Abstract Delilah is one of the more enigmatic characters in the Hebrew Scriptures. She is marked by a series of ambiguities in the text that pose a host of unanswered questions. Is she a Philistine, an Israelite, or something else? What exactly does her name mean and what is the nature of her relationship to Samson? And why does she help the Philistines capture Israel’s notorious strongman? Despite all this ambiguity, much of her reception history is rigidly consistent. The dominant trend is the portrayal of Delilah as the reviled seductress who bedevils Samson. This interpretation was also promulgated among ancient readers of the story such as Josephus and Pseudo-Philo, who identify Delilah not only as a prostitute and a Philistine, but as the wife of Samson. These types of interpretive gap-filling serve as early exemplars of a long and nearly unwavering reception history in which Delilah is unequivocally the villain. If there is any other interpretive potential lying dormant in the text, then it is rarely actualized. Building upon the work of contemporary feminist and womanist scholars, I intend to subvert that trend by arguing that Delilah can and should be read in a variety ways due to the intentional ambiguity employed by the biblical author. Furthermore, by drawing upon the work of Mikhail Bakhtin, I will identify the “unfinalizability” of Delilah’s character and demonstrate how she simultaneously embodies the role of victim, victor, and villain.
{"title":"Victim, Victor, or Villain? The Unfinalizability of Delilah","authors":"Mark Lackowski","doi":"10.1515/jbr-2019-0005","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/jbr-2019-0005","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract Delilah is one of the more enigmatic characters in the Hebrew Scriptures. She is marked by a series of ambiguities in the text that pose a host of unanswered questions. Is she a Philistine, an Israelite, or something else? What exactly does her name mean and what is the nature of her relationship to Samson? And why does she help the Philistines capture Israel’s notorious strongman? Despite all this ambiguity, much of her reception history is rigidly consistent. The dominant trend is the portrayal of Delilah as the reviled seductress who bedevils Samson. This interpretation was also promulgated among ancient readers of the story such as Josephus and Pseudo-Philo, who identify Delilah not only as a prostitute and a Philistine, but as the wife of Samson. These types of interpretive gap-filling serve as early exemplars of a long and nearly unwavering reception history in which Delilah is unequivocally the villain. If there is any other interpretive potential lying dormant in the text, then it is rarely actualized. Building upon the work of contemporary feminist and womanist scholars, I intend to subvert that trend by arguing that Delilah can and should be read in a variety ways due to the intentional ambiguity employed by the biblical author. Furthermore, by drawing upon the work of Mikhail Bakhtin, I will identify the “unfinalizability” of Delilah’s character and demonstrate how she simultaneously embodies the role of victim, victor, and villain.","PeriodicalId":17249,"journal":{"name":"Journal of the Bible and its Reception","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"91414068","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Abstract The article uses Sunset Boulevard (1950) and the cinematic Paul pattern to reflect on San Paolo, Pasolini’s script for an unrealized Paul film, and on Paul, Apostle of Christ (2018). Typical Paul films, including television and church-use productions, present Paul in terms of a repeated pattern including 1) a spectacularly conceived Acts, 2) his martyrdom, 3) hagiography, and 4) biopic film structure. Despite focusing on Luke’s writing of Acts, rather than the content of Acts, Paul, Apostle of Christ follows the cinematic pattern quite closely. Even though it follows Acts more closely, San Paolo deviates from the cinematic pattern extensively, primarily because it transposes Paul to modernity where Paul struggles weakly and apocalyptically, rather than spectacularly or hagiographically, against dominant institutions. Unlike most films about early Christianity, San Paolo is not about the triumph of Christianity. Sunset Boulevard makes a nice foil for Paul’s cinematic history and these two films specifically because of its story of a forgotten film star who fantasizes about a glorious cinematic return and because of its use of a dead, scriptwriter narrator to tell its story. Paul, too, still awaits cinematic celebrity. In San Paolo and Paul, Apostle of Christ, scripts, scriptwriters, and dead narrators dominate the tales.
{"title":"Ready for His Closeup? Pasolini’s San Paolo and Paul, Apostle of Christ (2018)","authors":"Richard G. Walsh","doi":"10.1515/jbr-2019-1004","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/jbr-2019-1004","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract The article uses Sunset Boulevard (1950) and the cinematic Paul pattern to reflect on San Paolo, Pasolini’s script for an unrealized Paul film, and on Paul, Apostle of Christ (2018). Typical Paul films, including television and church-use productions, present Paul in terms of a repeated pattern including 1) a spectacularly conceived Acts, 2) his martyrdom, 3) hagiography, and 4) biopic film structure. Despite focusing on Luke’s writing of Acts, rather than the content of Acts, Paul, Apostle of Christ follows the cinematic pattern quite closely. Even though it follows Acts more closely, San Paolo deviates from the cinematic pattern extensively, primarily because it transposes Paul to modernity where Paul struggles weakly and apocalyptically, rather than spectacularly or hagiographically, against dominant institutions. Unlike most films about early Christianity, San Paolo is not about the triumph of Christianity. Sunset Boulevard makes a nice foil for Paul’s cinematic history and these two films specifically because of its story of a forgotten film star who fantasizes about a glorious cinematic return and because of its use of a dead, scriptwriter narrator to tell its story. Paul, too, still awaits cinematic celebrity. In San Paolo and Paul, Apostle of Christ, scripts, scriptwriters, and dead narrators dominate the tales.","PeriodicalId":17249,"journal":{"name":"Journal of the Bible and its Reception","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-04-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"88400503","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Abstract In his work Nomadic Text: A Theory of Biblical Reception History, Brennan Breed argues that texts are nomads which – existing without original form and without original context – have no homeland to claim as their own. Their entire history has been marked by unpredictable movement and variation. He therefore proposes that the study of reception history should primarily be an exploration of the potentiality of textual meanings. The suggestion that meaning progresses without relationship to hermeneutical antecedents, however, runs contrary to Gadamer’s assertion that the contemporary effect (Wirkung) of a text always exists in unity with its historical effects. Following Gadamer, the reception historian may still explore hermeneutical potentiality – but does so with a sense of historical consciousness. In this light, the nature of a biblical text may be more suitably characterized by the metaphor of an emigrant rather than that of a nomad. The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the usefulness of these divergent metaphors in our attempt to define both the nature of biblical texts and the task of the reception historian. Our test case will be the early interpretation history of the Lord’s Prayer. Given that the original form and context of this prayer are irretrievable, Breed’s theory is applicable in many respects. Yet it will also be seen that in the early reception history of the Lord’s Prayer there are also patterns of synchronic continuity. Amidst diverse agendas of theology and praxis, we find that interpretations of the Lord’s Prayer were consistently rooted in an inherited conceptualization of Jesus Christ – what we will call a canonical remembrance of his life and proclamation.
{"title":"Exploring Metaphors for the Reception History of the Lord’s Prayer","authors":"D. Clark","doi":"10.1515/jbr-2019-1001","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/jbr-2019-1001","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract In his work Nomadic Text: A Theory of Biblical Reception History, Brennan Breed argues that texts are nomads which – existing without original form and without original context – have no homeland to claim as their own. Their entire history has been marked by unpredictable movement and variation. He therefore proposes that the study of reception history should primarily be an exploration of the potentiality of textual meanings. The suggestion that meaning progresses without relationship to hermeneutical antecedents, however, runs contrary to Gadamer’s assertion that the contemporary effect (Wirkung) of a text always exists in unity with its historical effects. Following Gadamer, the reception historian may still explore hermeneutical potentiality – but does so with a sense of historical consciousness. In this light, the nature of a biblical text may be more suitably characterized by the metaphor of an emigrant rather than that of a nomad. The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the usefulness of these divergent metaphors in our attempt to define both the nature of biblical texts and the task of the reception historian. Our test case will be the early interpretation history of the Lord’s Prayer. Given that the original form and context of this prayer are irretrievable, Breed’s theory is applicable in many respects. Yet it will also be seen that in the early reception history of the Lord’s Prayer there are also patterns of synchronic continuity. Amidst diverse agendas of theology and praxis, we find that interpretations of the Lord’s Prayer were consistently rooted in an inherited conceptualization of Jesus Christ – what we will call a canonical remembrance of his life and proclamation.","PeriodicalId":17249,"journal":{"name":"Journal of the Bible and its Reception","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-04-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"82956207","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Abstract The saying of Jesus in Matt 10:34 that he has “not come to bring peace, but a sword,” seems at odds with the general tenor of his life and teachings. Some proponents of a revolutionary Jesus have seized upon this saying as evidence that he was sympathetic to, and perhaps even supportive of, violent revolution. This article surveys patristic commentary on this verse from the first few centuries to see how this “hard saying” was understood and handled. Although a small number of writers expressed unease about the imagery and the perceived contradiction with other texts of scripture, the general trend was to construe the “sword” metaphorically, usually by appealing to a variety of passages containing the same word. No patristic writer understood the saying as an endorsement of violence, even those whose socio-political context might have justified it. Finally, although some of the hermeneutical strategies of the Fathers may not be embraced by modern exegesis, they often produced readings that were culturally and religiously sensitive as well as rhetorically insightful.
{"title":"“Sword Handling: The Early Christian Reception of Matthew 10:34”","authors":"N. Croy","doi":"10.1515/jbr-2019-1005","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/jbr-2019-1005","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract The saying of Jesus in Matt 10:34 that he has “not come to bring peace, but a sword,” seems at odds with the general tenor of his life and teachings. Some proponents of a revolutionary Jesus have seized upon this saying as evidence that he was sympathetic to, and perhaps even supportive of, violent revolution. This article surveys patristic commentary on this verse from the first few centuries to see how this “hard saying” was understood and handled. Although a small number of writers expressed unease about the imagery and the perceived contradiction with other texts of scripture, the general trend was to construe the “sword” metaphorically, usually by appealing to a variety of passages containing the same word. No patristic writer understood the saying as an endorsement of violence, even those whose socio-political context might have justified it. Finally, although some of the hermeneutical strategies of the Fathers may not be embraced by modern exegesis, they often produced readings that were culturally and religiously sensitive as well as rhetorically insightful.","PeriodicalId":17249,"journal":{"name":"Journal of the Bible and its Reception","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-04-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"79021847","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Abstract This article traces a long-lived tradition of understanding the Eden narrative and its aftermath as a story about the birth of painful emotions, what one might translate into English as shame, fear, and, above all, sadness. The consensus reading of Genesis in the Anglo-American tradition does not reflect an underlying emotional emphasis in the fateful oracle to Eve and Adam in Gen 3:16–17. Translations and commentaries overwhelmingly interpret God’s words as physiological and material, sentencing the woman to painful childbirth and the man to onerous labor in the fields. Yet, as demonstrated by a number of scholars, God’s oracle to the pair in the Hebrew text deals with pain more broadly, with a focus on emotional pain, especially sadness, sorrow, or grief. This emotional suffering is shared by man and woman, and is the catalyst for the first murder. Hellenistic Jewish and later Christian readers embraced and elaborated on this very early emotional aspect of the Eden myth. The Septuagint translates the oracle in unmistakably emotional terms, adopting vocabulary typical of popular moral philosophy, and clarifies the thematic connection between Genesis 3 and 4 by highlighting the emotional repercussions of the emotional change wrought by the primal transgression. Authors like Philo and Josephus interpreted the Eden narrative in fundamentally emotional ways, and pseudepigrapha were particularly engaged in drawing out and elaborating on the emotions of the Eden myth. Most of all the Greek Life of Adam and Eve and 4 Ezra transform the story into meditations on emotional suffering, the former retelling the myth, the latter repurposing it into an apocalyptic vision of joy and sorrow at the end times. Both texts furthermore identify sadness (lupē or tristitia, in Greek and Latin version of Gen 3:16–17) as dually significant, both as punishment and as a saving, divinizing quality, one which can also effect communion between human and divine. This way of reading Eden’s emotions dominated Christian reception of the Eden myth, from the Gospel of John on. Ptolemy, Didymus, Ambrose, Augustine, and others understood the Eden myth as primarily about the origin and meaning of emotional suffering. This style of reception remained a widespread reading until the turn of the twentieth century, when, for a variety of reasons, Christians began to read the oracle in the physiological and materialist terms (pain in childbirth and agricultural labor) that are now dominant.
这篇文章追溯了一个长期存在的传统，即把伊甸园的故事及其后果理解为一个关于痛苦情绪诞生的故事，人们可以将其翻译成英语为羞耻、恐惧，尤其是悲伤。英美传统对《创世纪》的一致解读，并没有反映出创世纪3:16-17中对夏娃和亚当的命运预言中潜在的情感强调。翻译和注释压倒性地将上帝的话语解释为生理的和物质的，判决女人痛苦地分娩，男人在田地里繁重的劳动。然而，正如许多学者所证明的那样，上帝在希伯来文本中对这对夫妇的神谕更广泛地涉及到痛苦，重点是情感上的痛苦，尤其是悲伤、悲伤或悲伤。这种情感上的痛苦是男人和女人共同承受的，也是第一起谋杀案的催化剂。希腊化的犹太人和后来的基督教读者接受并阐述了伊甸园神话早期的情感方面。《七十士译本》用明确的情感术语翻译了神谕，采用了流行道德哲学的典型词汇，并通过强调由原始犯罪造成的情感变化的情感影响，澄清了创世纪3和4之间的主题联系。斐洛和约瑟夫斯这样的作家从根本上用情感的方式解读伊甸园叙事，伪典特别致力于描绘和阐述伊甸园神话的情感。《亚当和夏娃的希腊生活》和《以斯拉记》将故事转变为对情感痛苦的沉思，前者重述了神话，后者将其重新定义为末世欢乐和悲伤的世界末日景象。这两篇文章进一步确定了悲伤(在希腊语和拉丁语版本的创世纪3:16-17中，lupue or tristitia)具有双重意义，既是惩罚，也是拯救，是神化的品质，也可以影响人与神之间的交流。这种解读伊甸情感的方式主导了基督教对伊甸神话的接受，从约翰福音开始。托勒密、低土摩斯、安布罗斯、奥古斯丁等人认为伊甸园神话主要是关于情感痛苦的起源和意义。这种接受方式一直是一种广泛的阅读方式，直到20世纪初，由于各种原因，基督徒开始用现在占主导地位的生理和唯物主义术语(分娩和农业劳动的痛苦)来阅读神谕。
{"title":"Emotions in Eden and After: Ancient Jewish and Christian Perspectives on Genesis 2–4","authors":"Andrew T. Crislip","doi":"10.1515/jbr-2019-1002","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/jbr-2019-1002","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract This article traces a long-lived tradition of understanding the Eden narrative and its aftermath as a story about the birth of painful emotions, what one might translate into English as shame, fear, and, above all, sadness. The consensus reading of Genesis in the Anglo-American tradition does not reflect an underlying emotional emphasis in the fateful oracle to Eve and Adam in Gen 3:16–17. Translations and commentaries overwhelmingly interpret God’s words as physiological and material, sentencing the woman to painful childbirth and the man to onerous labor in the fields. Yet, as demonstrated by a number of scholars, God’s oracle to the pair in the Hebrew text deals with pain more broadly, with a focus on emotional pain, especially sadness, sorrow, or grief. This emotional suffering is shared by man and woman, and is the catalyst for the first murder. Hellenistic Jewish and later Christian readers embraced and elaborated on this very early emotional aspect of the Eden myth. The Septuagint translates the oracle in unmistakably emotional terms, adopting vocabulary typical of popular moral philosophy, and clarifies the thematic connection between Genesis 3 and 4 by highlighting the emotional repercussions of the emotional change wrought by the primal transgression. Authors like Philo and Josephus interpreted the Eden narrative in fundamentally emotional ways, and pseudepigrapha were particularly engaged in drawing out and elaborating on the emotions of the Eden myth. Most of all the Greek Life of Adam and Eve and 4 Ezra transform the story into meditations on emotional suffering, the former retelling the myth, the latter repurposing it into an apocalyptic vision of joy and sorrow at the end times. Both texts furthermore identify sadness (lupē or tristitia, in Greek and Latin version of Gen 3:16–17) as dually significant, both as punishment and as a saving, divinizing quality, one which can also effect communion between human and divine. This way of reading Eden’s emotions dominated Christian reception of the Eden myth, from the Gospel of John on. Ptolemy, Didymus, Ambrose, Augustine, and others understood the Eden myth as primarily about the origin and meaning of emotional suffering. This style of reception remained a widespread reading until the turn of the twentieth century, when, for a variety of reasons, Christians began to read the oracle in the physiological and materialist terms (pain in childbirth and agricultural labor) that are now dominant.","PeriodicalId":17249,"journal":{"name":"Journal of the Bible and its Reception","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-04-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"87712687","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Abstract Do the numbers of years in Genesis add up? Biblical scholars have learned to attend to the art of biblical narrative. Is there also an art of biblical numbers? If so, could its rediscovery lead to a better understanding of the contours of the biblical text, and its complex meanings, as well as its reception history prior to the Enlightenment? This article’s provisional answer to these questions is yes. It looks at two key numbers associated with the Joseph Story: a span of twenty-two years, which a variety of readers calculate as the time that Joseph lived away from his family in Egypt; and a double span of seventeen years, which the Bible suggests is the length of time that Joseph lived under his father’s protection in Canaan, and that Jacob in turn lived under his son’s care in Egypt. The study finds that, since Spinoza, modern assessments of these numbers have been constrained by a strongly linear view of time, as may be seen in the work of Robert Alter, among many others. It criticizes linear time as reductive insofar as it flattens the numbers of Genesis into chronologies and timelines. It also draws attention to an aspect of figural time, which it describes as symmetrically folded time, to help characterize the non-linear, isotropic way that numbers seem to behave in the Bible and in the Bible’s pre-modern reception. The findings about figural time in the Joseph Story raise significant questions about the compatibility of narrative, literary-critical, and theological approaches to the time-denominated numbers of Genesis.
{"title":"Genesis by the Numbers: A Reassessment of the Years of the Patriarchs, Beginning with the Joseph Story","authors":"D. Driver","doi":"10.1515/JBR-2019-1003","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/JBR-2019-1003","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract Do the numbers of years in Genesis add up? Biblical scholars have learned to attend to the art of biblical narrative. Is there also an art of biblical numbers? If so, could its rediscovery lead to a better understanding of the contours of the biblical text, and its complex meanings, as well as its reception history prior to the Enlightenment? This article’s provisional answer to these questions is yes. It looks at two key numbers associated with the Joseph Story: a span of twenty-two years, which a variety of readers calculate as the time that Joseph lived away from his family in Egypt; and a double span of seventeen years, which the Bible suggests is the length of time that Joseph lived under his father’s protection in Canaan, and that Jacob in turn lived under his son’s care in Egypt. The study finds that, since Spinoza, modern assessments of these numbers have been constrained by a strongly linear view of time, as may be seen in the work of Robert Alter, among many others. It criticizes linear time as reductive insofar as it flattens the numbers of Genesis into chronologies and timelines. It also draws attention to an aspect of figural time, which it describes as symmetrically folded time, to help characterize the non-linear, isotropic way that numbers seem to behave in the Bible and in the Bible’s pre-modern reception. The findings about figural time in the Joseph Story raise significant questions about the compatibility of narrative, literary-critical, and theological approaches to the time-denominated numbers of Genesis.","PeriodicalId":17249,"journal":{"name":"Journal of the Bible and its Reception","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-04-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"76278996","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2019-04-01DOI: 10.1515/jbr-2019-frontmatter1
{"title":"Frontmatter","authors":"","doi":"10.1515/jbr-2019-frontmatter1","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/jbr-2019-frontmatter1","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":17249,"journal":{"name":"Journal of the Bible and its Reception","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-04-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"86473396","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Abstract The paper raises the question of functioning of Biblical tradition in modern culture in the perspective of the history of ideas. Referring to the postsecular interpretation of the Modernity, the research is based on Biblical paraphrases in Bulgarian literature of the interwar period, which are perceived as a testimony of the search for a worldview. The aim is to show how a situation of ideological turmoil accompanied by experiences of social crisis leads to utilizing a Gnostic worldview. The phenomenon is seen in a broader context as an illustration of transmission of ideas within the Western culture and religious thought.
{"title":"The Bulgarian Worldview Mosaic: Literary Paraphrases of the Bible as a Source for the History of Ideas","authors":"Ewelina Drzewiecka","doi":"10.1515/JBR-2018-0003","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/JBR-2018-0003","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract The paper raises the question of functioning of Biblical tradition in modern culture in the perspective of the history of ideas. Referring to the postsecular interpretation of the Modernity, the research is based on Biblical paraphrases in Bulgarian literature of the interwar period, which are perceived as a testimony of the search for a worldview. The aim is to show how a situation of ideological turmoil accompanied by experiences of social crisis leads to utilizing a Gnostic worldview. The phenomenon is seen in a broader context as an illustration of transmission of ideas within the Western culture and religious thought.","PeriodicalId":17249,"journal":{"name":"Journal of the Bible and its Reception","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2018-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"74663796","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Abstract The “place of God” is an oxymoron, implying a spatial confinement of the transcendent deity. Gregory of Nyssa calls it “the greatest paradox of all.” It is a biblical image, applied above all to the tabernacle/temple, which inspired a long afterlife of fruitful reflection in both Jewish and Christian traditions. This paper focusses on the interpretations of the “place of God” in the writings of the fourth century theologians Gregory of Nyssa and Evagrius of Pontus. They take different biblical verses as their starting points, both from the Exodus narrative of Moses’ experiences on Mount Sinai – a narrative which was to prove crucial for the development of the Christian mystical tradition. Gregory takes his cue from LXX Exodus 33:21 – “Look, a place is near me. You shall stand on the rock” – and develops an argument for divine infinity. He correlates this with the relentless nature of the Exodus narrative and Moses’ insatiable desire. Evagrius is inspired by LXX Exodus 24:10 – “and they saw the place, there where the God of Israel stood” – and takes the sapphire blue colour of heaven to represent pure prayer. He talks of the human mind (nous) as a temple of the Holy Trinity. A close examination of their interpretations illustrates what Steven Katz calls “the fertile interconnection between theology, exegesis, and mystical experience.” They have not simply started with preconceived schemes into which they have slotted scriptural proof texts, but genuinely wrestled with biblical texts. In the new theological context of the fourth century, they have produced fresh exegeses. Evagrius chooses between different Greek translations; Gregory notices a discrepancy in the scriptural record. They do not explain away or smooth over the contradictions and difficulties of the biblical text, but work with them creatively, capitalising on the paradoxes, to generate imagery worthy of the unfathomable God. Unlike Gregory’s highlighting of the darkness in Exodus 20:21, which led, via Pseudo-Dionysius, to the medieval “cloud of unknowing,” these interpretations of the “place of God” have not passed into the bloodstream of the Western mystical tradition. But they amply illustrate the crucial role of biblical exegesis in the development of Christian mystical theology.
{"title":"“The Greatest Paradox of All”: The “Place of God” in the Mystical Theologies of Gregory of Nyssa and Evagrius of Pontus","authors":"A. Conway-Jones","doi":"10.1515/JBR-2018-0006","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/JBR-2018-0006","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract The “place of God” is an oxymoron, implying a spatial confinement of the transcendent deity. Gregory of Nyssa calls it “the greatest paradox of all.” It is a biblical image, applied above all to the tabernacle/temple, which inspired a long afterlife of fruitful reflection in both Jewish and Christian traditions. This paper focusses on the interpretations of the “place of God” in the writings of the fourth century theologians Gregory of Nyssa and Evagrius of Pontus. They take different biblical verses as their starting points, both from the Exodus narrative of Moses’ experiences on Mount Sinai – a narrative which was to prove crucial for the development of the Christian mystical tradition. Gregory takes his cue from LXX Exodus 33:21 – “Look, a place is near me. You shall stand on the rock” – and develops an argument for divine infinity. He correlates this with the relentless nature of the Exodus narrative and Moses’ insatiable desire. Evagrius is inspired by LXX Exodus 24:10 – “and they saw the place, there where the God of Israel stood” – and takes the sapphire blue colour of heaven to represent pure prayer. He talks of the human mind (nous) as a temple of the Holy Trinity. A close examination of their interpretations illustrates what Steven Katz calls “the fertile interconnection between theology, exegesis, and mystical experience.” They have not simply started with preconceived schemes into which they have slotted scriptural proof texts, but genuinely wrestled with biblical texts. In the new theological context of the fourth century, they have produced fresh exegeses. Evagrius chooses between different Greek translations; Gregory notices a discrepancy in the scriptural record. They do not explain away or smooth over the contradictions and difficulties of the biblical text, but work with them creatively, capitalising on the paradoxes, to generate imagery worthy of the unfathomable God. Unlike Gregory’s highlighting of the darkness in Exodus 20:21, which led, via Pseudo-Dionysius, to the medieval “cloud of unknowing,” these interpretations of the “place of God” have not passed into the bloodstream of the Western mystical tradition. But they amply illustrate the crucial role of biblical exegesis in the development of Christian mystical theology.","PeriodicalId":17249,"journal":{"name":"Journal of the Bible and its Reception","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2018-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"88741904","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2018-10-01DOI: 10.1515/jbr-2018-frontmatter2
{"title":"Frontmatter","authors":"","doi":"10.1515/jbr-2018-frontmatter2","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/jbr-2018-frontmatter2","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":17249,"journal":{"name":"Journal of the Bible and its Reception","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2018-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"88158798","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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