“Even unto this Bitter Loving”: Unhappiness and Backward Feelings in Ruth

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-24
Author(s):  
Rhiannon Graybill
Keyword(s):  
Queer Theory ◽  
Hebrew Bible ◽  
Sexual Exploitation ◽  
Recent Scholarship ◽  
Critical Attention ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Well Of Loneliness

Feminist and queer readings of the Hebrew Bible frequently treat the book of Ruth as a “happy object.” At the same time, contextual readings have suggested that Ruth is a narrative of exploitation, including possible sexual exploitation or trafficking. Building on recent scholarship about queer feelings and affect, this article negotiates a reading that takes seriously both the history of lesbian and queer readings of Ruth and Naomi and the critical attention on structures of exploitation. Drawing on Sara Ahmed’s The Promise of Happiness (2010) and Heather Love’s Feeling Backward (2007), I argue for the importance of feeling, especially unhappy or backward feeling, in reading Ruth. My reading also frames the biblical book in conversation with Radclyffe Hall’s classic 1928 lesbian novel (and source for lesbian and queer theory) The Well of Loneliness. By following unhappiness and backwardness in and around Ruth, we are able to snatch a glimpse of queer feeling, and the space of promise it opens.

The History of the Judahite Bench Tomb

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Matthew Suriano
Keyword(s):  
Iron Age ◽  
Hebrew Bible ◽  
Cultural Practices ◽  
Seventh Century ◽  
Mortuary Practices ◽  
Iron Age Ii ◽  
Gradual Development ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Dead ◽  
Insight Into

The history of the Judahite bench tomb provides important insight into the meaning of mortuary practices, and by extension, death in the Hebrew Bible. The bench tomb appeared in Judah during Iron Age II. Although it included certain burial features that appear earlier in the Middle and Late Bronze Ages, such as burial benches, and the use of caves for extramural burials, the Judahite bench tomb uniquely incorporated these features into a specific plan that emulated domestic structures and facilitated multigenerational burials. During the seventh century, and continuing into the sixth, the bench tombs become popular in Jerusalem. The history of this type of burial shows a gradual development of cultural practices that were meant to control death and contain the dead. It is possible to observe within these cultural practices the tomb as a means of constructing identity for both the dead and the living.

Studying the Writings as Postexilic Literature and Canon

2018 ◽  
pp. xx-16
Author(s):  
Donn F. Morgan
Keyword(s):  
Hebrew Bible ◽  
Faith Communities ◽  
The Third ◽  
History Of ◽  
History Of Scholarship

This chapter argues for the import and value of studying the Writings, the third canonical division of the Hebrew Bible. Special attention is given to the postexilic background of the Writings and the history of scholarship devoted to this literature as canon in the last fifty years. The challenges of studying this division are named and discussed, including the following: diversity and difference within the corpus; the puzzle of its structure; the use of many methods to evaluate and articulate its characteristics and message; its relationship to Torah and Prophets; and the much debated history of canonization. The significance of studying the Writings for both scholars and the faith communities that use them as scripture is a constant theme.

Sin and Punishment in the Book of Isaiah

2020 ◽  
pp. 248-264
Author(s):  
Blaženka Scheuer
Keyword(s):  
Hebrew Bible ◽  
Human Experience ◽  
Social Injustice ◽  
Book Of Isaiah ◽  
Recent Scholarship

This chapter explores the themes of sin and punishment through the lens of a theodicy that the authors and redactors of Isaiah offer to justify Yhwh’s actions and to instruct the Israelites to stay loyal to him. The three parts of Isaiah agree that the exile was Yhwh’s punishment for the Israelites’ rebellion demonstrated through social injustice and idolatry. However, because of the different historical realities that they address, they present varied understandings of the identity of the sinners and of the rationale for their punishment. The chapter also surveys the changes in recent scholarship in the study of sin and of the correspondence between sin and punishment in the Hebrew Bible. It draws attention to the fact that amid all the declarations of the Israelites’ sins, Isaiah gives voice to the human experience of unjust punishment.

GLOSSING THE GLOSS: READING PETER LOMBARD’SCOLLECTANEAON THE PAULINE EPISTLES AS A HISTORICAL ACT

Traditio ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 73 ◽  
pp. 83-116
Author(s):  
PETER O'HAGAN
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Biblical Text ◽  
Classroom Activity ◽  
New Approach ◽  
Central Focus ◽  
Recent Scholarship ◽  
Pauline Epistles ◽  
History Of ◽  
Extended Analysis

Peter Lombard's influential commentary on the Pauline Epistles, theCollectanea in omnes divi Pauli epistolas,has received little extended analysis in scholarly literature, despite its recognized importance both in its own right and as key for the development of hisSentences.This article presents a new approach to studying theCollectaneaby analyzing how Lombard's commentary builds on theGlossa “Ordinaria”on the Pauline Epistles. The article argues for treating theCollectaneaas a “historical act,” focusing on how Lombard engages with the biblical text and with authoritative sources within which he encounters the same biblical text embedded. The article further argues for the necessity of turning to the manuscripts of both theCollectaneaand theGlossa,rather than continuing to rely on inadequate early modern printed editions or thePatrologia Latina.The article then uses Lombard's discussion of faith at Romans 1:17 as a case study, demonstrating the way in which Lombard begins from theGlossa,clarifies its ambiguities, and moves his analysis forward through his use of otherauctoritatesand theologicalquaestiones.A comparison with Lombard's treatment of faith in theSentenceshighlights the close links between Lombard's biblical lectures and this later work. The article concludes by arguing that scholastic biblical exegesis and theology should be treated as primarily a classroom activity, with the glossed Bible as the central focus. Discussion of Lombard's work should draw on much recent scholarship that has begun to uncover the layers of orality within the textual history of scholastic works.

scholarly journals Irish consequences of the Great War

2015 ◽  
Vol 39 (156) ◽  
pp. 643-658 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Fitzpatrick
Keyword(s):  
Social History ◽  
Final Section ◽  
Civil Conflict ◽  
Great War ◽  
Irish History ◽  
Public Response ◽  
Recent Scholarship ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Great War ◽  
The Postponement

AbstractIt is now widely admitted that the Great War was also Ireland’s war, with profound consequences for every element of Irish life after 1914. Its impact may be discerned in aberrant aspects of Ireland’s demographic, economic and social history, as well as in the more familiar political and military convulsions of the war years. This article surveys recent scholarship, assesses statistical evidence of the war’s social and economic impact (both positive and negative), and explores its far-reaching political repercussions. These include the postponement of expected civil conflict, the unexpected occurrence of an unpopular rebellion in 1916, and public response to the consequent coercion. The speculative final section outlines a number of plausible outcomes for Irish history in the absence of war, concluding that no single counterfactual history of a warless Ireland is defensible.

Camus's Absurd and the World of Melville's Confidence-Man

PMLA ◽  
1967 ◽  
Vol 82 (1) ◽  
pp. 14-27
Author(s):  
Leon F. Seltzer
Keyword(s):  
Careful Analysis ◽  
The Other ◽  
The Novel ◽  
The Past ◽  
The World ◽  
Critical Attention ◽  
Confidence Man ◽  
Ugly Duckling ◽  
History Of ◽  
The One

In recent years, The Confidence-Man: His Masquerade, a difficult work and for long an unjustly neglected one, has begun to command increasingly greater critical attention and esteem. As more than one contemporary writer has noted, the verdict of the late Richard Chase in 1949, that the novel represents Melville's “second best achievement,” has served to prompt many to undertake a second reading (or at least a first) of the book. Before this time, the novel had traditionally been the one Melville readers have shied away from—as overly discursive, too rambling altogether, on the one hand, or as an unfortunate outgrowth of the author's morbidity on the other. Elizabeth Foster, in the admirably comprehensive introduction to her valuable edition of The Confidence-Man (1954), systematically traces the history of the book's reputation and observes that even with the Melville renaissance of the twenties, the work stands as the last piece of the author's fiction to be redeemed. Only lately, she comments, has it ceased to be regarded as “the ugly duckling” of Melville's creations. But recognition does not imply agreement, and it should not be thought that in the past fifteen years critics have reached any sort of unanimity on the novel's content. Since Mr. Chase's study, which approached the puzzling work as a satire on the American spirit—or, more specifically, as an attack on the liberalism of the day—and which speculated upon the novel's controlling folk and mythic figures, other critics, by now ready to assume that the book repaid careful analysis, have read the work in a variety of ways. It has been treated, among other things, as a religious allegory, as a philosophic satire on optimism, and as a Shandian comedy. One critic has conveniently summarized the prevailing situation by remarking that “the literary, philosophical, and cultural materials in this book are fused in so enigmatic a fashion that its interpreters have differed as to what the book is really about.”

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