{"id":60568,"date":"2019-08-04T08:45:00","date_gmt":"2019-08-04T05:45:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/?p=60568"},"modified":"2023-02-26T18:32:14","modified_gmt":"2023-02-26T16:32:14","slug":"absaloms-return-oedipal-struggle-and-dynastic-succession","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/absaloms-return-oedipal-struggle-and-dynastic-succession\/","title":{"rendered":"Absalom\u2019s Return: Oedipal Struggle and Dynastic Succession\u00a0"},"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":[381,503],"acf":{"old_id":"60568","type":"no","iframe":"","writer":56443,"related_cahpter":"277","type_929":"2","show_author_image":false,"old_create_date":"","old_url":"","post_main_content":{"description":"The author critically examines the deep conflict between the logic of power and the logic of love","content":"

Absalom\u2019s rebellion constitutes the longest narrative unit in the Book of Samuel. Through its detailed and complex structure, manifold characters and subplots, the author critically examines the deep conflict between the logic of power and the logic of love. In the dramatic events recounted in 2 Samuel 14-19, the price of sovereignty — of striving to seize and keep it — reached its most calamitous heights. In Absalom\u2019s rebellion against David, the family as a unit responsible for smoothly transferring sovereign power on the incumbent ruler\u2019s death ended up plunging Israel back into civil war. Within a relatively long stretch of six chapters, the author of the Book of Samuel meticulously lays out the relationship between this arguable oedipal struggle and the inner logic of dynastic succession. The first step in this devastating sequence was Absalom\u2019s return to Jerusalem from Geshur, where he has fled in forced exile after he had killed Amnon.<\/span><\/p>\n

Absalom\u2019s return was initiated by Joab, who had been David\u2019s unswervingly loyal general all along. Within David\u2019s circle, Joab represents the voice of clearheaded and farseeing realpolitik. He therefore must have calculated that allowing Absalom to stay away from the court too long could become a source of trouble for David. Absalom should be brought back not only to appease him but also to keep him under surveillance. Otherwise, unmonitored in his banishment, the angry and ambitious prince, whose assassination of David\u2019s firstborn son could easily be interpreted as an attack on the king\u2019s own authority, might well begin to plot subversion while slowly developing a power base to help him carry it out. Joab also knew that despite David\u2019s wistful longing for Absalom, the king could not simply invite back to Jerusalem and rehabilitate the murderer of an heir to the throne. An indirect approach thus had to be fashioned to persuade David to allow Absalom\u2019s return. For this purpose, the savvy Joab enlisted a very wise woman from the village Tekoa, a few miles south of Jerusalem.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

She was sent by Joab to soften up the king and to elicit from him an authoritative verdict that could then be shrewdly recycled as an argument against the banishing of Absalom. It was a clever ploy and a masterful performance of personal persuasion by a gifted tragedienne, following Joab\u2019s script and extracting an explicit ruling sealed by an oath from a powerful yet initially hesitant sovereign. The ruling was elicited by her bold and iconic presentation of the unbearable price of relentlessly adhering to the revenge ethos within the family. The verdict might have been very different if presented in the abstract or by a less talented emissary.<\/span><\/p>\n

Excerpts from The Beginning of Politics: Power in the Biblical Book of Samuel<\/em> \u2013 Moshe Halbertal and Stephen Holmes, Princeton University Press, 2017, pp. 118-119.<\/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 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