“The Iron Crucible” and Loci of Religious Contact

2020 ◽  
pp. 162-172
Author(s):  
Clémence Boulouque
Keyword(s):  
Jewish Tradition ◽  
Crucial Aspect ◽  
Religious Traditions ◽  
The Bible ◽  
Iron Crucible ◽  
Assimilation Process ◽  
Jewish Religion

Chapter 14 focuses on the meaning and loci of religious encounters in the Bible and in the Jewish tradition, and analyzes the concept of “iron crucible,” the metaphor Benamozegh used for the complexity of religious assimilation. This metaphor, which refers to the Israelites’ sojourn in Egypt, designates a place where identities intermingled and where the Jewish religion was refined through its contact with paganism—but also where, paradoxically, this blending did not preclude a sense of hierarchy in this assimilation process. This concept is a crucial aspect of Benamozegh’s system, whereby the greater the proximity, the greater the tension across religious traditions.

scholarly journals Man as Rescuer and Monster in Steven Spielberg's Film Text "Schindler's List"

2008 ◽  
Vol 5 ◽  
pp. 63
Author(s):  
José Díaz-Cuesta Galián
Keyword(s):  
Journal Article ◽  
Mirror Image ◽  
Steven Spielberg ◽  
Religious Traditions ◽  
The Third ◽  
The Bible ◽  
Fold Structure ◽  
Schindler's List ◽  
Film Text

This journal article addresses the confrontation between two extreme representations of man in Steven Spielberg’s Schindler’s List (1993): the rescuer and the monster. It is my contention that these representations simplify two of the moral options –good versus evil– from which men can freely choose according to both Judaism and Catholicism, which are the two religious cults the film alludes to. This article has a three-fold structure. The first part focuses on the godlike representation of Oskar Schindler2 and his relation to key episodes in the Bible. The second one deals with Amon Goeth, Schindler’s mirror image and the incarnation of evil in the film. The third part surveys Spielberg’s blending of religious traditions in some films prior to Schindler’s List. As a conclusion it is proposed that the godlike man who rescues his people is not only Oskar Schindler, but also Steven Spielberg.

Holiness and Judaism

2018 ◽  
pp. 23-88
Author(s):  
Alan L. Mittleman
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Jewish Tradition ◽  
Emile Durkheim ◽  
Rabbinic Judaism ◽  
The Bible ◽  
A Value ◽  
The People ◽  
Sacred And Profane ◽  
The World ◽  
Land Of Israel

This chapter reconstructs the meanings of holiness from representative texts of the Jewish tradition. The discussion is anchored on two claims. First, biblical thought does not divide the world into a neat dualism of sacred and profane. Second, the Bible and subsequent Judaism conceive of holiness in three different ways: holiness sometimes refers to a property, holiness indicates a status, and holiness is a value or project. These three characteristics of holiness are examined in detail using the Bible. The chapter is primarily concerned with the ideas of the holiness of the people of Israel and the holiness of the Land of Israel. It considers the sacred/profane dichotomy by focusing on the views of twentieth-century scholars such as Emile Durkheim, Rudolf Otto, and Mircea Eliade. It also explores holiness and purity as they relate to God before concluding with an analysis of holiness in ancient and medieval rabbinic Judaism.

Exodus 19–40

2006 ◽  
Author(s):  
William H. C. Propp
Keyword(s):  
Old Testament ◽  
Deep Understanding ◽  
Dead Sea ◽  
Major Work ◽  
Religious Traditions ◽  
The Bible ◽  
Biblical Scholarship ◽  
Cultural Mores ◽  
New Perspective ◽  
Ritual Law

The long-awaited conclusion of William H. C. Propp’s masterful study of Exodus, this informative, clearly written commentary provides a new perspective on Israelite culture and on the role of ritual, law, and covenant in biblical religion. Exodus 19–40 sets a new standard in biblical scholarship. Thorough and up-to-date, it is the first commentary on Exodus to include critical textual evidence from the recently edited Dead Sea Scrolls. Informed by Propp’s deep understanding of ancient cultural mores and religious traditions, it casts new light on the Israelites’ arrival at Sinai, their entry into a covenant with God, their reception of the Law, their worship of the golden calf, and their reconciliation to God. The incisive commentary on the building of the Holy Tabernacle–God’s wilderness abode–is supplemented by numerous illustrations that clarify the biblical text. Propp extends the scope and relevance of this major work in five appendices that discuss the literary formation of the Torah, the historicity of the Exodus tradition, the origins of Israelite monotheism, the Exodus theme in the Bible, and the future of Old Testament scholarship. By taking an anthropological rather than strictly theological approach, Propp places familiar stories within a fresh context. The result is a fully accessible guide to one of the most important and best known books of the Bible.

Concluding Meditations

2020 ◽  
pp. 235-240
Author(s):  
Joshua Dubler ◽  
Vincent W. Lloyd
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Direct Action ◽  
Prison Education ◽  
Jewish Tradition ◽  
Religious Traditions ◽  
Prison Abolition ◽  
Jewish Liturgy

In two concluding vignettes, the authors gesture toward how the religious traditions of their divergent upbringings inform their respective abolitionist commitments. Dubler, who was raised an observant Jew, reflects on how, among other aspects of the Jewish tradition, his formative encounters with Passover seder helped shape him into the abolitionist he is today. Drawing a connection between Jewish liturgy and the nineteenth-century abolitionist opponents of slavery, Dubler accounts for how the book acquired its title. Lloyd reflects on the experience of “witness” and how the ambivalence of this practice motivated his interest in prison abolition, and his scholarship. Both authors meditate on how direct action, prison education, scholarship, and citizenship are entangled, and how those tangles can be worked through Judaism or Protestantism.

scholarly journals Constructing imaginative geographies in Genesis

2021 ◽  
Vol 77 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
José-Alberto Garijo-Serrano
Keyword(s):  
The Other ◽  
Religious Identities ◽  
Religious Traditions ◽  
The Bible ◽  
Imaginative Geographies ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Creation ◽  
Patriarchal Narratives ◽  
The Way ◽  
Genesis A

This article considers Edward W. Said’s proposals on ‘imaginative geographies’ as suggested in his leading work Orientalism as a tool to analyse the ideological circumstances that shape geographical spaces in the Bible. My purpose is to discuss how these imaginative geographies are present in the patriarchal narratives of Genesis and how they have left their mark on the history of the interpretation of these texts and on the not always easy relations between members of the religious traditions inherited from the Bible (Hebrews, Muslims and Christians). I propose four types of ‘imaginative geographies’: (1) ‘Equalness’ is the way to represent what is considered as sharing the own identity. The geography of ‘Equalness’ defines the spaces of Isaac, Jacob and their families. (2) ‘Otherness’ is the way to represent the ‘Other’ as opposite or juxtaposed to one’s own identity. A common border is shared, thus kinship relationships can be established. It defines the spaces of Ishmael, Esau/Edom, Lot (Ammon and Moab) and Laban. (3) ‘Foreignness’ is the way to define what is strange, odd or exotic considered as external to the own identity, in a space set beyond even the space of the ‘Other’. Egypt is in Genesis a land of ‘Foreignness’. (4) ‘Delendness’ encompasses whatever claims our same space and therefore threatens our survival and must be destroyed (delendum). As such, processes of annihilation and dominion of Israel on Canaanites and Sichemites are justified.Contribution: The article applies Said’s ‘imaginative geographies’ as an identity mechanism for the creation of biblical literary spaces. A quadripartite classification (‘Equal’/‘Other’/‘Foreigner’/‘Delendum’) instead of the usual bipartite one (‘Equal’ vs. ‘Other’) is proposed and the consequences for the current coexistence between religious identities inherited from Abraham are shown.

scholarly journals Globalization, Gender and Religion: The Politics of Women's Rights in Catholic and Muslim Contexts

1970 ◽  
pp. 85-87
Author(s):  
David Waines
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
Women's Rights ◽  
Women’S Rights ◽  
Crucial Aspect ◽  
Religious Traditions ◽  
Broad Theme ◽  
Women And Religion

By Jane H. Bayes and Nayereh Tohidi, eds. Houndmills and New York: Palgrave, 2001Studies dealing with the broad theme of 'women and religion' are often designed along the lines of edited volumes of essays on each of the major religious traditions, written (most often) by Western experts. Such an approach is perfectly legitimate and, when the results are informative, justified as well. It is an approach, however, that makes comparison between (and even within) traditions difficult, as one crucial aspect of this kind of tradition narrative is inevitably missing. That aspect, and the most important word in this book's sub-title, is 'contexts.' The contexts in the present case are not defined by therebeing only two traditions treated, the (Catholic) Christian and the (Sunni and Shia) Muslim.

scholarly journals Woody Allen’s Broadway Danny Rose: Dialoguing with Jewish Tradition

Religions ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (9) ◽  
pp. 763
Author(s):  
Bart J. Koet
Keyword(s):  
South America ◽  
British Empire ◽  
American Revolution ◽  
Jewish Tradition ◽  
Cultural Consciousness ◽  
The West ◽  
Religious Context ◽  
The Bible ◽  
The World ◽  
History Of

It is the thesis of this article that a secular form of the biblical Exodus pattern is used by Woody Allen in his Broadway Danny Rose. In the history of the Bible, and its interpretation, the Exodus pattern is again and again used as a model for inspiration: from oppression to deliverance. It was an important source of both argument and symbolism during the American Revolution. It was used by the Boer nationalists fighting the British Empire and it comes to life in the hand of liberation theology in South America. The use of this pattern and its use during the seder meal is to be taken loosely here: Exodus is not a theory, but a story, a “Big Story” that became part of the cultural consciousness of the West and quite a few other parts of the world. Although the Exodus story is in the first place an account of deliverance or liberation in a religious context and framework, in Broadway Danny Rose it is used as a moral device about how to survive in the modern wilderness.

Prophets in the Hebrew Bible

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jack R. Lundbom
Keyword(s):  
18Th Century ◽  
Near East ◽  
Ancient World ◽  
Ancient Near East ◽  
Jewish Tradition ◽  
Near Eastern ◽  
The Bible ◽  
The People ◽  
The New Testament ◽  
Hebrew Prophets

“Prophets” in the ancient world were individuals said to possess an intimate association with God or the gods, and conducted the business of transmitting messages between the divine and earthly realms. They spoke on behalf of God or the gods, and on occasion solicited requests from the deity or brought to the deity requests of others. The discovery of texts from the ancient Near East in the 19th and early 20th centuries has given us a fuller picture of prophets and prophetic activity in the ancient world, adding considerably to reports of prophets serving other gods in the Bible and corroborating details about prophets in the Judeo-Christian tradition. Two collections are important: (1) letters from the 18th-century Mari written during the reigns of Yasmaḫ-Addu (c. 1792–1775) and Zimri-Lim (c. 1774–1760); and (2) the 7th-century annals of Assyrian kings Esarhaddon (680–669) and Assurbanipal (668–627). Prophecies at Mari are favorable for the most part, and censures of the king, when they occur, are not harsh. Many simply remind the king of some neglect or give him some warning. One tells the king to practice righteousness and justice for anyone who has been wronged. None censures the people of Mari as biblical prophecies do the people of Israel. Assyrian oracles are largely oracles of peace and wellbeing, typically giving assurance to the king about matters of succession and success in defeating enemies. If prophets admonish the king, it is a mild rebuke about the king ignoring a prior oracle or not having provided food at the temple. According to the Bible, Israel’s prophetic movement began with Samuel, and it arose at the time when people asked for a king. Prophets appear all throughout the monarchy and into the postexilic period, when Jewish tradition believed prophecy had ceased. Yet, prophets reappear in the New Testament and early church: Anna the prophetess, John the Baptist, Jesus, and others. Paul allows prophets to speak in the churches, ranking them second only to apostles. Hebrew prophets give messages much like those of other ancient Near Eastern prophets, but what makes them different is that they announce considerably more judgment—sometimes very harsh judgment—on Israel’s monarchs, leading citizens, and the nation itself. Israel’s religion had its distinctives. Yahweh was bound to the nation by a covenant containing law that had to be obeyed. Prophets in Israel were therefore much preoccupied with indicting and judging kings, priests, other prophets, and an entire people for covenant disobedience. Also, in Israel the lawgiver was Yahweh, not the king. In Mari, as elsewhere in the ancient Near East, the king was lawgiver. Deuteronomy contains tests for true and false prophets, to which prophets themselves add other disingenuine marks regarding their contemporaneous prophetic colleagues. Hebrew prophets from the time of Amos onward speak in poetry and are skilled in rhetoric, using an array of tropes and knowing how to argue. Their discourse also contains an abundance of humor and drama. Speaking is supplemented with symbolic action, and in some cases the prophets themselves became the symbol.

2. How did Judaism and Christianity split up?

2014 ◽  
Author(s):  
Norman Solomon
Keyword(s):  
Early Christianity ◽  
The Bible ◽  
Biblical Religion ◽  
Jewish Religion

What we recognize today as Judaism differs in many ways from the biblical religion, but the ‘roots’ of the Jewish religion, the earliest parts of the Bible, are three or four thousand years old. ‘How did Judaism and Christianity split up?’ tells the traditional Christian and Jewish stories as to why the two separated, considers where they came from, and examines how they subsequently defined themselves. It would be unfair to judge early Christianity and Judaism by their attitudes to one another. The heritage of mistrust and mutual animosity still burdens us. However, in light of events of the last century, Christian–Jewish dialogue has opened up to revision and reconciliation of traditional attitudes.

“For the Judgment is God's”: Human Judgment and Divine Justice in The Hebrew Bible and in Jewish Tradition

2012 ◽  
Vol 27 (2) ◽  
pp. 273-328
Author(s):  
Haim Shapira
Keyword(s):  
Legal System ◽  
Practical Significance ◽  
Jewish Tradition ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Human Judgment ◽  
Images Of God ◽  
The Bible ◽  
The Earth ◽  
Divine Justice ◽  
The One

One of the most striking images of God, both in the Bible and in Jewish tradition generally, is that of judge: “The judge of all the earth.” In this sense, one may describe God as He who holds in His hands all legal authority: He is the legislator, He is the judge, and He is the one who executes judgment. Alongside God's judgment, the Bible recognizes the existence of a human system of judgment, in which human beings act as judges; indeed, it even commands it: “You shall appoint judges and officers in all your gates.” What is the relation between God, the judge of all the earth, and those human beings who fulfill the function of judges? The majority of classical Jewish sources in the Bible and in Rabbinic literature that deal with law and the legal system reflect a certain relationship between human judgment and divine justice. Thus, we find in the Bible the notion that God emanates His authority to the judges who perform this function. In this spirit, Moses commands the judges whom he has appointed: “judge righteously… for the judgment is God's.” The relation assumed here between God and human judgment finds expression in different ways, extending over a considerable spectrum. At one end, one might describe God as the transcendent source of authority of the legal system, whose practical significance is limited. On the other end, one might describe it as a Divine Presence that inspires the judges and even allows them to appeal to God and to involve Him in the legal decision.

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