scholarly journals Metaphysical perspectives on YHWH as a fictional entity in the Hebrew Bible

2017 ◽  
Vol 73 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Jacobus W. Gericke
Keyword(s):  
Present Article ◽  
Old Testament ◽  
Hebrew Bible ◽  
Literary Theory ◽  
Philosophical Foundations ◽  
Fictional Objects ◽  
Philosophy Of Fiction ◽  
Theoretical Overview

Within a literary ontology, YHWH in the Hebrew Bible is technically also a fictional entity or object. In Hebrew Bible scholarship, a variety of philosophical issues surrounding fiction have received sustained and in-depth attention. However, the mainstream research on these matters tends to focus on the philosophical foundations of or backgrounds to a particular literary theory, rather than on metaphysical puzzles as encountered in the philosophy of fiction proper. To fill this gap, the present article seeks to provide a meta-theoretical overview of the main contemporary philosophical perspectives on the metaphysics of fictional objects. Three views (and their sub-currents) are discussed, namely possibilism, (neo-)Meinongianism and (literary) creationism. Each view’s theory is introduced and critically appropriated with reference to what is implied to be an answer to the question of what exactly the biblical character YHWH can meaningfully be said to be in the context of the metaphysics of fictional objects. In this way, the present study also goes beyond the traditional concern with the nature of God in Old Testament theology.

Messianism in Linear and Cyclical Contexts

Exchange ◽  
2009 ◽  
Vol 38 (2) ◽  
pp. 117-133
Author(s):  
Jan Jongeneel
Keyword(s):  
Special Reference ◽  
Present Article ◽  
New Testament ◽  
Old Testament ◽  
Hebrew Bible ◽  
Modern Times ◽  
The New Testament ◽  
The Times ◽  
Linear Setting ◽  
At Home

AbstractThe Messiah figure originates from the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament. In a linear setting it interprets his person and work politically, spiritually, and apocalyptically. The New Testament applies this Hebrew concept spiritually and apocalyptically to Jesus of Nazareth: he is unrepeatably and irreversibly the Messiah/Christ of both Jews and gentiles. In the Qu'ran Jesus is known as al-Masih, but there this term merely functions as a name. However, the Islam points to the coming of the Mahdi figure at the end of the times, comparable with the Second Coming in Christianity. Therefore, the Messiah/Christ/Mahdi figure, as a unique figure, is at home in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. These monotheistic religions place him, each in their own way, in a linear frame. In modern times cultural anthropologists and other scholars in the humanities have extended the use of the terms 'Messiah' and 'Messianism' to figures and phenomena in cyclical contexts. They do not hesitate to speak about 'the Hindu Messiah' and 'Buddhist Messianism'. The present article explores the nature of both the cyclical and linear views of time and history, investigates the birth and growth of Messianism in these specific settings, with special reference to modern developments, and compares the linear concepts of the Messiah and Messianism with the cyclical ones. At the end the article questions whether the cyclical and linear views of the Messiah and Messianism can be harmonized by the use of the spiral as bridge.

Philosophical Reduction(ism) in Meta-Language Reconstructions of Yhwh as Religious Object

2018 ◽  
Vol 26 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Jaco W Gericke
Keyword(s):  
Old Testament ◽  
Hebrew Bible ◽  
A Priori ◽  
Research Problem ◽  
Second Order ◽  
Unified Theory ◽  
Ontological Status ◽  
Introductory Overview ◽  
Theory Of Everything ◽  
Interpretative Approach

In Hebrew Bible/Old Testament scholarship, one encounters a variety of reductive perspectives on what exactly Yahweh as religious object is assumed to be. In this article, a clarification of the research problem is followed by an introductory overview of what is currently available on this topic as is attested in the context of various interpretative methodologies and their associated meta-languages. It is argued that any attempt to describe the actual metaphysical nature and ontological status of the religious object in the jargon of a particular interpretative approach is forever prone to committing the fallacy of reductionism. Even so, given the irreducible methodological perspectivism supervening on heuristic specificity, reductive accounts as such are unavoidable. If this is correct, then it follows a fortiori that a unified theory (of everything Yahweh can be said to be) and an ideal meta-language (with which to perfectly reconstruct the religious object within second-order discourse) are a priori impossible.

La transposition profane de l’Exode dans Moïse fiction de Gilles Rozier

2013 ◽  
pp. 174-183
Author(s):  
Piotr Sadkowski
Keyword(s):  
Present Article ◽  
Old Testament ◽  
The Other ◽  
Jewish Tradition ◽  
Human Being ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Jewish Origin ◽  
French Writer ◽  
The World ◽  
Jewish Writers

Throughout the centuries French and Francophone writers were relatively rarely inspired by the figure of Moses and the story of Exodus. However, since the second half of 20th c. the interest of the writers in this Old Testament story has been on the rise: by rewriting it they examine the question of identity dilemmas of contemporary men. One of the examples of this trend is Moïse Fiction, the 2001 novel by the French writer of Jewish origin, Gilles Rozier, analysed in the present article. The hypertextual techniques, which result in the proximisation of the figure of Moses to the reality of the contemporary reader, constitute literary profanation, but at the same time help place Rozier’s text in the Jewish tradition, in the spirit of talmudism understood as an exchange of views, commentaries, versions and additions related to the Torah. It is how the novel, a new “midrash”, avoids the simple antinomy of the concepts of the sacred and the profane. Rozier’s Moses, conscious of his complex identity, is simultaneously a Jew and an Egyptian, and faces, like many contemporary Jewish writers, language dilemmas, which constitute one of the major motifs analysed in the present article. Another key question is the ethics of the prophetism of the novelistic Moses, who seems to speak for contemporary people, doomed to in the world perceived as chaos unsupervised by an absolute being. Rozier’s agnostic Moses is a prophet not of God (who does not appear in the novel), but of humanism understood as the confrontation of a human being with the absurdity of his or her own finiteness, which produces compassion for the other, with whom the fate of a mortal is shared.

The Reception of the Writings and Their Place in the Biblical Canon

2018 ◽  
pp. 396-413
Author(s):  
Lee Martin McDonald
Keyword(s):  
Old Testament ◽  
Hebrew Bible ◽  
Early Christianity ◽  
First Century

This chapter explores the origin and order of the Writings along with their emergence from the larger corpus of prophets included in the Hebrew Bible. It focuses also on the somewhat mixed reception of some of those texts in Judaism and early Christianity as well as the tripartite structure of the Hebrew Bible compared with the quadripartite structure of the Christian Old Testament, as well as the question of whether the latter was a Christian innovation or derived from an element of Judaism in the first century ce before Christians separated from Judaism. The recent questions about the significance of the order of the Christian Old Testament canon will also be examined below.

scholarly journals Extending the embodied semiotic square: A cultural-semantic analysis of “Follow your Arrow”

Semiotica ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 2020 (236-237) ◽  
pp. 275-295
Author(s):  
Daniel Candel
Keyword(s):  
Present Article ◽  
Literary Theory ◽  
Semantic Analysis ◽  
Dynamic Field ◽  
Sentence Level ◽  
Cognitive Literary Theory ◽  
Authorial Voice

AbstractPelkey’s anchoring of the semiotic square in embodiment is excellent news for cognitive literary theory, a dynamic field still in search of itself. However, his validation of the square, though theoretically unexceptionable, suffers in the execution, for his interpretation of the country song “Follow your Arrow” is less successful. The present article benefits from Pelkey’s validation as it organizes a tool of cultural-semantic analysis (CS-tool) as a ‘deviant’ semiotic square. The article then shows how this particular semiotic square allows us to analyze the song in terms which build on Pelkey’s analysis, but also arrive at more satisfying results. Where Pelkey sees liberation in the song and the square, the tool uncovers manipulation in the former and closure in the latter. The article then assesses the complementarity of and differences between the two squares: Pelkey works on a local sentence-level through direct implicature, thus following the narrative/authorial voice of the poem. The CS-tool starts from a position of higher abstraction requiring a less defined, but still sufficient and more wide-ranging, three-step implicature. This allows the tool to step back from the song’s authorial voice and uncover its manipulations. The article closes by discussing the deviant features of the present square.

Hearing the ‘Voice’ of the Niphal: A Response to Ellen van Wolde

2021 ◽  
Vol 45 (3) ◽  
pp. 291-308
Author(s):  
Ethan C. Jones
Keyword(s):  
Old Testament ◽  
Hebrew Bible ◽  
External Argument ◽  
Middle Voice ◽  
External Agent ◽  
The Voice ◽  
Previous Volume

This article responds to the innovative and stimulating research by Ellen van Wolde in a previous volume of Journal for the Study of the Old Testament. She claims that the Niphal is middle voice and can be passive, ‘if (and only if) an external argument, coded as an external Agent, is present’. My research however, demonstrates that such a description of the passive is both inadequate in view of the world’s languages and incongruent with Niphal. In addition, my response lays bare how such a prescription of the middle voice to the Niphal in the Hebrew Bible is circulus probando and unconvincing.

Imagination: A Hermeneutical Tool for the Study of the Hebrew Bible

2010 ◽  
Vol 18 (2) ◽  
pp. 114-136
Author(s):  
Izaak de Hulster
Keyword(s):  
New Testament ◽  
Old Testament ◽  
Hebrew Bible ◽  
Moral Imagination ◽  
Related Literature ◽  
Systematic Application ◽  
Ancient People ◽  
The New Testament ◽  
Old Testament Studies

AbstractBiblical scholars use the word 'imagination' more and more often, but in different cases 'imagination' covers different concepts. In order to reach a more systematic application of 'imagination' in hermeneutics and Old Testament Studies in general, there is a need to explore the possible uses of 'imagination'. This article comprises: 1) a theoretical introduction extending what Barth and Steck wrote in their classical primer on exegetical methods; 2) a section on imagination and history; 3) a heuristic classifying survey of Brueggemann's use of the word 'imagination'; 4) a reflection on how imagination is restricted by parameters of time and place. The article distinguishes between imagination of ancient people and of people nowadays, but deals with the interplay of both as well. It further reflects on the informed, controlled use of imagination in hermeneutics. After a brief comment on "moral imagination," a survey and mapping of the uses of imagination in hermeneutics rounds off the article. This will make clear how the different notions referred to with the word 'imagination' are related and why it is important to consider them as interdependent concepts. Although the majority of the examples will be taken from the Hebrew Bible, the thoughts expressed here are applicable to the study of the New Testament as well and some more specific New Testament issues and related literature will be referred to.

scholarly journals Judas or Jesus’ Other Disciples? The Old Testament or Jesus’ Word? A Mysterious Reference to the “Scripture” in John 17:12

2019 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 131-176
Author(s):  
Adam Kubiś
Keyword(s):  
Old Testament ◽  
Hebrew Bible ◽  
Fourth Gospel ◽  
Recent Scholarship

The fulfillment of “the Scriptures” in John 17:12 has long been a bone of contention among commentators on the Fourth Gospel. The majority of authors have argued that ἡ γραφή unmistakably refers to a passage in the Hebrew Bible. Wendy Sproston (North) and Francis Moloney, however, picking up on an earlier observation by Edwin Freed, suggest Jesus’ own words as a more appropriate referent of ἡ γραφή in this verse. The issue of the correct scriptural referent is intrinsically connected with the question of the thematic referent within the verse in question. As it turns out, the fulfillment of the scripture can refer to either the tragic fate of Judas or the preserving of Jesus’ other disciples. The article surveys recent scholarship on these issues in order to identify the most convincing solutions.

scholarly journals The age of reinvented empire(s) in Africa in the light of Persian hegemonic power: Reading the books of Deuteronomy and Ezra-Nehemiah in the context of Zimbabwe

2015 ◽  
Vol 36 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Ndikho Mtshiselwa
Keyword(s):  
European Union ◽  
Political Science ◽  
Old Testament ◽  
Hebrew Bible ◽  
Science Studies ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Power Struggle ◽  
African Countries ◽  
African Government ◽  
Point Of Reference

It is generally accepted that historically Africa experienced colonialism. Thus, in the neocolonial age articulated by the likes of Sugirtharajah, Segovia and Nkrumah, most African countries are faced with the challenge of power struggle in which imperialism and dictatorship inhibits the development of the Two-Thirds world countries. This challenge, it is argued, reveals an imperialistic tendency of the European Union, China and African government(s) to alter democracy and freedom. As such, the Zimbabwe context, amongst others, will be used as a main point of reference. This article examines the elements of imperialism in African states in the light of Persian hegemonic power in the books of Deuteronomy and Ezra-Nehemiah. It investigates whether or not the Jews were free under the Persian hegemonic influence in the post-exilic period. The comparison of the influence of Persian hegemony in the books of Deuteronomy and Ezra-Nehemiah with the evidence of imperialism in African government(s), leads to the argument that certain African states do not appear to be completely democratic and free.Intradisciplinary and interdisciplinary implications: Based on aspects of Old Testament and political science studies, this article explores traces of imperialism in African governments in the light of Persian hegemonic power in the Hebrew Bible. In the end, the article argues that certain African states, for instance Zimbabwe, should not be considered as completely democratic and free nations.

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