Alter on Deuteronomy 30

Commenting on Deuteronomy 30:9ff in his new translation of the Pentateuch, Robert Alter offers the following comment on “Who will go up for us to the heavens, etc”:

“The Deuteronomist, having given God’s teaching a local place and habitation in a text available to all, proceeds to reject the older mythological notion of the secrets or wisdom of the gods. It is the daring hero of the pagan epic who, unlike ordinary men, makes bold to climb the sky or cross the great sea to bring back the hidden treasures of the divine realm ?Eas Gilgamesh crosses the sea in an effort to bring back the secret of immortality. This mythological and heroic era, the Deuteronomist now proclaims, is at an end, for God’s word, inscribed in a book, has become the intimate property of every person.”