Page - 39 - in JRFM - Journal Religion Film Media, Volume 07/01

Writing, Affordances, and Governable Subjects | 39www.jrfm.eu 2021, 7/1, 33–44 Deuteronomy’s Subjects In Deuteronomy, the writers appropriate these three affordances to shape conduct and create Israel as a particular type of subject. Remember that writ- ing was a relatively new technology at the time, one they and others presuma- bly were learning about, including its affordances. During a period of empires and imperial governance, these writers made Israel the subject of their writ- ing, rather than imperial matters and concerns. Narratively, Deuteronomy is presented as a series of four speeches deliv- ered by Moses to the assembled people of Israel on the eastern shores of the Jordan river (1:1). This feature of the text helps create in readers the sense they also are present as Moses speaks his words, that, as Sanders notes, they continue to understand themselves as the ones being addressed by Moses.15 As readers encounter these speeches, they learn what it means to be “Israel” from the book: how to act, live, sacrifice, build, punish, behave in times of war, and treat war captives, what to do when entering Canaan, how to be blessed or cursed for (non-)observance of the words of Deuteronomy. They do so through the medium of writing. Moses is not delivering his speeches to the reader directly; his speeches are preserved in writing.16 This is a realization of the affordance of writing. The affordance of fixing and stabilizing words a certain way enables individuals in other times and places to read them. The written speeches may be copied, circulated, used, and reused. These actions are made possible by this affordance, which contributes, in turn, to the social understanding that the texts record and preserve the words of a specific per- son, who spoke them in a particular time and place.17 This understanding is encouraged by the narratives themselves, in several ways. The deity models the fixing and stabilizing of words in writing. Twice the deity is presented as writing down words to preserve them for Israel, since Moses breaks the first set of stone tablets (4:13; 5:22; 10:2, 4).18 Moses also models this affordance. He speaks to the people the words the deity gave him 15 The impression that Deuteronomy records actual historical events also is created, but such historicity is greatly debated. 16 Sonnet’s arguments (Sonnet 1997) about the book within the book and the two levels of the book, that of the plot and that of the narrator, provide one of the more widely accepted explanations of the relationship between speech and writing in Deuteronomy. 17 This is another effect of fixing and stabilizing: what is written can be understood as a record of an event, even if fictive. 18 Divine writing is not as fixed or stable as one might assume.