About this book
From the prizewinning Jewish Lives series, a meditation on the complex life of the father of the Twelve Tribes and how the ancient writers and storytellers shaped his identity.
A powerful hero of the Bible, Jacob is also one of its most complex figures. Bible stories recounting his life often expose his deception, lies, and greed - then, puzzlingly, attempt to justify them. In this book, eminent biblical scholar Yair Zakovitch presents a complete view of the patriarch, first examining Jacob and his life story as presented in the Bible, then also reconstructing the stories that the Bible writers suppressed - tales that were well-known, perhaps, but incompatible with the image of Jacob they wanted to promote. Through a work of extraordinary "literary archaeology," Zakovitch explores the recesses of literary history, reaching back even to the stage of oral storytelling, to identify sources of Jacob's story that preceded the work of the Genesis writers.
The biblical writers were skilled mosaic-makers, Zakovitch shows, and their achievement was to reshape diverse pre-biblical representations of Jacob in support of their emerging new religion and identity. As the author follows Jacob in his wanderings and revelations, his successes, disgraces, and disappointments, he also considers the religious and political environment in which the Bible was written, offering a powerful explication of early Judaism.
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Information
Table of contents
- Contents
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction
- 1. āThe children struggled in her wombā: The Fight for the Birthright
- 2. āHe should cheat me twice? He took my birthright and now he has taken my blessing!ā: Jacob the Deceiver
- 3. āAnd behold, a stairway was set on the ground and its head reached to the skyā: Jacobās Dream at Bethel
- 4. āIt is not the practice in our placeā: Wives and Sons, A Mixed Blessing
- 5. āLet me go and I will go to my place and to my landā: Jacobās Odyssey from Slavery to Freedom
- 6. āFor you have striven with God and with men and have prevailedā: Jacobās Homebound Encounters
- 7. āShould our sister be treated like a whore?ā: Jacob in Shechem
- 8. āAnd Isaac breathed his last and died and was gathered to his kin in ripe old ageā: Deaths in the Family
- 9. āAnd Israel loved Joseph more than all his sons, for he was the son of his old ageā: Priority of the Young
- 10. āGather together that I may tell you what is to befall you in the days to comeā: An End, A Beginning
- Conclusion
- Index