Outdated
Dimont often states as settled fact historical theories that were in their heyday while he was writing, but have since been reconsidered in light of new evidence and scholarship. For example, he baldly states that the duality that runs through the Pentateuch (two gods, Yahweh and Elohim; two Jewish people, Hebrews and Israelites; two Moseses, Egyptian and Midianite) is the result of the redaction and compilation of the Yahwist, Elohist, Yahwist-Elohist, and Priestly sources into the canonical Torah under King Josiah and later Ezra and Nehemiah. He just as baldly affirms that this redaction was a deliberate political maneuver, and that Josiah and Ezra adopted the conceit of “discovering” the books of Moses as a tactic to ensure their acceptance and effect the unification of the Jewish people. His confidence in the “documentary hypothesis” (that the Torah resulted from the combination of earlier separate sources by later redactors) reflects 20th Century scholarly consensus, but is misleading in light of more recent scholarship indicating that the process of the compilation of the Torah was more complicated.
Sloppy
Furthermore, his political interpretation of the “rediscovery” of the books of Moses goes unsupported. Rather, here as elsewhere, he asserts that “irrespective of which explanation one accepts, the events took place, and these events shaped history.” But the explanations themselves involve contradictory versions of events. If we accept the explanation that Josiah and Ezra did rediscover the books of Moses in the Temple, then the events Dimont narrates did not take place.
This illustrates a larger weakness of the work, which is Dimont’s confusion of a neutral historical view point with his own historical thesis, which he pursues from a non-neutral secular perspective. The thesis is, more or less, that the Jews, in and of themselves, are the most incredible people on earth. But first, regarding his non-neutral secular perspective: although he nods to the viability of historical interpretations which accept the supernatural, he fails to engage with them at all, apparently assuming their falsity. For example, he makes no argument on historical grounds that Abraham did not receive revelation from God; rather in response to the question “Did this really happen?” He responds “We say it could have happened, but in a slightly different way. If we view this encounter through the lens of modern psychoanalysis, it might become understandable in modern terms.” He proceeds to suggest that Yahweh and his promise to make of Abraham a great nation was a psychological projection of Abraham, reflecting his concern for his progeny.
This leads directly to Dimont’s confusion of a neutral historical viewpoint with his own historical thesis. He concludes: “From a historical viewpoint, it makes no difference whether it was Abraham who projected this experience onto an imaginary Jehovah or a real Jehovah who proposed it to Abraham. The fact remains that after four thousand years the idea of a covenant between the Jews and Jehovah is still alive and mentioned daily in prayers in synagogues throughout the world.” This fact that remains is an illustration of precisely what Dimont sets out to prove: the greatness of the Jews, attributable in particular to their ideas. It is not a historical fact, in the sense of a datum, it is an interpretation marshalled in support of a conclusion. From a historical viewpoint it makes a great deal of difference whether Abraham projected “Jehovah” or “Jehovah” actually spoke to Abraham, because these constitute distinct historical events. It is only from Dimont’s viewpoint that it makes no difference.
Insufferable
I chose this history largely on the testimony of readers and reviewers that it was well and entertainingly written. It is neither. Besides being rife with elementary grammatical errors (e.g. “The bloody business of massacre and countermassacre succeeded one another with unrelenting horror.” Subject: “bloody business,” predicate: “succeeded one another”), stylistically the book adopts the voice of a stereotypical zany uncle. Jezebel is “the archbitch of history,” the Hasmonean concord with the Romans is illustrated by the limerick about the “young lady of Niger,” etc. Moreover, pages of space are wasted expounding popular theoretical views of history (Marx, Toynbee, Spengler) and making shallow comparisons to more recent European and American history (“Tiglath-Pileser III, the Bismarck of his time . . . “). This space would have been put to better use discussing the historical evidence underlying Dimont’s claims. All this is not to mention his frequent and unsupported assertions attributing every institution of modern Western society directly to the ancient Israelites (democracy, rule of law, etc.) He might be right, but he makes no case for himself, and the frequency and stridency with which he states the theme “all that is good is Jewish” makes one rather suspicious than convinced.
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