The study of midrash-the biblical exegesis, parables, and anecdotes of the Rabbis-has enjoyed a renaissance in recent years. Most recent scholarship, however, has focused on the aggadic or narrative ...midrash, while halakhic or legal midrash-the exegesis of biblical law-has received relatively little attention. InScripture as Logos, Azzan Yadin addresses this long-standing need, examining early, tannaitic (70-200 C.E.) legal midrash, focusing on the interpretive tradition associated with the figure of Rabbi Ishmael. This is a sophisticated study of midrashic hermeneutics, growing out of the observation that the Rabbi Ishmael midrashim contain a dual personification of Scripture, which is referred to as both "torah" and "ha-katuv." It is Yadin's significant contribution to note that the two terms are not in fact synonymous but rather serve as metonymies for Sinai on the one hand and, on the other, the rabbinic house of study, the bet midrash. Yadin develops this insight, ultimately presenting the complex but highly coherent interpretive ideology that underlies these rabbinic texts, an ideology that-contrary to the dominant view today-seeks to minimize the role of the rabbinic reader by presenting Scripture as actively self-interpretive. Moving beyond textual analysis, Yadin then locates the Rabbi Ishmael hermeneutic within the religious landscape of Second Temple and post-Temple literature. The result is a series of surprising connections between these rabbinic texts and Wisdom literature, the Dead Sea Scrolls, and the Church Fathers, all of which lead to a radical rethinking of the origins of rabbinic midrash and, indeed, of the Rabbis as a whole.
The relationship between secularity and religion/religiosity is a main topic of practical theology and ecclesiastical pastoral care. However, several research papers on religious studies show that ...the thesis that with disappearing institutionalized religiosity, plural and differentiated forms of religiosity increase is not convincing. In fact, the development shows that where people do not experience religion, it becomes irrelevant to them. This fact is an urgent question for the Church: With and from which basic attitude can and will she be able to encounter religious and secular people in such ways that the Christian gospel of human emancipation and redemption can become a reality in their lives? The Church can realize such a fundamental attitude in reference to the biblical Exodus and by generating a pastoral exodus.
This bible commentary looks at how Exodus has influenced and has been influenced by history, religion, politics, the arts and other forms of culture over the ages. • A bible commentary tracing the ...reception history of Exodus from Old Testament times, through the Patristic and Reformation periods, to the present day. • Considers the ways in which Exodus has influenced and has been influenced by history, religion, politics, the arts and other forms of culture in Jewish, Christian and secular settings. • Looks at how Exodus has served as a tool of liberation and tyranny in a variety of settings. • Shows how Exodus has been used to shape the identities of individuals and groups. • Discusses the works of current and past poets, musicians, film-makers, authors and artists influenced by Exodus. • Addresses uses of Exodus related to American and European history such as the Glorious Revolution, colonialism, the American Revolution, Civil War, Civil Rights Movement, African-Americans, and Native Americans, as well as uses by prominent and little-known historical figures • Considers the impact of the Ten Commandments and other laws, in legal, political and religious contexts. The Blackwell Bible Commentary series is supported by a website at www.bbibcomm.net
Exodus into Ordinary Life Bielik-Robson, Agata
Angelaki : journal of theoretical humanities,
05/03/2024, 2024-05-03, Volume:
29, Issue:
3
Journal Article
Peer reviewed
Open access
This essay focuses on Eric Santner's psychoanalytic reinterpretation of the crucial symbol of Judaism - yetziat mitzrayim, the getting out of Egypt - as "the Exodus out of our own Egyptomania." ...Formulated in his book on Rosenzweig and Freud, On the Psychotheology of Everyday Life, it appears in all Santner's later works concerned with political theology, where "Egyptomania" stands for everything that overburdens human life with an excessive "signifying stress" or "ex-citation," weighing it down with the impossible demands of the ultimate metaphysical self-justification and the interpellating call to sublimity. Contrary to Hegel's definition of Judaism as "the religion of the sublime," Santner consequently champions the opposite view, according to which the Abrahamic revelation forms the first religion of radical desublimation that blocks the vertical transport into the extraordinary "beyond" and focuses instead on the immanent transcendence as the radical otherness of the neighbour/stranger in the world. The Exodus, therefore, is to be understood not as an exit out of the world, following the call of the otherworldly God, but precisely the other way round: as an exit of the Egyptomaniac metaphysical paralysis, where "Egypt" represents an impasse of the self-negating life which cannot tolerate its finite condition and invents a sublime alibi in a false promise of immortality.
This work examines how Jews defended themselves against anti-Jewish slander concerning the biblical despoliation of Egypt. The embarrassment of the episode was later 'healed' through allegory and ...became a critically important biblical justification for the Christian appropriation of the Greco-Roman cultural heritage.
This article argues that in the three instances in Luke-Acts where the phrase ‘And suddenly, two men. . .’ occurs, Luke 9, Luke 24 and Acts 1, the author expects us to understand that these men are ...Moses and Elijah, who are named in the first occurrence at the Transfiguration. This interpretation makes literary, audience expectation, and theological sense, creating a deeper understanding of the significance of the two prophets for the proclamation of the resurrection and the mission of the Church. It is argued that the interpretation that the ‘two men’ are ‘angels,’ like Gabriel, does not pay sufficient attention to the details of the text and reads across an understanding that the ‘men’ are ‘angels’ from Luke 24 to Acts 1 without warrant.
The narrative of the people's redemption from Egyptian oppression plays a central role in the Hebrew bible in numerous books, genres and literary sources. Among these biblical references some ...occurrences lack a central element of the familiar story-the peoples' slavery. This article discusses the narrative of the Israelites' experience in Egypt as presented in the idiosyncratic review of Israel's chronicle in Ezekiel 20 and as implied by other references in the biblical laws, narratives and prophecies. It argues for a gradual evolution of the narrative of the Egyptian slavery and oppression, and thus of the redemption of Israel.
This close synchronic analysis of Exodus 1-2 looks at how the pericope's structure, language, focalization and management of information form its conception and judgement of its events and ...characters. A coherence of concerns is detectable in Exodus 1-2 with allusions to Genesis and the later chapters of Exodus. One chapter is assigned to each of seven narrative unities and deals in various ways with its narrative problems. The resulting eclectic choice of analytical tools includes the study of Proppian structural functions, repetition, public rhetoric, narrative speeds, order and symbolism.
