"Remember Amalek!"
Vengeance, Zealotry, and Group Destruction in the Bible according to Philo, Pseudo-Philo, and Josephus
The divine commandment to exterminate all the Amalekitesmen, women, children, even animals who have no free will-is what in contemporary terms has been called nothing less than genocide. Louis Feldman helps us to understand how three ancient Jewish commentators on the Bible-Philo, Pseudo-Philo, and Josephus-wrestled with the issues involved in this divine imperative, especially its provision that an entire people must be punished for all time for the misdeeds of their ancestors.
Feldman broadens the issue by examining several biblical parallels where God commands the destruction of whole groups of people-namely, in the Great Flood, Sodom and Gomorrah, the plague of the first-born Egyptians, and the seven Canaanite nations. In addition, he examines several instances of mass destruction of entire groups of people where there was no specific divine commandment. Finally, he considers the issue of the justification of God's reward to Phineas for his zealotry in bypassing the law when he put to death an Israelite and a non-Israelite for their immorality. All of these biblical passages raise difficult questions, to which, Feldman demonstrates, there are no simple answers.
"An excellent example of how a scholarly work can make an enormous contribution to our intellectual life."
-Aryeh Kasher, Tel Aviv University
Louis H. Feldman is Abraham Wouk Family Professor of Classics and Literature at Yeshiva University.
Louis H. Feldman
2004 / 272 pp / Monograph No. 31 / ISBN 0-87820-455-5, cloth: $34.95
|
