Mosè. Dal mondo al libro

From the biblical narrative to rabbinic commentaries, from Byzantine iconography to anti-Jewish interpretations, from Baruch Spinoza to Sigmund Freud, from Franz Kafka to Jacques Derrida, this book traces the history of a name—Moses—and of a gesture: that of writing. For in the tradition of the Torah, the law is transmitted only through its commentary, and the word never belongs entirely to the one who utters it. Here, the Sinaitic revelation is not a sacred and definitive event, but a narrative practice made of voices, mediations, stammerings, and rewritings. The law does not impose itself as an absolute command; rather, it presents itself as a text to be continued, always exposed to the idolatrous risk of authority and power. Following the story of Moses up to the enigmatic episode of his death, Giacomo Petrarca explores, in counterpoint, the notions of memory, transmission, law, writing, political theology, and narration, bringing to light the never fully resolved tension between the biblical text and its innumerable figurations.