The Formation of Narratives about Adam and Eve’s Descendants (Genesis 4)

2020 ◽  
pp. 66-82
Author(s):  
David M. Carr
Keyword(s):  
Oral Tradition ◽  
Near Eastern ◽  
Cain And Abel ◽  
Human Family

The chapter opens with a survey of the extensive parallels between Genesis 2–3 and the story of Cain and Abel. Though some such parallels probably emerge from the modeling of elements in Genesis 4 on the previous Eden story, a number of indicators suggest that the bulk of these parallel elements originated in a tradition, likely oral, about Cain and Abel and then Cain’s line leading up to Lamech. Numerous signs suggest that this Cain-to-Lamech tradition was not originally about the first human family but instead was a Judean tradition about the origins of the Kenites, a semi-nomadic group that is associated with regions in and around Judah and with metalworking. The ambivalence that the Cain and Abel story seems to express about Cain—for example, a brother murderer (Gen 4:8) yet enjoying special divine protection (4:15)—is similar to the ambivalence often expressed toward itinerant artisans in Near Eastern societies. Genesis 4, however, is not just a written presentation of this oral tradition. Rather, it appears that the author of Genesis 4 appropriated and adapted this oral tradition as an account of an initial primeval line of humanity, the Cain-Kenite line, that then was contrasted with a new line of humanity that descended from Adam and Eve’s third son, Seth, and then continued with Enosh (Gen 4:25–26).

scholarly journals Waar is Abraham dan?

2001 ◽  
Vol 22 (2) ◽  
pp. 326-340
Author(s):  
J.H. Ie Roux
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Oral Tradition ◽  
Near Eastern ◽  
History Of ◽  
Written Sources

This article deals with some aspects of the historical Abraham. Reference is made to an Afrikaans author, Karel Schoeman, and his novel, uVerliesfontein". In this work Schoeman attempts to enter the history of a town and its people. This, however, is not possible and he therefore says that history is another country. A country which is totally inaccessable. It is, however, also true of Abraham. Since the nineteenth century it has been emphasized that we can never determine the historical Abraham. There are no reliable written sources about him (Wellhausen). Even if one tries to get behind the sources and determine the oral tradition (like Gunkel), Abraham still evades one. Through markers in the text and ancient near eastern parallels some scholars even sought to date and describe the era of Abraham. These attempts also failed. It is argued that we should rather refrain from dating Abraham. This, however, is not the end of the story. We can still try to determine how Abraham was interpreted in faith through the ages. In this regard Von Rad's usage of Usage" can be of great assistance. In a next article this topic is discussed futher.

Biblical Narrative and the Birth of Prose Literature

2015 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert S. Kawashima
Keyword(s):  
Hebrew Bible ◽  
Oral Tradition ◽  
Comparative Method ◽  
Formal Similarity ◽  
Biblical Narrative ◽  
Near Eastern ◽  
Narrative Art ◽  
Prose Literature

This chapter discusses the significance of literary milieu for the analysis and interpretation of the narratives of the Hebrew Bible, in particular, the pre-exilic narratives found in Genesis-Kings (less Ruth). Appealing to literary milieu entails a type of literary-comparative method. There are, however, not one but two forms of literary comparison: historicist comparison, based on chronological and geographical contiguity, and formalist comparison, based on formal similarity. Whereas the concrete literary connections established by the former (so-called ancient Near Eastern parallels) are indispensable to the interpretation of specific passages, the abstract properties established by the latter (poetry, prose, oral tradition, and literature) bring into focus, rather, the different representational possibilities intrinsic to these different forms of narrative art.

Costumes and Choreography from Bodenwieser's Trunk: The Coat as Affective Memory

2019 ◽  
Vol 37 (1) ◽  
pp. 89-110
Author(s):  
Rachel Fensham
Keyword(s):  
Modern Dance ◽  
Human Condition ◽  
Personal Life ◽  
Creative Thought ◽  
Cain And Abel ◽  
Embodied Research ◽  
The Many ◽  
The One ◽  
Material Evidence ◽  
Selection Of

The Viennese modern choreographer Gertrud Bodenwieser's black coat leads to an analysis of her choreography in four main phases – the early European career; the rise of Nazism; war's brutality; and postwar attempts at reconciliation. Utilising archival and embodied research, the article focuses on a selection of Bodenwieser costumes that survived her journey from Vienna, or were remade in Australia, and their role in the dramaturgy of works such as Swinging Bells (1926), The Masks of Lucifer (1936, 1944), Cain and Abel (1940) and The One and the Many (1946). In addition to dance history, costume studies provides a distinctive way to engage with the question of what remains of performance, and what survives of the historical conditions and experience of modern dance-drama. Throughout, Hannah Arendt's book The Human Condition (1958) provides a critical guide to the acts of reconstruction undertaken by Bodenwieser as an émigré choreographer in the practice of her craft, and its ‘materializing reification’ of creative thought. As a study in affective memory, information regarding Bodenwieser's personal life becomes interwoven with the author's response to the material evidence of costumes, oral histories and documents located in various Australian archives. By resurrecting the ‘dead letters’ of this choreography, the article therefore considers how dance costumes offer the trace of an artistic resistance to totalitarianism.

Habermas, Cultural Hegemony, and the Educational Public Sphere

2018 ◽  
Vol 11 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 43-62
Author(s):  
Wisam Kh. Abdul-Jabbar
Keyword(s):  
Public Sphere ◽  
Social Inequality ◽  
Public Space ◽  
Oral Tradition ◽  
Pedagogical Practices ◽  
Cultural Hegemony ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Public Sphere ◽  
Arabic Speaking

This study explores Habermas’s work in terms of the relevance of his theory of the public sphere to the politics and poetics of the Arab oral tradition and its pedagogical practices. In what ways and forms does Arab heritage inform a public sphere of resistance or dissent? How does Habermas’s notion of the public space help or hinder a better understanding of the Arab oral tradition within the sociopolitical and educational landscape of the Arabic-speaking world? This study also explores the pedagogical implications of teaching Arab orality within the context of the public sphere as a contested site that informs a mode of resistance against social inequality and sociopolitical exclusions.

Угорські запозичення в західноукраїнських топонімічних переказах

2019 ◽  
Vol 64 (1) ◽  
pp. 103-116
Author(s):  
ЛЕСЯ МУШКЕТИК
Keyword(s):  
Creative Process ◽  
Oral Tradition ◽  
Human Memory ◽  
Significant Degree ◽  
Long Period ◽  
White Horse ◽  
Other Information ◽  
The Times ◽  
The Village ◽  
Written Sources

The oral folk prose of Transcarpathia is a valuable source of history and culture of the region. Supplementing the written sources, it has maintained popular attitudes towards events, giving assessments and interpretations that are often different from the official one. In the Ukrainian oral tradition, we find many words borrowed from other languages, in particular Hungarian, which reflects the long period of cohabitation as well as shared historical events and contacts. They also occur in local toponymic legends, which in their own way explain the origin of the local names and are closely linked with the life and culture of the region, contain a lot of ethnographic, historical, mythological, and other information. They are represented mainly by lexical borrowings, Hungarian proper names and realities, which were transformed, absorbed and modified in another system, and, among other things, has served the originality of the Transcarpathian folklore. The process of borrowing the Hungarianisms is marked by heterochronology and a significant degree of assimilation in the receiving environment. It is known about the long-lasting contacts of the Hungarians with Rus at the time of birth of the homeland - the Honfoglalás, as evidenced by the current geographical names associated with the heroes of the events of that time - the leaders of uprisings Attila, Almash, Prince Latorets (the legends Almashivka, About the Laborets and the White Horse Mukachevo Castle). In the names of toponymic legends and writings there are mentions of the famous Hungarian leaders, the leaders of the uprisings - King Matthias Corvinus, Prince Ferenc Rákóczi II, Lajos Kossuth (the legends Matyashivka, Bovtsar, Koshutova riberiya). Many names of villages, castles and rivers originate from Hungarian lexemes and are their derivatives, explaining the name itself (narratives Sevlyuskyy castle, Gotar, village Gedfork). The times of the Tatar invasion were reflected in the legends The Great Ravine Bovdogovanya and The village Goronda. Sometimes, the nomination is made up of two words - Ukrainian and Hungarian (Mount Goverla, Canyon Grobtedie). In legends, one can find mythological and legendary elements. The process of borrowing Hungarianisms into Ukrainian is marked by heterochronology, meanwhile borrowings remain unchanged only partially, and in general, they are assimilated in accordance with the phonetic and morphological rules of the Ukrainian language. Consequently, this is a creative process, caused by a number of different factors - social, ethnocultural, aesthetic, etc. In the course of time, events and characters in oral narratives are erased from human memory, so they can be mixed, modified and updated, adapting to new realities.

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