Moses and Civilization

Robert A. Paul is Charles Howard Candler Professor of Anthropology at Emory University and associate professor in the department of psychiatry there. He served as editor of Ethos: Journal of the Society of Psychological Anthropology (1984-96) and as president of the Society for Cultural Anthropology (1993-95). He is on the teaching faculty of the Emory University Psychoanalytic Institute.

Winner of the 1996 National Jewish Book Award (in the category of Jewish Thought)Winner of the 1996 Heinz Hartmann Award given by the New York Psychoanalytic Institute Winner of the best book in cultural anthropology from the American Anthropological AssociationWinner of the 1996 Boyer Prize given by the Society for Psychological Anthropology "This very important book is a fascinating psychoanalytic reading of the Torah that frequently illuminates texts that have been quite mysterious."—Daniel Boyarin, University of California, Berkeley"In Moses and Civilization Robert Paul confronts a baffling intellectual puzzle which, in a tour de force, he tackles with the skill of a master puzzler. Although not everyone will agree with his proposed solution, no one, whether Freudian or anti-Freudian, will deny that it is achieved with rare insight and intelligence. It is a genuine intellectual treat."—Melford Spiro, University of California, San Diego"Were the murders of the primal horde repeated in the saga of Moses, and did they lead to the birth of civilization and Judeo-Christian morality? Paul's hypothesis to this effect offers new understandings of the Bible, of Freud, of Western civilization, and of the primal horde as mythic paradigm rather than discredited reconstruction of ancient history."—M.D. E. Moore, m.d., co-editor with Bernard Fine of Psychoanalysis: The Major Concepts and Psychoanalytic Terms and Concepts.