Images of Others: Iconic Politics in Ancient Israel.

• Author: Hurowitz, Victor Avigdor
• Position: Book review

Images of Others: Iconic Politics in Ancient Israel. By NATHANIEL B. LEVTOW, Biblical and Judaic Studies from the University of California, San Diego, vol. 11. Winona Lake, Ind.: EISENBRAUNS, 2008. Pp. xii +211. $39.50.

This book attempts to explain the Biblical parodies on icon (= idol) making not as steps in the emergence of Israelite monotheism but as instruments of ancient Near Eastern "iconic politics," i.e., statecraft in which manipulation of icons by wielders of political power plays a central role in asserting the superiority of one nation and its god over another. In particular, Levtow suggests that the powerful, literary elite of Exilic and post-Exilic Judah, who were familiar with the idolatrous practices of their conquerors and new neighbors, used their parodies of Mesopotamian idolaters as tools for "social (re)formation" of a post-destruction, disheartened Judean community. Judean authors portrayed Babylonian cult images as dead (can't see, hear, speak, etc.) and powerless and thereby delegitimized in the minds of the target audience (Judeans) whatever mythic traditions, social relationships, and mastery those icons may have symbolized. Put simply, by demeaning and tearing down the Babylonian gods/icons Judah and its God/YHWH would be aggrandized and built up. Moreover, discourse trumps force, words speak louder than actions, and by taking a good literary swipe at the icons it is possible to claim a victory against them and their makers for a God and a people whom they seem to have vanquished militarily.

The heart of Levtow's argument is analysis of the relevant Exilic iconic texts, the most prominent ones being Jer. 10:1-6; Isa. 44:9-20, 46:1-7; and Pss. 115 and 135. These anti-iconic diatribes have at their core an icon parody (not necessarily authored by the prophet in whose book they appear) that is either interspersed with or enveloped by words of praise for the God of Israel. The pro-YHWH material containing literary links with the parodic core thereby forges sharp contrasts between the strength and vitality of the Israelite God and the impotence and death of the foreign deities embodied in their icons. (For Jer. 10:1-6 as a possible example of Biblical participation in an international debate over which God is supreme, see S. Cohen and V. A. Hurowitz, "[TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] (Jer. 10:3) in Light of Akkadian parsu and zaqiqu Referring to Cult Statues." JQR 89 [1999]: 277-90.)

From here Levtow goes on to study...