Portrait of a Villain: Laban the Aramean in Rabbinic Literature (review)

Collecting and arranging references to Laban in the rabbinic canon, inclusive of targumim, Karin Hedner Zetterholm of Lund University in Sweden justifies her work in this language: "As a designation for the authors of the midrashim and targumim I have generally used the term 'rabbis.' While this may at first seem like an all too harmonizing way of referring to a group of people whose interpretive activity stretches over a time period of roughly a thousand years, I believe that it can be justified on the basis of the common set of assumptions concerning the biblical text that seems to underlie their interpretations, despite the differences of opinion, style, and modes of interpretation which they express" (p. vii). In an elaborate introduction, further, she argues against the position I have proposed and in favor of that of James Kugel and his school that traits of the text of Scripture provoke the exegetical work that yields the rabbinic exegesis (Kugel's view), not the particular interests of the documents that present that exegesis (which is my view). As a result, her survey is organized by themes, as is evident from her chapter titles: "Laban in the Bible and Pre-Rabbinic Literature"; "Laban and Deuteronomy 26:5: A Case of Intertextuality"; "Midrashic Exegesis of the Jacob-Laban Story in Genesis"; "A Narrative Analysis of the Jacob-Laban story in Targum Pseudo-Jonathan." These four topics are concluded with a summary.

Readers will immediately observe that while Zetterholm explicitly rejects the documentary reading of the rabbinic compilations, which asks questions of history and theology—context and program—in interpreting rabbinic writing, she has adopted some aspects of a documentary approach, without taking advantage of it in interpreting her data. Such documentary reading is self-evident in her third and fourth chapters—exegesis of the story in Genesis focusing on Genesis Rabbah and narrative analysis of the story in Targum Pseudo-Jonathan, respectively. What she rejects at the outset, therefore, she introduces when the work requires it.

But when it comes to what she calls "pre-Rabbinic literature," with special reference to Philo, Josephus, and Jubilees, she surveys bits and pieces of these quite coherent documents without appeal to said documents in explaining the random data. The result is indeterminate and vacuous. Take Jubilees, for example:

According to Jubilees (second century B.C.E.), Laban explains his replacement of Rachel for Leah by referring to "heavenly tablets" where it is written that one should not give away the younger daughter before the elder and the one who does so will not be righteous "because this action is evil in the Lord's presence." (28:6) The fact that Laban refers to Jacob's God and continues to lecture Jacob and tell him to order the Israelites not to give the younger before the elder in marriage (28:7) seems to imply that the author of Jubilees wanted to convey this message to his readers and did so by putting it into Laban's mouth. Even though the question remains as to why Laban did not inform Jacob of this state of affairs immediately, this episode rather seems to portray Laban in a favorable light. There is however one instance in which Jubilees gives a negative evaluation of Laban . . . After Jacob has become rich and Laban and his sons become jealous of him, Jubilees adds, "Laban took back his sheep from him and kept his eye on him for evil purposes (28:30)."

(p. 39)

What this adds up to, so far as I can see, is a paraphrase of what is there. There is no systemic inquiry, into, for example, the value-system of Jubilees to which the detail at hand may prove congruent. The deliberate ignoring of context thus exacts its cost: no important questions can be raised. But what of Kugel's approach? It too is neglected. Accordingly, how the state of the biblical text...