{"id":57067,"date":"2019-06-07T17:27:22","date_gmt":"2019-06-07T14:27:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/?p=57067"},"modified":"2023-01-01T15:37:20","modified_gmt":"2023-01-01T13:37:20","slug":"politics-human-necessity-and-self-defeating-betrayal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/politics-human-necessity-and-self-defeating-betrayal\/","title":{"rendered":"Politics: Human Necessity and Self-Defeating Betrayal"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[281],"tags":[423],"acf":{"old_id":"57067","type":"no","iframe":"","writer":56443,"related_cahpter":"237","type_929":"2","show_author_image":false,"old_create_date":"","old_url":"","post_main_content":{"description":"This moment of origin is starkly colored by Samuel\u2019s, and especially God\u2019s, resentment.","content":"

In describing what is lost as well as what is gained in unifying the Israelite tribes under a single dynastic monarch, the Book of Samuel provides us with our earliest account of the arduous, contested, and historically contingent emergence of this worldly sovereignty. The centralization of political-military authority is admittedly accompanied by priestly anointment and bestowed by the grace of God. But as will become evident as the narrative unfolds, sovereign authority is actually consolidated much less sacramentally, through a hard fought struggle, by tactically ingenious applications of force and fraud deployed to overcome considerable human resistance.<\/span><\/p>\n

To summarize: A thoroughly human and demythologized political sphere emerged in a space that had been opened between the two basic alternatives that characterized much of the ancient Near East and the prior biblical tradition. That purely human political domain constituted the baseline condition that made possible the book\u2019s distinctive voice and its unblinkingly observant and critical perspective on human politics. In its richly detailed account of this pivotal political breakthrough, the Book of Samuel infused the moment of origin with a deep ambivalence. The narrative notoriously lacks the celebratory features that usually accompany any coronation or heroic founding of a new political regime. Instead, this moment of origin is starkly colored by Samuel\u2019s, and especially God\u2019s, resentment. The pervasive shadow of divine resentment is what differentiates the all-too-human world of biblical politics from a cloudlessly secular or \u201cdisenchanted\u201d realm. Our author is acutely aware of the troubles and tragedies of the political endeavor on the one hand and of its irresistible necessity on the other. The entire book is marked by a refusal to shield its readers from this excruciating but truthful ambivalence.<\/span><\/p>\n

As our exploration widens and deepens, we will address a series of deep puzzles that the Book of Samuel presents. From which point of view, if not that of a political partisan, is the book written? Is the author an insider to politics or an outsider? Is he someone from the court or at its margin? What was the vantage point from which such an astonishingly original book could have been produced? \u2026<\/span><\/p>\n

\u2026The author does not exactly tell the story from God\u2019s point of view, admittedly. Yet the book was certainly fueled and inspired by what the narrator imagined to be God\u2019s viewpoint\u2026God\u2019s ambivalence toward the political realm permeates the book with its nuanced and exploratory yet smolderingly critical force. Precisely because of its uncomfortable ambivalence, therefore, the Book of Samuel sets forth the proper attitude that should be assumed toward the political project as a whole. Illuminated from this systematically ambivalent stance, politics is seen as an overpowering human necessity that can never fully escape a potentially self-defeating betrayal at its very core.<\/span><\/p>\n

Excerpts from The Beginning of Politics: Power in the Biblical Book of Samuel<\/em>\u00a0\u2013 Moshe Halbertal and Stephen Holmes, Princeton University Press, 2017, pp. 14-16. Re-printed with permission of the author.<\/span><\/p>\n","image":{"ID":56668,"id":56668,"title":"halbertal-book cover.jpg","filename":"halbertal-book-cover.jpg.png","filesize":0,"url":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/halbertal-book-cover.jpg.png","link":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/the-fine-grained-phenomenology-of-political-power\/halbertal-book-cover-jpg\/","alt":"","author":"7","description":"","caption":"","name":"halbertal-book-cover-jpg","status":"inherit","uploaded_to":56661,"date":"2019-06-02 14:58:58","modified":"2019-06-03 03:02:25","menu_order":0,"mime_type":"image\/png","type":"image","subtype":"png","icon":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-includes\/images\/media\/default.png","width":2000,"height":2000,"sizes":{"thumbnail":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/halbertal-book-cover.jpg-150x150.png","thumbnail-width":150,"thumbnail-height":150,"medium":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/halbertal-book-cover.jpg-300x300.png","medium-width":300,"medium-height":300,"medium_large":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/halbertal-book-cover.jpg-768x768.png","medium_large-width":768,"medium_large-height":768,"large":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/halbertal-book-cover.jpg-1024x1024.png","large-width":1024,"large-height":1024,"1536x1536":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/halbertal-book-cover.jpg.png","1536x1536-width":1536,"1536x1536-height":1536,"2048x2048":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/halbertal-book-cover.jpg.png","2048x2048-width":2000,"2048x2048-height":2000,"post_full_size":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/halbertal-book-cover.jpg-1200x1200.png","post_full_size-width":1200,"post_full_size-height":1200,"home_baner":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/halbertal-book-cover.jpg-420x420.png","home_baner-width":420,"home_baner-height":420}},"embedded_video":"","video_duration":"","show_fb_comments":true,"credit_media":""},"tile":{"top_caption":"Excerpts from:\u201cThe Beginning of Politics: Power in the Biblical Book of Samuel\u201d ","main_caption":"Politics: Human Necessity and Self-Defeating Betrayal","main_caption_size":"1","sub_caption":"This moment of origin is starkly colored by Samuel\u2019s, and especially God\u2019s, resentment.","preview_embedded":"","preview_image":{"ID":56668,"id":56668,"title":"halbertal-book cover.jpg","filename":"halbertal-book-cover.jpg.png","filesize":0,"url":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/halbertal-book-cover.jpg.png","link":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/the-fine-grained-phenomenology-of-political-power\/halbertal-book-cover-jpg\/","alt":"","author":"7","description":"","caption":"","name":"halbertal-book-cover-jpg","status":"inherit","uploaded_to":56661,"date":"2019-06-02 14:58:58","modified":"2019-06-03 03:02:25","menu_order":0,"mime_type":"image\/png","type":"image","subtype":"png","icon":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-includes\/images\/media\/default.png","width":2000,"height":2000,"sizes":{"thumbnail":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/halbertal-book-cover.jpg-150x150.png","thumbnail-width":150,"thumbnail-height":150,"medium":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/halbertal-book-cover.jpg-300x300.png","medium-width":300,"medium-height":300,"medium_large":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/halbertal-book-cover.jpg-768x768.png","medium_large-width":768,"medium_large-height":768,"large":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/halbertal-book-cover.jpg-1024x1024.png","large-width":1024,"large-height":1024,"1536x1536":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/halbertal-book-cover.jpg.png","1536x1536-width":1536,"1536x1536-height":1536,"2048x2048":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/halbertal-book-cover.jpg.png","2048x2048-width":2000,"2048x2048-height":2000,"post_full_size":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/halbertal-book-cover.jpg-1200x1200.png","post_full_size-width":1200,"post_full_size-height":1200,"home_baner":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/halbertal-book-cover.jpg-420x420.png","home_baner-width":420,"home_baner-height":420}},"preview_video":"","external_link":"","link_for_pay":false,"tile_gallery_items":false,"credits":""},"alternate_tile":{"top_caption":"","main_caption":"","main_caption_size":"1","sub_caption":"","hide_media":false},"tile_group":{"preview_image_url":false,"main_caption":"","sub_caption":"","":null,"popup_package_extra_content":"","read_time":""},"home_color":"","home_gallery_top":"","home_gallery_middle":"","home_gallery_book":"","home_gallery_bottom":"","seo":{"seo_title":"","seo_description":"","seo_default_title":"","seo_default_description":""},"links":false,"send_noty":false},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57067"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=57067"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57067\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":110849,"href":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57067\/revisions\/110849"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=57067"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=57067"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=57067"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}