On the Horns of Moses
ON THE HORNS OF MOSES BY DAVID ARTHUR WALTERS The Old Testament features a convenient scapegoat for our natural ambivalence, bigotry and materialism: our spiritual ancestors, the stereotypical Jews. The perennial Jewish Question, “How should we treat the Jews,” should be asked not only of the self-styled Jews but of our thoroughly Judaized Western culture. Josephus might better say of the lot of us today what he said centuries ago of the early Western philosophers: “Our earliest imitators were the Greek philosophers, who, though ostensibly observing the laws of their own countries, yet in their conduct and philosophy were Moses’ disciples.” If we would know ourselves, we should first of all know the Jews, and to know them we have to know their history. The Jewish poets and scribes did a wonderful job of recording our same old story. In their eloquent books we find the best and worst of human nature in the portrayal of the progress of the naturally ambiguous religion of ambivalenc...