The body of the prophet Moses is a site of persistent difficulty. To be sure, at birth, Moses’ body is singled out and described as “good”; at death, his eyesight and vigor alike remain undiminished. But between these two moments, the text is filled with references to Moses’ bodily problems, including a “heavy tongue and impure lips” that threaten his prophetic mission and a glowing face that terrifies the Israelite people. Moses’ body is likewise thematized in the battle against Amalek, the prophet’s affliction with “scale disease” or leprosy, and above all the famous “bridegroom of blood” incident (Exod. 4:24–26). Taken together, these incidents offer a pattern of bodily difficulty and material alterity. Moses’ experience of corporeality exposes the demands that prophecy places upon the body. In particular, prophecy displaces hegemonic masculinity and normative practices of male embodiment. Moses represents an alternate “Mosaic masculinity,” organized around an open, fluid, and vulnerable male body.
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In the words of Daniel Boyarin, “the world was divided into the screwers – all male-and the screwed – both male and female” (D. Boyarin, “Are there Any Jews in ‘The History of Sexuality’?” Journal of the History of Sexuality 5 [1995], pp. 333–355 [333]).
R. W. Connell and J. W. Messerschmidt, “Hegemonic Masculinity: Rethinking the Concept,” Gender & Society 19 (2005), pp. 829–859 (832).
Moore, “Final Reflections on Biblical Masculinity,” p. 246; cf. Haddox, “Favoured Sons and Subordinate Masculinities,” p. 4.
S. Macwilliam, “Ideologies of Male Beauty and the Hebrew Bible,” BibInt 17 (2009), pp. 265–287.
Macwilliam, “Ideologies of Male Beauty and the Hebrew Bible,” p. 278.
S. Levin, “The Speech Defect of Moses,” Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine 85 (1992), pp. 632–633.
See, for example, S. D. Luzzatto, Commentary to the Pentateuch (Tel Aviv: Dvir, 1965); quoted in Tigay, “‘ Heavy of Mouth’ and‘ Heavy of Tongue’ on Moses’ Speech Difficulty,” p. 63 n. 4. This position also occurs in Philo, Ignatius, and Cyprian, among other ancient sources, as Tigay notes. As Tigay observes, “The extension of terms for speech impediment to describe foreign language is a widely attested semantic development, both among the Semitic languages and elsewhere” (p. 60).
J. Schipper, Disability Studies and the Hebrew Bible: Figuring Mephibosheth in the David Story (Library of Hebrew Bible/Old Testament studies 441; London: T&T Clark, 2009), p. 73.
On this point, see further M. Dolar, A Voice and Nothing More (Cambridge, Mass.: The MIT Press, 2006), pp. 12–33. On prophecy and stutttering, see as well H. Marks, “On Prophetic Stammering,” in Regina Schwartz (ed.), The Book and the Text: The Bible and Literary Theory (Oxford, UK: Blackwell, 1990), pp. 60–80.
S. L. Sanders, “Old Light on Moses’ Shining Face,” Vetus Testamentum 52 (2002), pp. 400–406 (404).
On the intimacy of the voice, see Dolar, A Voice and Nothing More, p. 86.
T. W. Jennings, Jacob’s Wound: Homoerotic Narrative in the Literature of Ancient Israel (New York: Continuum, 2005), p. 256 n. 7 and p. 256.
A. S. Cook, The Burden of Prophecy: Poetic Utterance in the Prophets of the Old Testament (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1996).
E. A. Grosz, Volatile Bodies: Toward a Corporeal Feminism (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1994), pp. 200–201. Grosz’s comments about trans communities are problematic; however, her overall point about non-phallicized masculinity is well worth considering.
W. H. C. Propp, “That Bloody Bridegroom (Exodus IV 24–6),” Vetus Testamentum 43 (1993), pp. 495–518 (505).
H. Kosmala, “The ‘Bloody Husband,’” Vetus Testamentum 12 (1962), pp. 14–28 (24).
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The body of the prophet Moses is a site of persistent difficulty. To be sure, at birth, Moses’ body is singled out and described as “good”; at death, his eyesight and vigor alike remain undiminished. But between these two moments, the text is filled with references to Moses’ bodily problems, including a “heavy tongue and impure lips” that threaten his prophetic mission and a glowing face that terrifies the Israelite people. Moses’ body is likewise thematized in the battle against Amalek, the prophet’s affliction with “scale disease” or leprosy, and above all the famous “bridegroom of blood” incident (Exod. 4:24–26). Taken together, these incidents offer a pattern of bodily difficulty and material alterity. Moses’ experience of corporeality exposes the demands that prophecy places upon the body. In particular, prophecy displaces hegemonic masculinity and normative practices of male embodiment. Moses represents an alternate “Mosaic masculinity,” organized around an open, fluid, and vulnerable male body.
All Time | Past 365 days | Past 30 Days | |
---|---|---|---|
Abstract Views | 985 | 234 | 31 |
Full Text Views | 220 | 12 | 1 |
PDF Views & Downloads | 575 | 31 | 3 |