Enuma Elish and Priestly Mimesis: Elite Emulation in Nascent Judaism‪.‬

Human development depends on our tacit inclination to imitate the cultural patterns modeled by others. Though this mimetic behavior is obvious when we are young, the tendency to replicate our neighbor's conduct is very strong and continues throughout our lifetime. In fact, we could accurately say that mimesis is an essential ingredient in the human experience. Given that tacit imitation plays such a vital role in the development of human persons, it cannot be a surprise that more explicit, intentional acts of imitation are also important factors in the development and perpetuation of human culture. I have in mind a phenomenon known in the technical literature as elite emulation. Elite emulation often appears in colonial or imperial contexts, when peripheral social groups are oppressed and threatened, or at least feel threatened, by a larger social core. (1) In these cases, it is common for peripheral cultures to seek legitimacy by symbolically imitating the prestigious culture that dominates them. Doing so is always an exercise in similarity and alterity, in seeking both to imitate and to differentiate oneself from "the other." (2) The Cuna natives of Panama are a notable and interesting success in this regard, having preserved their distinctive identity into the twenty-first century in the face of European colonialism. (3) A powerful image of their mimetic response to colonialism is found in Cuna dress: the men are inclined to wear European attire with coats and ties, while the women wear traditional dress, with their nose-rings, vivid and strikingly beautiful blouses, and head coverings. Native and foreign imagery are here juxtaposed in a powerful mechanism of cultural survival. What I would like to explore in this article is a similar expression of elite emulation found in the Hebrew Bible, specifically in the Priestly material of the Pentateuch.