Women, Jung and the Hebrew Bible

2015 ◽  
Vol 23 (1) ◽  
pp. 78-100
Author(s):  
Helen Efthimiadis-Keith
Keyword(s):  
Hebrew Bible ◽  
Jewish Tradition ◽  
Biblical Hermeneutics ◽  
Potential Value

This paper evaluates Jungian psychoanalytic approaches to Hebrew Bible texts by way of two readings of the book of Ruth: those of Yehezkel Kluger and Nomi Kluger-Nash. In so doing, it provides a brief synopsis of Jungian approaches to Hebrew Bible texts and the process of individuation. It then evaluates the two readings mentioned according to the author and Ricoeur’s criteria for adequate interpretation. Having done so, it attempts to draw conclusions on the general (and potential) value of Jungian biblical hermeneutics, particularly as it affects the appraisal of women in the Hebew Bible and the incorporation of Jewish tradition and scholarship in Hebrew Bible hermeneutics. Finally, it endeavours to sketch a way forward.


Ecofeminist Biblical Hermeneutics for Cyborgs and the Story of Jezebel

2020 ◽  
pp. 295-311
Author(s):  
Arthur W. Walker-Jones
Keyword(s):  
Digital Media ◽  
Hebrew Bible ◽  
Digital Humanities ◽  
Environmental Crisis ◽  
Biblical Hermeneutics ◽  
Biblical Story ◽  
Seminal Work ◽  
Feminist Interpretation ◽  
Digital Cultures

This chapter examines the Jezebel.com website as a feminist interpretation of the biblical story of Jezebel, in order to discuss the ways digital media make reading more transparent, intertextual, and holistic. Donna Haraway’s article “A Manifesto for Cyborgs” is a seminal work for both ecofeminism and the digital humanities. This articles uses her understanding of the cyborg and naturecultures to argue that Jezebel has become a cyborg online. Cyborgs and digital media could be used to reinforce the nature–culture dualism that is related to male–female dualism and has legitimated patriarchy and the environmental crisis. This chapter, therefore, argues that the identification of cyborg naturecultures in reading both the biblical stories and digital cultures is particularly important for ecofeminist approaches to the Hebrew Bible.

Human Nature & Jewish Thought

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alan L. Mittleman
Keyword(s):  
Human Nature ◽  
Hebrew Bible ◽  
Human Dignity ◽  
Moral Agency ◽  
Evolutionary Biology ◽  
Jewish Tradition ◽  
Jewish Thought ◽  
Original Contribution ◽  
Jewish Philosophy ◽  
The Many

This book explores one of the great questions of our time: How can we preserve our sense of what it means to be a person while at the same time accepting what science tells us to be true—namely, that human nature is continuous with the rest of nature? What, in other words, does it mean to be a person in a world of things? This book shows how the Jewish tradition provides rich ways of understanding human nature and personhood that preserve human dignity and distinction in a world of neuroscience, evolutionary biology, biotechnology, and pervasive scientism. These ancient resources can speak to Jewish, non-Jewish, and secular readers alike. Science may tell us what we are, the book says, but it cannot tell us who we are, how we should live, or why we matter. Traditional Jewish thought, in open-minded dialogue with contemporary scientific perspectives, can help us answer these questions. The book shows how, using sources ranging across the Jewish tradition, from the Hebrew Bible and the Talmud to more than a millennium of Jewish philosophy. Among the many subjects the book addresses are sexuality, birth and death, violence and evil, moral agency, and politics and economics. Throughout, the book demonstrates how Jewish tradition brings new perspectives to—and challenges many current assumptions about—these central aspects of human nature. A study of human nature in Jewish thought and an original contribution to Jewish philosophy, this is a book for anyone interested in what it means to be human in a scientific age.

Buber, Martin (1878–1965)

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Natalja Chestopalova
Keyword(s):  
Hebrew Bible ◽  
Human Relations ◽  
Biblical Hermeneutics ◽  
Ethical Perspective ◽  
Philosophical Essay ◽  
I And Thou ◽  
Zionist Movement ◽  
Authentic Relationship ◽  
Biblical Faith ◽  
Dialogical Relation

Existential philosopher, essayist, translator and editor, Martin (Mordechai) Buber (מרטין בובר) was born in Austria and spent his earlier years studying in Vienna and Lemberg (now Lvov, Ukraine), eventually moving to Germany and Israel. Focusing on biblical hermeneutics and ethics, much of Buber’s writing is dedicated to the revival of religious Jewish consciousness through the idea of a transformed Zionist movement. Buber’s translation of the Hasidic tales, Die Geschichten des Rabbi Nachman (1906; The Tales of Rabbi Nachman), Die Legende des Baal Schem (1908; The Legend of the Baal Shem) and his original translation of the Hebrew Bible into German have remained valuable contributions to the study of spirituality, pacifism and human relations. Published in 1923, Buber’s most influential philosophical essay Ich und Du (I and Thou, 1937) is an articulation of the dialogic principle, or the duality of primal relations. In I and Thou Buber offers an ethical perspective by distinguishing between the I-Thou relations that stress the dialogical, mutual, holistic existence, and the monological I-It relations that objectify and dehumanize other beings. Buber allocates this dialogical relation to the very foundation of biblical faith and suggests that an authentic relationship to God is only possible through a dialogical life of existential responsibility.

To Die For

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shmuel Shepkaru
Keyword(s):  
Hebrew Bible ◽  
Late Antiquity ◽  
Jewish Tradition ◽  
Rabbinic Literature ◽  
The Bible ◽  
Noble Death

This chapter examines the development of early Jewish martyrdom from the Bible to late antiquity. The chapter argues that martyrdom does not exist in the Hebrew Bible and that the stories of Eleazar and the mother with her seven sons from 2 Maccabees are not indicative of an existing Hellenistic tradition of martyrdom. The Jewish concept of martyrdom started to develop in Roman times, due to the influence of the popular Roman idea of noble death. The Jewish acceptance of the Roman idea created also moral and theological dilemmas. The idea of noble death needed to be reconciled with a Jewish tradition that emphasized the holiness of life. These martyrological premises and predicaments continued to be developed in rabbinic literature. The end result was the presentation of a rabbinic martyrological genre that set the Jewish lore and law of kiddush ha-Shem.

The Wandering Jewess

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alicia Ostriker
Keyword(s):  
Hebrew Bible ◽  
Jewish Tradition ◽  
Biblical Narratives

This chapter discusses the author’s development as a feminist poet who began wrestling with the Hebrew Bible and Jewish tradition in the mid-1980s, focusing primarily on two of her books. The Nakedness of the Fathers (1994) is part midrash, part autobiography, re-telling biblical narratives from Genesis to Job and beyond, from a Jewish woman’s perspective. The book combines poetry and prose; it concludes by anticipating ‘the return of the Mother’, who in Kabbalistic tradition is called Shekhinah and is understood to be the female half of an androgynous Godhead. The Volcano Sequence (2002) is an experimental volume of poems which address a slippery ‘you’ that is sometimes the God of the Hebrew Bible, sometimes the speaker’s Mother, sometimes the Shekhinah. The chapter concludes by discussing poetry and prose engaged in analogous projects intended to re-define the nature of God and of the Sacred with emphasis on the sacred female.

Philo

2020 ◽  
pp. 151-158
Author(s):  
John A. Jillions
Keyword(s):  
Jewish Community ◽  
Hebrew Bible ◽  
Common Ground ◽  
Jewish Tradition ◽  
Greek Philosophy ◽  
Philo Of Alexandria ◽  
Jewish Thought ◽  
Biblical Study ◽  
Hellenistic Judaism

Philo of Alexandria (c. 15 BCE–50 CE) was a contemporary of Paul and a leading representative of Hellenistic Judaism. Although there are continuing debates over how well he represents mainstream Jewish thought, he saw himself as faithful to the Torah and Jewish tradition. He regarded his faith, rooted in the revelation of the God of Israel, as all-encompassing and therefore capable of finding common ground with truth in Greek philosophy. Spiritual reinterpretation of Abraham, Moses, and other figures in the Hebrew Bible is fundamental to his approach, and he sees biblical study as inseparable from communion with God, who illumines the reader. He was especially impressed with the Theraputae, a quasi-monastic Egyptian Jewish community where such study was at the heart of life. Philo is also profoundly aware of God’s presence, providence, and guidance in human events of all kinds, not just in scripture.

scholarly journals Fra bibelske til rabbinske opfattelser af askese: Jødedommens verdensbekræftende praksis

2016 ◽  
pp. 71
Author(s):  
Marianne Schleicher
Keyword(s):  
Hebrew Bible ◽  
Religious Tradition ◽  
Jewish Tradition ◽  
Rabbinic Literature ◽  
Men And Women ◽  
The World ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
Jewish Religion

The purpose of this article is to supplement scholarly positions that define asceticism either as a matter of world renouncement and elitist self-exclusion from the world or as always oriented toward transcendent goals or practices of improvement because these positions run the risk of overlooking moderate kinds of asceticism. Israelite, early Jewish, and early Rabbinic Jewish religion are replete with examples of moderate asceticism where both men and women are encouraged to engage in abstinence and self-training in order – not to improve, but – to preserve a religious tradition. With Steven D. Fraade’s definition of asceticism as a departing point, the article examines abstinence and self-training in the Hebrew Bible, early Jewish and early Rabbinic literature. The author discerns three types of moderate asceticism: that of the priest, the layperson, and the hero/-ine. These three types complement each other in a shared effort to preserve divine blessings in this world and thereby the preservation of Israelite-Jewish tradition.

scholarly journals Professor David Tuesday Adamo's Biblical Scholarship on Women: Reflections from an African-South African Mosadi

2021 ◽  
Vol 34 (2) ◽  
pp. 1-15
Author(s):  
Madipoane Masenya
Keyword(s):  
South African ◽  
Old Testament ◽  
Hebrew Bible ◽  
Biblical Studies ◽  
Woman Question ◽  
Concerted Effort ◽  
Biblical Hermeneutics ◽  
Biblical Scholarship ◽  
The Subject

One of the prolific writers in the discipline of African Biblical Hermeneutics is the Nigerian Old Testament (OT) scholar, Professor Tuesday David Adamo. In his tireless efforts to unlock the OT reality for African contexts, persuaded by his commitment to decolonise the subject of Biblical Studies, Adamo has made successful efforts to reflect on the African presence in the Old Testament. The present study seeks to engage Adamo's concept of African Biblical hermeneutics in order to investigate whether the author sufficiently discussed the theme of gender in his discourses. This research attempts to respond to the following two main questions in view of Adamo's discourses: (1) In Adamo's concerted effort of confirming the presence of Africa and Africans in the Hebrew Bible, does the woman question feature? (2) If so, how does Adamo navigate the question?

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