“The Bush Burned with Fire and the Bush Was Not Consumed”

This paper explores the post-metaphysical theology of Richard Kearney (1954–) from a Jewish theological perspective. It seeks to provide an original analysis of his project “anatheism,” considering the prominence of Jewish texts in the development of the concept of anatheism. Rooted in deconstructionist and Continental philosophical discourses, Jewish hermeneutics also plays a central role in anatheism. This discursive intersection has received scarce scholarly attention to date. Biblical and other texts which he interprets, include the rabbinic exegesis of Rashi and of modern Jewish hermeneutical philosophy notably of Martin Buber, Franz Rosenzweig, and Emmanuel Levinas. I analyse elements of Kearney’s interpretation primarily of the “Burning Bush” biblical narrative as a test case for anatheistic reading of Jewish texts as they appear in one particular text “I Am Who May Be” in The God Who May Be: A Hermeneutics of Religion (2001). Kearney’s textual reading of the Burning Bush offers an unusual example of a Christian engagement with Jewish interpretations of the biblical parable as well as of Levinas, Derrida, and others. Kearney’s effort highlights an approach of a mutual search for ways of interpreting texts not “of” the other, but “with” the other, in a mutual engagement of post-metaphysical theology. More broadly, this examination offers an important contribution to the developing field of post-metaphysical theology in the Jewish and Christian traditions, ultimately posing questions as to how and whether elements of Jewish scriptural interpretative techniques might or can imbue contemporary Christian post-metaphysical theologies. Conversely, the question can be asked as to what a Jewish version of anatheism might look like. This examination presents a test case for possibilities of reading and learning from discourses across different religions.

Dialogic Basis of the Categories of “Openness” and “Tolerance” to the “Other” in Modern Political Discourse – Martin Buber and Gabriel Marcel

The article analyzes the dialogical nature of the concepts of “tolerance”, “freedom”, “openness”. The interpretation of the dialogical relationship and the appearance of “Other” in it as opposed to “I” through the prism of the concepts of M. Buber and G. Marcel are analyzed. The impact of philosophers of dialogue on the formation of the modern meaning of the concepts “tolerance”, “other”, “openness” is substantiated. The dialogical methodology of interpersonal communications as one of the options for political interaction is considered. The relation “I-You” and the relation “I-It” as principles of construction of mass communication and interpersonal interaction are investigated. The rise in understanding the “Other” in the context of the type of interaction with it is illustrated. The need for mutual openness to enable tolerance is established. Tolerance is seen as the mutual acceptance of two equal freedoms without a dichotomous division into primary and secondary. On the example of dialogic concepts of M. Buber and G. Marcel, the types of dialogical interaction with the “Other” and the possible interpretation of the “Other”, including its typology, are demonstrated. The influence of dialogic interpretation of intersubjective connection on the formation of modern European values is determined.

The Unsung Buber-Leibowitz Coda to the German Jewish Swan Song

Among the hidden treasures squirreled away in the archives of Israel’s National Library lies a fragmented correspondence that sheds new light on the afterlife of a project that was long deemed the farewell gift to the German language and culture from the remnants of its Jewry. It is an exchange of letters between two scholars, whose interest in the German rendition of the Bible occupied them for many years, first in Germany, and later in the land where Hebrew was vernacular and where one might think there would no longer be a need for translations of the Bible; particularly not into a language that aroused considerable aversion in the aftermath of the war. And yet, the 1963–64 exchange between the two Jerusalemites, the Vienna-born and Frankfurt-crowned philosopher, theologian, and translator Martin Buber and the Riga-born, Berlin- and Marburg-educated biblical scholar Nechama Leibowitz tells a different story. It shows they both believed the project that began under the title Die Schrift, zu verdeutschen unternommen should be revised once again, after its completion so as to underline its ongoing relevance for present and future readings of the Bible tout court, in German and Hebrew speaking lands alike.

A EDUCAÇÃO COMO PREPARAÇÃO PARA O SENTIDO DE COMUNIDADE EM MARTIN BUBER

Este artigo tem por objetivo apresentar as proposições de Martin Buber (1878-1965) no campo da Filosofia da Educação mediante a análise de um texto específico de sua vasta produção, a saber: uma conferência realizada em 1929, intitulada Educação para a comunidade, que integra o livro Sobre comunidade, uma coletânea de textos de Buber organizada por Marcelo Dascal e Oscar Zimmermann.

Reversing The “Eclipse of Relationality”

The Jewish philosopher Martin Buber talked about, living under the shadow of Auschwitz, that humanity lived with the ‘eclipse of God’. I now wonder if we have moved beyond this ‘eclipse of God’ to a time of the ‘eclipse of relationality’. This article argues that the eclipse of relationality is enabled through a predominant worldview in which the world is understood as mechanical and dead – observed and experienced in increasingly abstract form. In this way of being, the world and the ‘other’, cannot be loved. In light of this eclipse, this article offers two pathways back to life, particularly for practitioners concerned with healing culture. The first is ontological – a new way of being that is experienced through a living polarity between the ideas enfolded within Jung’s theory of individuation and Buber’s dialogical theorising. The second is phenomenological – a new kind of social and ecological practice linked to a perceptivity of living process, traced from Carl Jung and James Hillman, to Mary Watkins, Henri Bortoft and Allan Kaplan. The key wisdom from this article, from travelling down these two pathways - the key theorising of a way forward for cultural healers - is that people increasingly spend so much of their life separated, a-part, lacking intimacy with another, or with the world, or the manifestations of the world that are all around them, and within them. Something is then missing – call it connection, which ensouls the world – the aliveness that invites an anticipatory and participatory relationship with the world, and importantly, a world experienced as both profound Otherness, as well as deeply Oneness. The consequences for people and the world are profound – for the experience of alienation enables abstractions to flourish, exclusions to expand, and rushed interventions to proliferate – the ‘eclipse of relationality’ beckons.

O legado hermenêutico do Círculo de Éranos para as Ciências da Religião

O artigo apresenta histórica e teoricamente o Círculo de Éranos como um modelo interpretativo para as Ciências da Religião. Trata-se, a rigor, de uma aproximação ao mesmo tempo histórica e temática ao Círculo de Éranos buscando as pluralidades nos encontros que pudessem contribuir à uma hermenêutica para as Ciências da Religião. Sabe-se que os encontros, inaugurados por Olga Fröbe-Kapteyn, colocou em conversa variados pensadores de áreas distintas, como Rudolf Otto, Carl Jung, Martin Buber, Paul Tillich, Jakob Hauer, Heinrich Zimmer, Karoly Kerenyi, Gershom Scholem, Henry Corbin e Mircea Eliade. Em uma tentativa incansável de aproximar Ocidente e Oriente, Jung, a título de contextualização, teve a oportunidade de modificar parte de suas teorias devido a convivência com os participantes, atribuindo, assim, uma renovada significação religiosa às suas reflexões. Além de Jung, Mircea Eliade, como um dos principais interlocutores com Jung, também contribuiu a respeito do significado da vida religiosa. Este artigo, portanto, busca recuperar a história do Círculo de Éranos e, ao invés de vasculhar o valor do Círculo de Éranos em si, pretende trabalhar a contribuição do Círculo de Éranos para a constituição da área das Ciências da Religião e Teologia pelo viés da linha de pesquisa Linguagens da Religião propondo uma base hermenêutica da pluralidade a partir de uma reinterpretação do significado da pesquisa em Ciências da Religião tendo no Éranos uma forma de spiritus rector original.

A Study of Our Knowledge of Persons with Special Reference to the Work of Dr. Martin Buber

<p>The field of philosophy is wide and varied, and often appears to be remote from the common life of men. Yet this remoteness is only superficial for the problems with which philosophy deals arise in the first instance from questions which occur to the man in the street, though he may not pursue them systematically. He cannot avoid meeting them, though he may avoid trying to answer them. What is the meaning of life? What is the meaning of the universe? Is the ordering of nature, of society of the individual organism quite fortuitous or according to some unwritten law? How do we know other people and objects? What is the nature of God? That these questions are dependent upon human reflection is not hard to see. They arise out of reflection, and they depend to a greater or less degree upon reflection for their answer. But we may go further and question reflection itself: What is the nature of reflection? What is its subject matter? Is reflection reliable? In other words, “How do we know?” The examination of this question constitutes that aspect of philosophy known as “Epistemology”, and upon the answer to that question the fate of philosophy depends to a great extent.</p>

A Study of Our Knowledge of Persons with Special Reference to the Work of Dr. Martin Buber

<p>The field of philosophy is wide and varied, and often appears to be remote from the common life of men. Yet this remoteness is only superficial for the problems with which philosophy deals arise in the first instance from questions which occur to the man in the street, though he may not pursue them systematically. He cannot avoid meeting them, though he may avoid trying to answer them. What is the meaning of life? What is the meaning of the universe? Is the ordering of nature, of society of the individual organism quite fortuitous or according to some unwritten law? How do we know other people and objects? What is the nature of God? That these questions are dependent upon human reflection is not hard to see. They arise out of reflection, and they depend to a greater or less degree upon reflection for their answer. But we may go further and question reflection itself: What is the nature of reflection? What is its subject matter? Is reflection reliable? In other words, “How do we know?” The examination of this question constitutes that aspect of philosophy known as “Epistemology”, and upon the answer to that question the fate of philosophy depends to a great extent.</p>