Paper short abstract:

This paper analyses passages from Sifre Devarim, a 3rd century Palestinian interpretation to the book of Deuteronomy, as textual tools of narrative and emotional technology constructing God as an object of devotion, especially through analogies involving hierarchy.

Paper long abstract:

Approaching religion as a cultural system that can be described as an emotional regime, where diverse emotional relations connect the individual agent, the community, and a symbol as three poles of a triangle (Riis and Woodhead 2010), this paper looks at forms of total devotion in emerging tannaitic Judaism. The tannaitic text of Sifrei Devarim (3rd century Palestine) reflects both on the divine symbol as a human construction and on the collective context of this construction while at the same time marking the relationship between the agent, the community, and the symbol as all-encompassing. While this mere idea Is initially presented in a parable concerning the technology of building palaces upon ships (SD 346), additional parables and other kinds of narratives in SD can be seen as the reference of this parable, i.e. the cultural technology of consecration, or the construction of the divine symbol as an object of devotion. This paper will analyse the narrative and emotional technologies involved in this construction of an all-encompassing devotion between Israel and God, especially with regard to narratives and emotionality involving social superiority (God as a patriarch, Israel as a son or servant) and an explicit erotic dimension (husband-wife).