A Woman Called Moses:A Prophet for Our Time

The reader is left free to draw political lessons. Moses left no lineage, and it is unreasonable to claim this in the name of an improbable genealogy. There can therefore be no “Judaism of blood” that crossed centuries and continents to establish a right of ownership over an idolatrous land. Contemporary relevance is not far away.

We should immerse ourselves in this fragile Moses, rescued from the bland waters of the Sulpicians or the burning waters of “holy fools”.

Jean-Christophe Attias, a specialist in medieval Jewish thought, has freed himself from the academic straitjacket and drawn in a beautiful and evocative style a portrait of Moses as an “uncertain prophet”.

Regenerated by reflection, revived by the power of the mind, Jean-Christophe Attias’s Moses emerges from the pages as a young man, freed at last of Charlton Heston’s granite features and relieved of the gigantic weight that the three monotheistic religions imposed on him.

A brilliant book, as decidedly original as it is disturbing.

Praise for The Jews and the Bible:
This beautifully written (and translated) monograph casts profound doubt on attempts to simplistically characterize the terms Jews and Bible or to view the relationship between them one dimensionally... Highly recommended.

Praise for The Jews and the Bible:

Professor Attias, a significant French intellectual and scholar of medieval Judaism, has written the first book that explores broadly the place of the Bible in Jewish culture throughout the ages. Engagingly written, this is an important initial foray into this broad and significant topic that raises important questions concerning the place of the Bible within contemporary Jewish culture.

Praise for The Jews and the Bible:

A study of the Jews’ peculiar relationships with the Bible, Jean-Christophe Attias’s The Jews and the Bible is an excellent companion to the recent crop of books on the Bible’s construction... [They] tell us how the Bible came to be, Attias focuses on how it came to be regarded.

Praise for The Jews and the Other:

This is a rich summation of the resources and challenges of Jewish identity and difference at the turn of the third Christian millennium. Committed, lucid, critical, and informed, it exemplifies a vibrantly human science of Jewishness.

Praise for Israel, the Impossible Land:
Jean-Christophe Attias and Esther Benbassa have written an elegant and erudite book demonstrating the complex relationship to the land of Israel throughout Jewish history.

In one of the most imaginative and creative works of contemporary Jewish thought, Jean Christophe Attias presents a fascinating interpretation of Moses as a woman. Building on intriguing suggestions in the Bible, Arttias inspires us to wonder how our understandings of the Bible and its sacred history might change if we think of Moses as female.

In this original and magical portrait of Moses, Attias takes the stock figure of the stern lawgiver and transforms him into 'one of us'. His Moses combines humility and grandeur, frailty and strength. He is a Jew and a non-Jew, 'and all the more of a human being because he is both'. Likewise, 'fully a man because he is also a woman'. Even his death emphasizes his humanity: he 'dies likes the rest of us, prematurely'. 'We do not know who buried him.' But we do know who brings him back to life: Attias the scribe. In this inspired, humane and deeply moving book, the 'Woman called Moses' speaks also to 'those of us who are secular'. She is truly 'a prophet for our times'.

Who was Moses? Not the historical Moses or the Moses of tradition, but the biblical Moses without apologetics, Moses in his most contradictory and obscure configuration. In A Woman Called Moses Attias presents us with a provocative, evocative, and courageous reading of Moses, seamlessly drawing from the biblical imaginary and classical commentaries combined with modern sensibilities and literary finesse that brings this imaginary figure to life. Attias’ pen sparkles with literary insight and poetic breadth. This work should be enjoyed slowly, like fine French wine.

Attias’s respect and attention to Moses’s example and legacy shines through. ... Open-minded readers are in for a thought-provoking treat.

Thoughtful and thought-provoking, informative and iconoclastic, and an impressively detailed work of original scholarship, Woman Called Moses: Prophet for Our Time is extraordinary and inherently fascinating reading.

Anybody with an interest in theology, or indeed Jewish history should enjoy A Woman Called Moses and be stimulated by it. Work like this underlines once more the extent to which the Bible has formed western thought, for Christians worshipping the deity, and equally for atheists in their vehement rejection.

Attias’s portrayal of Moses reveals the author’s respect, tenderness, and even love for the figure. ... Ultimately, through his imaginative depiction of Moses, Attias discloses a poignant longing and hope.