"Never again did there arise in Israel a Prophet Like Moses..." The problem of Moses' incomparability in historical perspective

Session Submission Type: Lightning Session

Abstract

Moses is the great towering figure whose shadow looms across virtually every corner of the Jewish intellectual tradition, and the Torah famously ends with a meditation that “never again did there arise in Israel a prophet like Moses” (Deut 34:10-12). Scholars have wrestled for generations with the implications of this statement, which on the one hand affirms Moses’ incomparability but, on the other, calls into question a multitude of parallels drawn between Moses and other major figures within and beyond the biblical record. What results is an extensive history of debate regarding the perception of Moses – as a prototype, archetype, or monotype – the diversity of traditions both assigned and denied to him, and the impact of these debates upon the development of Jewish hermeneutics, group identity, social hierarchy (or hierarchies) and interfaces with foreign imperialism.

This session will consider the pivotal phrase “never again did there arise in Israel a prophet like Moses” and the history of its reception, interpretation, and understanding from the biblical period, Second Temple, rabbinic, early and late Medieval periods. The papers will address this motif in light of cultural memory, literary rhetoric, the construction of authoritative texts, ethnic boundary making and mythopoesis in the formation and dissolution of Jewish identity/identities. The goal of the seminar is not only to identify the ways in which this foundational yet problematic motif unfolds in Jewish intellectual history, but also how a diversity of approaches to the study of this motif may illuminate important methodological points of contact between different areas of research.

Sub Unit

• Bible and the History of Biblical Interpretation

Chair

• Nehemia Polen, Hebrew College

Individual Presentations

• The Making of Moses - Zev Israel Farber, Project TABS

• Levites, scribes and sages like Moses: the Pentateuch, the prophets and Moses in the Persian and Hellenistic Periods - Mark Leuchter, Temple University

• Moses and his Mirror Image - Ari Lobel, University of Sydney

• “No Prophet Like Moses:” Muhammad’s Claim to Prophethood and Early Jewish Reactions - Shari Lee Lowin, Stonehill College

• Mosaic Prophecy and Maimonidean Tradition - Elisha Russ-Fishbane, New York University