scholarly journals Why did Cain kill Abel? How did Cain kill Abel? Methodological reflections on the retelling of the Cain and Abel narrative in Bereshit Rabbah

2003 ◽  
Vol 24 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 79-94
Author(s):  
Chaim Milikowsky
Keyword(s):  
The Other ◽  
Rabbinic Literature ◽  
Biblical Text ◽  
The Bible ◽  
Cain And Abel

This article begins with some reflections on the nature of the midrashic enterprise, focusing upon two major points. Any attempt to delineate the character of any biblical figure as he/she is presented in rabbinic literature is mistaken in its basic presuppositions. The Rabbis did not see the narratives they derived from their excavations into the biblical text as having the same level of facticity and historicity as they did the narrative of the Bible itself. An analysis of the “Our father Jacob never died” discussion in Talmud Bavli, Ta’anit 4b follows, and it leads to the conclusion that midrashic narrative is explicitly demarcated from the historical-literal reconstruction of past events. The remainder of the paper deals with the retelling of the Cain killing Abel history, or rather with the three different reconstructions of that story, in Bereshit Rabbah, and with the detailing of the method by which Cain killed Abel. One is presented as midrashic exegesis and the other as maximalist antiquarian exegesis, and the argument is made that these modes should be radically demarcated from each other.

Chronicles and intertextuality in early rabbinic literature

2019 ◽  
Vol 43 (4) ◽  
pp. 712-725
Author(s):  
Blaire A French
Keyword(s):  
The Other ◽  
Rabbinic Literature ◽  
Special Treatment ◽  
Dual Effect ◽  
The Past ◽  
Leviticus Rabbah ◽  
The Bible ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
The One

The call to read Chronicles ‘midrashically’ in Leviticus Rabbah 1.3 and Ruth Rabbah 2.1 challenges the contemporary understanding of intertextuality in the early Rabbis’ interpretation of Scripture. David Stern, James Kugel, and others claim that the sages considered each word of the Bible to be equal, regardless of who wrote it or when. The Rabbis’ insistence, however, that Chronicles receive special treatment contradicts this assertion. This article argues that Chronicles’ late date of composition had a dual effect. On the one hand, Chronicles’ lateness reduced its authority and led the Rabbis to give greater weight to the words of the Primary History in their intertextual readings. On the other hand, Chronicles’ retelling of the past provided a biblical warrant for the Rabbis’ own reshaping of tradition.

Recent Literary Approaches to the Mishnah

AJS Review ◽  
2008 ◽  
Vol 32 (2) ◽  
pp. 225-234 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elizabeth Shanks Alexander
Keyword(s):  
Biblical Studies ◽  
Rabbinic Literature ◽  
Biblical Text ◽  
Critical Approach ◽  
Historical Source ◽  
Historical Criticism ◽  
The Bible ◽  
Surface Irregularities ◽  
The Way

Literary approaches to rabbinic literature entered the field through biblical studies, in which scholars from different quarters and different points of reference were using them to make sense of the biblical text as it has come down to us. The literary approach took umbrage at the way in which the historical source-critical approach dissects the Bible into its constituent sources. The literary approach was an overt attempt to overcome the fractures that historical criticism had introduced into the surface of the biblical text. It proposed instead to read the text—with all of its surface irregularities, gaps, and hiatuses—as coherent and meaningful.

scholarly journals Zeugizō: The Language of Marital Infidelity in the Account of Treachery Toward the Ancestral Laws in 1 Macc 1:15

Verbum Vitae ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 38 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Janusz Nawrot
Keyword(s):  
Present Article ◽  
Human Life ◽  
The Other ◽  
Biblical Text ◽  
The Bible ◽  
Marital Infidelity

The present article deals with a linguistic issue well known in the Bible but not usually overtly present in the terminology of Hebrew and Greek Scripture. It concerns the sexual sphere of human life and is expressed by the verb zeugizō (1 Macc 1:15). This term appears only once in the Septuagint and is not featured in any of the other inspired books. However, the discovery of a non-biblical text which includes the term in question, as well as the inclusion of the verb by the Jewish authors of the Greek Bible from the 2nd century AD, shed important light on the sense of the verb in the First Book of the Maccabees. The exegesis carried out reveals just how harsh was the hagiographer’s critique of, and judgment upon, the supporters of the Hellenization of Judea.

Spiritualism in Raymond Carver’s Work

2015 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 214
Author(s):  
Viola Kita
Keyword(s):  
The Other ◽  
Good Thing ◽  
Raymond Carver ◽  
The Bible ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
Christian Writer ◽  
Spiritual Reading ◽  
Insight Into

Raymond Carver’s work provides the opportunity for a spiritual reading. The article that offers the greatest insight into spirituality is William Stull’s “Beyond Hopelessville: Another Side of Raymond Carver.” In it we can notice the darkness which is dominant in Carver’s early works with the optimism that is an essential part of Carver’s work “Cathedral”. A careful reading of “A Small Good Thing” and “The Bath” can give the idea that they are based on the allegory of spiritual rebirth which can be interpreted as a “symbol of Resurrection”. Despite Stull’s insisting in Carver’s stories allusions based on the Bible, it cannot be proved that the writer has made use of Christian imagery. Therefore, it can be concluded that spirituality in Carver’s work is one of the most confusing topics so far in the literary world because on one hand literary critics find a lot of biblical elements and on the other hand Carver himself refuses to be analyzed as a Christian writer.

Conclusion

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dirk van Miert
Keyword(s):  
Natural Science ◽  
Biblical Text ◽  
The Bible ◽  
External Pressures ◽  
History Of

In the conclusion, the intrinsic deconstructive power of philology is contrasted with external pressures moving philology in different political and religious directions. The positions of the main protagonists differed widely, but they show that the less they were institutionalized, the more freedom they had to present unorthodox theories. As in the case of natural science, biblical philology was a handmaiden of theology, but it could also be used against certain theologies. In the end, the accumulation of evidence regarding the history of the Bible and the transmission of its texts, could not fail to impinge on the authority of Scripture. The problems in the transmission of the biblical text were widely discussed in the decade leading up to the publication of the Theological-political Treatise. Readers of Spinoza were already familiar with the type of reasoning which Spinoza employed in the central chapters of his notorious work.

Reading from Worlds under the Text: Oceanic Women in the missio Dei

2020 ◽  
Vol 37 (1) ◽  
pp. 29-51
Author(s):  
Rosemary Dewerse ◽  
Cathy Hine
Keyword(s):  
Global South ◽  
Missio Dei ◽  
Biblical Text ◽  
Biblical Hermeneutics ◽  
The Bible ◽  
Biblical Women

Abstract Missional hermeneutics is a relatively recent development in the field of biblical hermeneutics, emerging from several decades of scholarly engagement with the concept and frame of missio Dei. In a key recent publication in the field, Reading the Bible Missionally, edited by Michael Goheen, the voices of the Global South and of women – and certainly of women from Oceania – do not feature. In this article the authors, both Oceanic women, interrupt the discourse to read biblical text from their twice-under perspective. The Beatitudes provide the frame and the lens for a spiralling discussion of the missio Dei as, to borrow from Letty M. Russell, “calculated inefficiency.” Stories of faithful Oceanic women interweave with those of God and of biblical women, offering their complexities to challenge assumptions and simplicities.

The Question of God’s Perfection

2021 ◽  
pp. 014610792110306
Author(s):  
Cornell Collin
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
The Netherlands ◽  
Biblical Theology ◽  
The State ◽  
Rabbinic Literature ◽  
Central Question ◽  
Theological Interpretation ◽  
World Religions ◽  
The Bible ◽  
Present Essay

Is God perfect? The recent volume entitled The Question of God’s Perfection stages a conversation on that topic between mostly Jewish philosophers, theologians, and scholars of rabbinic literature. Although it is neither a work of biblical theology nor a contribution to the theological interpretation of scripture, The Question of God’s Perfection yields stimulating results for these other, intersecting projects. After briefly describing the volume’s central question and contents, the present essay situates the volume’s offerings within the state of the biblical-theological and theological-interpretive fields. In its next section, it considers—and compares— The Question of God’s Perfection with one twentieth-century theological antecedent, the Dutch theologian K.H. Miskotte. In closing, it poses questions for ongoing discussion. The Question of God’s Perfection: Jewish and Christian Essays on the God of the Bible and Talmud, edited by Yoram Hazony & Dru Johnson. Philosophy of Religion – World Religions 8. Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill, 2019. ISBN 9789004387959

The Binding of Isaac in J.R.R. Tolkien and Stephen King

2020 ◽  
Vol 28 (2) ◽  
pp. 150-174
Author(s):  
Sebastian Selvén
Keyword(s):  
Biblical Text ◽  
Stephen King ◽  
The Bible ◽  
Genesis 22 ◽  
Intertextual Dialogue

Abstract This article investigates biblical reception in the works of two popular modern fantasy authors. It stages an intertextual dialogue between Genesis 22:1-19, “the binding of Isaac”, and two episodes, in Stephen King’s The Gunslinger and J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Return of the King. After presenting the dynamics of what happens to the biblical text in these two authors and the perspectives that come out, a hermeneutical reversal is then suggested, in which the modern stories are used to probe the biblical text. One can return to the Bible with questions culled from its later reception, in this case King and Tolkien. This article argues that the themes touched upon by the two authors are important and hermeneutically relevant ones, sometimes novel and sometimes contributions to exegetical debates that have been going on for centuries.

scholarly journals Love founded in God: The fruits of love in Kierkegaard’s ‘Works of love’

2011 ◽  
Vol 67 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Jos Huls
Keyword(s):  
Direct Relationship ◽  
The Other ◽  
Final Part ◽  
The Bible ◽  
Works Of Love ◽  
Divine Origin ◽  
Loving Relationship

This article discussed the use of the Bible in ‘Love’s hidden life and its recognizability by its fruits’, which is the first reflection of Søren Kierkegaard’s book, Works of love. Firstly, this article discussed Kierkegaard’s lack of clarity about the fruits of love, even though he stresses their divine origin. Secondly, it reflected on his argument that, even though deeds are more important than words, words remain necessary because of the need to express love to others. In a following section he points out that neither specific words nor particular works of love can demonstrate that love exists. One needs to distinguish between works of love and the attitude with which works are done. Thirdly, it pointed out how Kierkegaard argues that the inability to demonstrate love unconditionally does not negate that love is to be known by its fruits. It is rather a personal incitement to love for the sake of love itself. Noting that there is no direct relationship between the fruits of love and the actual effects our love has on others, he points to the fact that the result of love is in the hands of God. He then argues that though fruits of love may be invisible, they become apparent in the strength of our love. The only responsibility we have is to follow love as the divine movement of our heart. In the final part of his reflection, Kierkegaard notes that there is no other way to enter into the reality of love than to believe in it. This implies that one should be careful of making demands on someone in a loving relationship. What is needed is to become rooted in love as the divine source of the heart so that one will understand that this unseen reality is the foundation of existence in which one is known by the Other, whose essence is love.

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