In the Beginning Was the State: Divine Violence in the Hebrew Bible

Adi M. Ophir

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In the Beginning Was the State

Divine Violence in the Hebrew Bible

Adi M. Ophir

Language: English

Published/Copyright: 2022

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About this book

This book explores God’s use of violence as depicted in the Hebrew Bible. Focusing on the Pentateuch, it reads biblical narratives and codes of law as documenting formations of theopolitical imagination. Ophir deciphers the logic of divine rule that these documents betray, with a special attention to the place of violence within it. The book draws from contemporary biblical scholarship, while also engaging critically with contemporary political theory and political theology, including the work of Walter Benjamin, Giorgio Agamben, Jan Assmann, Regina Schwartz, and Michael Walzer.

Ophir focuses on three distinct theocratic formations: the rule of disaster, where catastrophes are used as means of governance; the biopolitical rule of the holy, where divine violence is spatially demarcated and personally targeted; and the rule of law where divine violence is vividly remembered and its return is projected, anticipated, and yet postponed, creating a prolonged lull for the text’s present.

Different as these formations are, Ophir shows how they share an urform that anticipates the main outlines of the modern European state, which has monopolized the entire globe. A critique of the modern state, the book argues, must begin in revisiting the deification of the state, unpacking its mostly repressed theological dimension.

A fresh reading of the Hebrew Bible that foregrounds the political nature of divine violence.

Author / Editor information

Contributor: Adi M. Ophir Adi M. Ophir is a Visiting Professor at the Cogut Institute for the Humanities at Brown University and Professor Emeritus at Tel Aviv University. Among his works are Goy: Israel’s Multiple Others and the Birth of the Gentile, co‑authored with Ishay Rosen-Zvi (Oxford University Press, 2018); Divine Violence: Two Essays on God and Disaster (The Van Leer Institute, 2013); The One-State Condition, co‑authored with Ariella Azoulay (Stanford University Press, 2012); and The Order of Evils: Toward an Ontology of Morals (Zone, 2005).

Reviews

Ophir’s analysis of violence in the Bible goes beyond any I’ve seen. Not everyone will agree with Ophir’s conclusions, but the book must be read, digested, and confronted by anyone interested in political theology.---Daniel Boyarin, University of California, Berkeley --- Ophir’s fascinating study of divine violence turns political theology upside down. Where others saw a solution, he sees a problem, identifying three distinct theocracies offered by the Pentateuch, in which the acceptance of God’s rule is combined with extreme violence. Articulating the archaic and the modern in the state as a political form of governmentality, he analyses our subjection to the law in a radically new manner.---Etienne Balibar, author of Violence and Civility

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Frontmatter
i

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CONTENTS
v

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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
vii

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INTRODUCTION
1

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1 STAYING WITH THE VIOLENCE
13

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2 THEOCRACY: THE PERSISTENCE OF AN ANCIENT LACUNA
45

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3 THE RULE OF DISASTER: EXTINCTION, GENOCIDES, AND OTHER CALAMITIES
96

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4 HOLY POWER: STATES OF EXCEPTION, TARGETED KILLINGS, AND THE LOGIC OF SUBSTITUTION
145

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5 THE TIME OF THE COVENANT AND THE TEMPORALIZATION OF VIOLENCE
193

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AFTERWORD: THE PENTATEUCHAL STATE, AND OURS
241

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NOTES
257

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WORKS CITED
317

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INDEX
335

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Publishing information

Pages and Images/Illustrations in book

eBook published on:

November 29, 2022

eBook ISBN:

9781531501433

Pages and Images/Illustrations in book

https://doi.org/10.1515/9781531501433

eBook ISBN: 9781531501433

Keywords for this book

divine violence; Hebrew Bible; monotheism; political theology; political theory; rule by disaster; sovereignty; state; theocracy; theopolitics

Audience(s) for this book

For an expert adult audience, including professional development and academic research

In the Beginning Was the State

Overview

About this book

Author / Editor information

Reviews

Topics

Table of contents

Frontmatter

CONTENTS

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

INTRODUCTION

1 STAYING WITH THE VIOLENCE

2 THEOCRACY: THE PERSISTENCE OF AN ANCIENT LACUNA

3 THE RULE OF DISASTER: EXTINCTION, GENOCIDES, AND OTHER CALAMITIES

4 HOLY POWER: STATES OF EXCEPTION, TARGETED KILLINGS, AND THE LOGIC OF SUBSTITUTION

5 THE TIME OF THE COVENANT AND THE TEMPORALIZATION OF VIOLENCE

AFTERWORD: THE PENTATEUCHAL STATE, AND OURS

NOTES

WORKS CITED

INDEX

Bibliographic data