Abstract
In this essay, the author engages the Moses, a sculpture by Michelangelo, as a transformational object. He does so in light of psychoanalytic interpretations of the statue, including Sigmund Freud’s (who referred to his essay on the Moses as “a joke”), as well as three psychoanalytic interpretations after Freud. While drawing on and combining features of all of these psychoanalytic interpretations, the author makes particular use of Moshe Halevi Spero’s interpretation to affirm a reading of the Moses as representing a paternal figure who not only gives up his anger (and power to castrate) but also actively nourishes his children like a nursing mother. The author also understands Freud’s essay on the Moses to be a form of teasing, which, in part, is why it has been a transformational object for him.
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Notes
What is a transformational object? This term may seem like jargon to readers unfamiliar with contemporary psychoanalysis. In psychoanalytic thought, transitional objects are distinguished from transformational objects (Bollas 1987; Carlin 2009). I think of transitional objects as things such as teddy bears and blankets that hold special importance to small children because these objects psychically stand in for their mother (or parental figure) in order to help calm the child in her absence. These objects help children transition from being held by mother to being able to be alone. In contrast, I think of transformational objects as things that psychically hold experiences of growth or satisfaction. Transformational objects are things such as the home run ball one hit or the graduation diploma one earned—they capture moments of success and also affirm hoping.
Throughout this essay after this instance, I will refer to “Pope Julius II” as “Pope Julius.”
Freud often, though not always, emphasizes Oedipal themes in his analysis of culture, but an important writer in psychology of religion who has explored non-Oedipal themes in Freud’s works is Diane Jonte-Pace. See especially her Speaking the Unspeakable: Religion, Misogyny, and the Uncanny Mother in Freud’s Cultural Texts (Jonte-Pace 2001).
The trope of Jews having horns is anti-Semitic. For a recent exploration on anti-Semitism and Freud, see Old and Dirty Gods: Religion, Anti-Semitism, and the Origins of Psychoanalysis (Cooper-White 2018).
The same is true, by the way, for theology. Theological claims (like psychoanalytic ones) often are neither falsifiable nor reproducible. So, both must be compelling in terms of intuition; both must be able to be experienced as true. And for this to happen, such claims—both theological and psychoanalytic—need to be beautiful. The story of the Christ has stood the test of time because it is beautiful. It is hard to imagine a truer story about God.
Robert Dykstra pointed out to me that there was, in fact, an oil crisis in the United States and elsewhere in 1979, during which time gas prices rose globally because of the effects of the Iranian Revolution.
In terms of the philosophy of jokes, this is humorous because it is out of character for an adult to do a childish thing (Wisnewski 2007).
Relatedly, my parents considered adopting a three-year-old autistic boy, Charlie, who lived with us for a year when I was about ten or eleven. But they ultimately decided against adoption, opting instead to give him back to the foster child program, because he screamed too much. His screaming really was terrible. Still, I was devastated, for I loved Charlie very much. After that, I sometimes wondered if my parents would give me away if they could.
The other time my father choked me was because I was making too much noise in the basement with my friends. My father choked me in front of them. It occurs to me that there is a similarity between my friends and I playing and the Israelites worshiping the golden calf in that an angry father appeared in anger to stop the frolicking.
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Acknowledgments
I would like to thank the Group for New Directions in Pastoral Theology, as well as the McGovern Center for Humanities and Ethics, for feedback on this essay. The peer reviewers also were of great help. Although I am not able to credit them directly because they are anonymous, I did incorporate many of their thoughtful suggestions in revising this essay. I also would like to thank William Howze for securing permissions for the use of the images in this essay.
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All of the works of art in this article are in the public domain. The Moses is a sculpture by Michelangelo Buonarroti, completed in 1545, Church of San Pietro in Vincoli, Rome. The source of this image is Prasenbergen. It was transferred from en.wikipedia to Commons by User: Leoboudv using CommonsHelper. This image is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic. The close-up of the Moses is by Jörg Bittner Unna, also licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic. TheNursing Madonna (Madonna Lactans) is by an unknown master of Bruges, 16th century, Museu de Aveiro, Portugal. The source is Alvesgaspar. La Madonna che Allatta il Figlio is a drawing by Michelangelo Buonarroti, about 1525, Casa Buonarroti, Florence.
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Carlin, N. The Moses. Pastoral Psychol 68, 619–637 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11089-019-00868-3
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11089-019-00868-3