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Structural anthropology and the Old Testament1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 December 2009

John Rogerson
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Extract

Structural anthropology is the attempt to describe the data of social anthropology, especially kinship and myth, by means of structural models. It has been pioneered by Professor Claude Lévi-Strauss and applied to the Old Testament by Dr. Edmund Leach. Obviously, the work of Leach is of most direct interest to Old Testament scholars, but it is impossible either to understand or evaluate it without reference to Levi-Strauss. Accordingly, this paper will begin with the latter before turning to Leach's articles on the Old Testament.

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Articles
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Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies , Volume 33 , Issue 3 , October 1970 , pp. 490 - 500
Copyright
Copyright © School of Oriental and African Studies 1970

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References

2 See, for example, Anthropologie structurale, Paris, 1958Google Scholar (English trans. Structural anthropology, London, 1968).Google Scholar

3 Léach, E. R., ‘Lévi-Strauss in the Garden of Eden: an examination of some recent developments in the analysis of myth’, Transactions of the New York Academy of Sciences Ser. n, Vol. XXIII, No. 4, 1961, 386–96CrossRefGoogle Scholar; idem, ‘Genesis as myth‘, Discovery, May 1962, 30–5 (reprinted in J. Middleton (ed.), Myth and cosmos, New York, 1967, 1–14); idem, ‘The legitimac of Solomon: some structural aspects of Old Testament history‘, Archives Europeennes de Sociologie, VII, 1966, 58–101.

4 For a different view of Lévi-Strauss's ‘priorities‘ see Burridge, K. o. L., ‘Lévi-Strauss and myth‘, in Leach, E. R. (ed.), The structural study of myth and lotemism, London, 1967, 101Google Scholar.

5 Structural anthropology, 31 ff., 207 ff.

6 ibid., 230.

7 La pensée sauvage, Paris, 1962 (English transGoogle Scholar., The savage mind, London, 1966, ch. i–ii)Google Scholar; Durkheim, E. and Mauss, M., ‘De quelques formes primitives de classification‘, Année Sociologique, 1901–1902 (English trans.Google Scholar, Primitive classification, London, 1963)Google Scholar.

8 e.g. Le cru et le cuit, Paris, 1964, 346–7Google Scholar.

9 Ch. ii, xi. Lévi-Strauss is particularly influenced by the work of Jakobson in the field of phonology, where it has been shown that the phonological systems of all known languages can be described in terms of around a dozen binary choices or oppositions. See Jakobson, R. and Halle, M., Fundamentals of language, The Hague, 1956Google Scholar.

10 Structural anthropology, ch. ii passim.

11 ibid., ch. xi passim.

12 ibid., 216.

13 For an interesting example of this sort of use of Lévi-Strauss methods see Robinson, Marguerite S., ‘“The house of the mighty hero” or “The house of enough paddy” ? Some implications of a Sinhalese myth’, in Leach, E. R. (ed.), Dialectic in practical religion, Cambridge, 1968, 122–52Google Scholar.

14 Les structures élémentaires de la parenté, first ed., Paris, 1949 (English transGoogle Scholar., The elementary structures of Kinship, London, 1969)Google Scholar.

15 See, for example, Quine, W. V., ‘The problem of meaning in linguistics’, in Fodor, J. A. and Katz, J. J. (ed.), The structure of language, Englewood Cliffs, N.J., 1964, 21–32Google Scholar.

16 Le cru et le cuit, Paris, 1964Google Scholar; Du miel aux cendres, Paris, 1966Google Scholar; L'origine des manierès de table, Paris, 1968Google Scholar.

17 L'origine des manières de table, 13.

18 Le totemism aujourd'hui, Paris, 1962 (English trans.Google Scholar, Totemism, London, 1964)Google Scholar; La pensee sauvage, Paris, 1962 (English trans.Google Scholar, The savage mind, London, 1966)Google Scholar.

19 The savage mind, 127 if.

20 ibid., ch. i and ii.

21 The savage mind, 95. The use of the word ‘logical’ is odd here, and I shall show later that we have in this usage a confusion in Lévi-Strauss's thought.

22 The structural study of myth and totemism is entirely devoted to a critique of Lévi-Strauss. The papers are, unfortunately, very uneven. For a much more useful critique of Lévi-Strauss see Esprit, November 1963, 547–653. The issue of May 1967 is devoted generally to structuralism, including Lévi-Strauss. A valuable study is Fleischmann, E., ‘Léesprit humain selon C. Lévi-Strauss’, Archives Europe'ennes de Sociologie, VII, 1966Google Scholar.

23 The structural study of myth and totemism, p. xviii.

81 ibid., 72.

25 Esprit, November 1963, 611 ff.

26 This is denied by Leaeh in ‘The legitimacy of Solomon’, 63.

27 The use of Jungian psychological terminology is my own, and not Lévi-Strauss's. The latter uses the perplexing term ‘esprit’ in a variety of ways, which have led even Leach astray (see American Anthropologist, LXVII, 1960, 1, 563)Google Scholar. I have tried to express what I think Lévi-Strauss is saying.

28 See Charbonnier, G.Entretiens avec Claude Lévi-Strauss, Paris, 1961 (English trans.Google Scholar, Conversations with Claude Lévi-Strauss, London, 1969, 26 ff.)Google Scholar.

29 Structural anthropology, 230.

30 ibid., 230.

31 The savage mind, 15.

32 ibid., 16 ff.

33 ‘The legitimacy of Solomon’, 59.

34 It is noteworthy that in his analysis of the Oedipus myth Lévi-Strauss disregards the chronological sequence of the story. See Structural anthropology, 213 ff. Malamat, A., Archives Europeennes de Sociologie, VIII, 1967, 165CrossRefGoogle Scholar, notes that Leach applies structural analysis to the narrative in a diachronic fashion.

35 ‘The legitimacy of Solomon’, 62.

36 ibid., 65.

37 ibid., 80.

38 ibid., 80.

39 ibid., 72.

40 ibid., 72.

41 ibid., p. 61, n. 7.

42 ibid., 78.

43 ibid., 72.

44 ibid., 76.

45 For the benefit of non-specialists, the following points in reply to Leach can be mentioned. It is true that the historical existence of David and Solomon cannot be proved outside the Old Testament, but for the reign of Rehoboam, Solomon's successor, we have a synchronism with Egyptian history. 1 Kings xiv, 25 ff., records the invasion of Jndah by Shishak king of Egypt in the fifth year of Rehoboam, i.e. circa 925 B.C. For the Egyptian evidence of the invasion see Gardiner, A., Egypt of the Pharaohs, Oxford, 1961, 328–30Google Scholar. King Ahab is mentioned in extra-Biblical sources. See Pritchard, J. B. (ed.), Ancient Near Eastern texts, second ed., Princeton, 1955, 279Google Scholar, and another Israelite king of the ninth century B.C. is portrayed on the Black Obelisk of Shalmaneser III. See Thomas, D. Winton (ed.), Documents from Old Testament times, London, 1958Google Scholar, plate 3. The king is Jehu. It is misleading to call Ahab the typical ‘bad guy’because 1 Kings xxi, 27–9, records that because he repented, God postponed judgement on the house of Ahab until after his death. The Biblical writers would undoubtedly regard Jeroboam or Manasseh as chief candidates for the typical ‘bad guy’and Hezekiah and Josiah (not to mention David) for the typical ‘good guy’. For further points of criticism see Malamat's article.

46 ‘Th e legitimacy of Solomon’, 59.

47 ‘Lévi-Strauss in the Garden of Eden’, 395.

48 For a typical exposition of the problems see Bad, G. von, Genesis, second ed., London, 1963Google Scholar.

49 ‘Lévi-Strauss in the Garden of Eden’, 393–4.

50 cf. Genesis xx, 12, with Leviticus xviii, 9.

51 Genesis xix, 30–8.

52 H Genesis xxxviii.

53 ‘Genesis as myth’, 35.

54 ‘L'esprit humain selon C. Lévi-Strauss’, 30.