The second class (in a series of three) on interpreting objects looked at how we interpret objects from a religious perspective (the first was on the artistic interpretation and the third on linguistic interpretation). Since my background is in religious studies, I immediately felt very comfortable discussing this. As I read the required readings in preparation for class, I was able to evaluate them and had something concrete to contribute in class. This post will review a few of the key points from our discussion and end with my evaluation.
Jan Assmann is considered “the theologian of Egyptology”. One of the readings (and the most insightful) was his work on Mnemohistory (or the history of memory). This approach allows him to study an ancient text and not make any value judgments on it based on actual history. It allows him to study a text as it was remembered. He takes this approach as a way of approaching a topic he calls, “the Moses Distinction” (basically Egypt verse Israel – the idea that Israel is good and Egypt is bad). This “Moses Distinction” affects us today in how we look at Egyptian objects.
He claims that three major world religions (Judaism, Christianity, and Islam) are all founded on the idea of monotheism (ie only one God) which naturally pits them against all other religions. He points out that polytheistic ancient societies happily integrated gods from other civilizations without much problem (a process he calls “translation”). It was the monotheistic idea that makes translation impossible.
Further, this led to an anti-Egyptian sentiment among the followers of monotheism because the God of Moses was the only and all others were a lie. Thus, idolatry became associated with forgetting and regressing, while monotheism was remembering and progressing. Israel was truth and Egypt was false. This led, he concludes, to a distinctive “Egyptophobic” image of Egypt in the Bible. This is reflected in the way societies today look back at ancient Egyptian religious objects. He then went on to talk about other people from Josephus to Sigmund Freud and how they remembered Moses and Egypt and used their memories to deconstruct the ancient text in an attempt to get at the “truth” behind it.
Fundamentally, I like Assmann’s approach to studying texts (whether on objects, walls, or some sort of writing material). Memory is the only sort of history that we have. Our experiences skew everything we write, everything we remember, and everything we convey (whether that be in a story we tell to a journal entry before we sleep to a history we teach to an object we make). The same is true for the ancient writers and artisans. I think there is true value in looking at texts as they convey a memory and learn from them in that way. Judging the text on whether we believe the history within is “true” or “false” before we study the text is bad science (because we make a judgment of validity before testing).
However, I believe that Assmann’s conclusions regarding his “Moses Distinction” is wrong for two reasons. The most fundamental reason I believe he has got it wrong is that he starts from the wrong perspective. I am not sure how much of the Pentateuch Assmann has actually studied. Some of his statements showed a real lack in familiarity with the text he was dealing with. For example, chronologically he places Moses after Akhenaton, which is not where the text places Moses. If you are going to study a text as a memory, you have to study the text and not what other people think or say about the text. Also, he claims that idolatry was the greatest sin among ancient Israel. This is also an error. Idolatry was a sin but not the greatest. It was one among ten. Each was equal. This is an easily demonstratable theological perspective. But this one error in theology led him to his next conclusion which was that Israel was anti-Egypt, which is not provable anywhere in Scripture. And the list continues.
The second error I believe Assmann makes is in his attempt to deconstruct history by use of memory. One of the greatest sins of the study of history (whether that be of text, art, religion, chronology, or events) in my opinion is the attempt to deconstruct what we have with the purpose at “discovering” the “true” history behind it. It makes no difference what Josephus or Freud, or anyone else thinks about the text. How they remember it doesn’t affect the text. All that can do is demonstrate the preconceptions each of those people had when approaching the text for study.
The text came before the remembering of these people (who lived after). Therefore, nothing they can “remember” affects it. To illustrate this in another way, how my daughter remembers my wedding doesn’t affect the actual wedding, not just because she wasn’t alive at the time (which should be just a basic question of logic) but also because the wedding is finished. If you want to learn more about the wedding you have to approach someone who was there. Even then, no matter if you are able to get every single one of those 350+ guests to relate the event to you, you will never get at the actual event (because, everyone perceives things differently). In other words, there is no “true” event to get at. There is no “one” way to tell about the event. There are millions. And my daughter’s memory is going to be skewed by what she has heard from me and the pictures she has seen. Chronologically, it is an error to seek origins from people who had nothing to do with the text’s writing and lived long after the author was dead.
How bold we think we are as scholars, and how clever, that we actually think it is possible to deconstruct a text to discover the “truth” behind it! How absurd. This is only compounded by the utter lack of material to work with.
Objects with religious natures had a purpose. We should try to understand that purpose and not try to get at any psychological reasons for its existence. Much of the problem of “New” Archaeological thought that still persists today, is the effort to play the psychologist with the ancient people. I am not sure that this can be done and neither do I think we are trained for it.
I suggest that we understand ourselves and our preconceptions, we study the texts/objects for what they are and what they say, and we try to distinguish between what we bring the study with what the object is (whether that is artistically, religiously, or textually).
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