Links and Notes for Tomorrow

There will NOT be a test on this material, but I thought I would send this to participants. Hope to see you tomorrow morning.

Moses and Monotheism notes and links

German original, Der Mann Moses

Ridley Scott’s Exodus: Gods and Kings (2012) allegedly a real dud, but I haven’t seen it

The Guardian on Moses

The Original Swords and Sandals EPIC, Cecil B. De Mille’s The Ten Commandments

I watched it every Easter Sunday as a kid. Based on the BIBLE….

And More Seriously….

One of the critical passages from Moses and Monotheism:

“The distortion of a text is not unlike a murder. The difficulty lies not in the execution of the deed but in the doing away with the traces. One could wish to give the word "distortion" the double meaning to which it has a right, although it is no longer used in this sense. It should mean not only "to change the appearance of," but also "to wrench apart "to put in another place. That is why in so many textual distortions we may count on finding the suppressed and abnegated material hidden away somewhere, though in an altered shape and torn out of its original connection. Only it is not always easy to recognize.”

p. 70

The German original for distortion is “Entstellung” – disfigurement, distortion

Freud wrote Part III after his exile to London. In it he is uncompromising about his analysis of religion…

Religion – neurosis, obsessional compulsion – return of forgotten, primeval return of long forgotten primeval events in the human family

See you tomorrow!