Cassuto, the great Hebrew Biblical scholar whose books are available in English...
...The glue that binds the ostensible proofs is made up of too many qualifying phrases?highly probable," "it is very likely"—that are useful for conjecture but not for history...
...So David Daiches cannot be faulted for his lack of daring...
...I would have much preferred an impressionistic personal Midrash, if you will, that can contain as much inspired truth and interpretation, to one that is meretriciously scientific...
...One tour de force is his excellent rewriting of the Song of Moses in the Anglo-Saxon alliterative style (a la Beowulf) to give the modern English reader the impression Biblical rhythms must have made on ancient listeners...
...Moses: The Man and His Vision, then, has no scientific groundwork, despite the profusion of integrated archeological and linguistic material that is at best tangential or not connected to the story of Moses...
...Any assessment of Moses must be a thankless task, for given the lack of extra-Biblical historicity, it is bound to be criticized...
...Since we know nothing about Moses, the irrelevant medieval and Renaissance paintings and sculptures and the color photos of the desert cannot elucidate, enhance or save the text...
...In the case of the 2nd century A.D...
...By this line of reasoning one might argue that the Greek myths, with their vivid details and their strong impact on the Greek mind, are factual stories, too...
...Ultimately, one's belief in the existence of Moses is linked to religious belief...
...Another fine section is his Epilogue...
...Daiches would have seen another position on the multiplicity-of-Torah-authors hypothesis which Cassuto rejects and tries to disprove...
...One cannot speculate and concurrently use wispy tools of scholarship on a figure who is beyond history...
...By using the Tetragrammaton rather than the more common "the Lord" in an effort to heighten the personality of Moses, Daiches has reduced another hero of the Torah to the role of some tribal deity...
...Jewish military hero, archeologist Yadin and others have unearthed plentiful evidence (even Bar Kochba's letters) that makes it possible to add exciting hard facts to intriguing legend...
...One of the author's favorite ploys in "proving" the authenticity of an event is to state that because the details have impressed themselves upon the Jewish national consciousness, they must have occurred...
...The two highlights of the book are indeed those wherein David Daiches does not have the scientific albatross on his back and therefore can soar unencumbered...
...Yet Moses: The Man and His Vision is a "scientific" pastiche, a form the noted British critic and literary historian would not tolerate from one of his graduate students...
...literary critic and translator of Chaim Grade's "The Agunah" To undertake the writing of a book with the title this one bears is an act of courage...
...Daiches confuses detail, national memory and historical truth...
Vol. 58 • December 1975 • No. 24
