A cannibal reading of the Hebrew prophets

This article explores the literary significance of cannibalism and cannibalistic motifs in the Hebrew Prophets. Occasionally, the texts describe cannibalism outright; more frequently, they use cannibalism as a literary motif to negotiate transgression, alterity, or anxiety over incorporation. Cannibalism, while a powerful symbol, is never fully stable. It is used to signify extreme suffering, to negotiate relations of power, to indulge readers’ sadism, and to explore the ‘contact zone’ with foreign peoples. It also offers a model for rethinking the composition of the prophetic literature. Prophetic textuality can also be understood as a cannibalistic process: prophets and texts cannibalize earlier texts and prophecies; a prophetic book, like a cannibal’s, is constituted of pieces taken from other (textual) bodies. The cannibal is significant because it illuminates the working of a number of significant categories. The article explores these questions across the prophetic corpus, with particular attention to the book of Jeremiah.