RT Article
T1 The Golden Calf Story: Constructively and Deconstructively*
JF Journal for the study of the Old Testament
VO 33
IS 1
SP 19
OP 38
A1 Slivniak, Dmitri
LA English
YR 2008
UL https://ixtheo.de/Record/1777013690
AB Unlike other postmodern reading practices, deconstruction suppresses the figure of the reader: the text is viewed as both engendering and undermining its meaning, while the reader's role is only to discover these processes. Yet, when one deconstructs biblical texts, `anarchic' and `lacking logic' according to traditional Western criteria, the illusion vanishes, and it is hard to get along without the reader as an active figure. The reader's role is actively to construct the meaning of the text, before it gets deconstructed. This is the reason why in some recent works the deconstructive reading of the text is preceded by a `constructive' one. In this article the Golden Calf story (Exod. 32) is read both constructively and deconstructively. The constructive reading focuses on the opposition `normative cult—deviant cult' which is viewed as central to the story. Normative cult and deviant cult are represented by the Tablets of the Law and the Golden Calf respectively. The deconstruction of this opposition is based on the fact that the tablets and the calf receive the same treatment: Moses destroys both of them.
K1 forbidden cult
K1 normative cult
K1 Golden Calf story
K1 reading strategies
K1 Postmodernism
K1 Deconstruction
DO 10.1177/0309089208094458