Halbertal Moshe - The Beginning of Politics

THE BEGINNING
OF POLITICS

THE BEGINNING OF POLITICS

Power in the Biblical Book of Samuel

MOSHE HALBERTAL
AND STEPHEN HOLMES

PRINCETON UNIVERSITY PRESS
PRINCETON AND OXFORD

Copyright 2017 by Princeton University Press
Published by Princeton University Press, 41 William Street,
Princeton, New Jersey 08540

In the United Kingdom: Princeton University Press, 6 Oxford
Street, Woodstock, Oxfordshire OX20 1TR
press.princeton.edu

Jacket art: Jacopo Negretti (Palma il Giovane) (15441628),
The Prophet Nathan Admonishes King David.
Courtesy of Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna
All Rights Reserved

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Halbertal, Moshe, author. I Holmes,
Stephen, 1948 author.

Title: The beginning of politics : power in the biblical Book of
Samuel / Moshe Halbertal and Stephen Holmes.

Description: Princeton : Princeton University Press, [2017] |
Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2016050190 | ISBN 9780691174624
(acid-free paper)
Subjects: LCSH: Bible. SamuelCriticism, interpretation, etc. |
Power (Social sciences)Biblical teaching. I Politics in the Bible.
Classification: LCC BS1325.6.P6 H35 2017 |
DDC 222/.406dc23 LC record available at
https://lccn.loc.gov/2016050190

British Library Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available
This book has been composed in Sabon LT Std
Printed on acid-free paper.
Printed in the United States of America
1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2

TO TOBY PERL FREILICH
AND TO THE MEMORY
OF AMOS ELON

Contents

Acknowledgments

T he main ideas of this book were developed in a joint seminar we taught on the Book of Samuel at the NYU School of Law. We also benefited greatly from presenting a chapter of the book at the Law Schools always lively faculty seminar. Thanks go to our students and colleagues for their many stimulating insights and comments. The writing of the book was supported by grants from the New York University School of Laws Filomen DAgostino and Max E. Greenberg Research Fund.

We are deeply grateful to colleagues and friends who offered us their wisdom, criticism, and support. The perceptive reactions and suggestions of David Cohen, Jon Elster, Tom Geoghegan, Roni Goldstein, Annette Hochstein, Ken Jowitt, Job Jindo, Diana Lipton, Vivian Liska, Marcia Pally, Illana Pardes, Dan Pekarsky, Amlie Rorty, and the anonymous readers for Princeton University Press were most helpful. We especially wish to express our gratitude to Toby Perl Freilich and Gloria Origgi for their contribution to the formation of the ideas of the book and their wonderfully meticulous comments on the manuscript.

Finally, we are grateful to Fred Appel, our editor at Princeton University Press, for his unfailing encouragement and thoughtful advice.

A Note on Text and Translation

A mong the various English language renditions of the Book of Samuel, we have chosen to use Robert Alters translation, published originally as The David Story (1999). We have followed as well Alters reconstruction of the biblical text, opting among the textual variants presented by the Masoretic version, the Qumran scrolls, and the Septuagint. We have gained a great deal not only from the masterfully illuminating quality of his translation, but also from Alters running commentary which, among its other virtues, is attuned to the political dimensions of the narrative that are at the center of our exploration. Our analysis also covers the first two chapters of the Book of Kings, recounting Davids last days, chapters that scholars rightfully consider to be a continuation and conclusion of the story of David presented in the Book of Samuel and that stem from the hand of the same author.

THE BEGINNING
OF POLITICS

Introduction

THE EMERGENCE OF POLITICS

T he literary qualities of the Book of Samuel are rightfully considered among the supreme achievements of biblical literature. What makes his book not only a literary masterpiece but also a profound work of political thought is the way in which the beautifully crafted narratives cut to the core of human politics, bringing into relief deep structural themes that transcend the particular events and fates of the books main protagonists and that remain resonant wherever and whenever political power is at stake. This dimension of the authors achievement, which is what makes Samuel such a penetrating and endlessly fertile exploration of political life, will be our principal focus in this book.

We part company, as a consequence, with the many gifted biblical scholars who have interpreted the Book of Samuel as a political text with partisan aims. Such scholarship has long debated whether the book is pro-David or anti-David, and whether its source was among Sauls surviving loyalists or instead among proponents of a strictly antimonarchical ideology. In our opinion, these debates, while interesting and important in their own right, can distract from the books theoretical significance. Because the author, as we hope to show, remains Our focus is different. In order to concentrate on the trenchant understanding of power woven consciously and deftly into the narrative, we have done our best to free the text from questions such as whether it defends or attacks David and which contemporary faction it was composed to flatter or support.

In fact, the Book of Samuel does not display a one-sided allegiance to any of the political factions that competed for power at the time. Its author didnt write a political book, therefore, but rather a book about politics. Every reading of a work this rich is destined to be tentative and partial, and ours is certainly no exception. But by liberating the Book of Samuel from the search for a partisan agenda and by focusing instead on its copious insights into the nature of political power in general, we hope to shed at least some new light on its outstanding brilliance and originality.

We have not attempted to write a biography of David. Nor have we surveyed the ways David has been portrayed in subsequent literature and art.of Saul and David, we emphasize the authors searching look into the effects of sovereign power on those who wield it, trying to tease out what the book implies, for example, about the way the newly emergent institution of hereditary monarchy shaped the motivations as well as the actions of Israels first two kings. Our book does have a hero, of course. But this hero is not one of the protagonists of the Book of Samuel, be it David or Saul. Our hero is rather the author of this magnificently imagined history of Saul and Davids sequential reigns, an author-hero who shines through his insights into the complex workings of political power.