Translation or Divination? Sacred Languages and Bilingualism in Judaism and Lucumí Traditions

I compare the status of a sacred language in two very different religious traditions. In Judaism, the Hebrew language is the language of liturgy, prayer, and the Written Law. The traditional way of reading Torah passages involved translating them into Aramaic, the everyday language of communication in the Middle East in the first half of the first millennium CE. Later, other Jewish languages, such as Yiddish, played a role similar to that of Aramaic in the Talmudic period, constituting a system referred to as the “Traditional Jewish Bilingualism”. Hebrew lexemes had denotations related to the realm of Biblical texts, while Aramaic/Yiddish lexemes had everyday references. Therefore, the act of translation connected the two realms or domains. The Lucumí (Santería) Afro-Cuban religion is a syncretic tradition combining Roman Catholicism with the Ifá tradition, which does not have a corpus of written sacred texts, however, it has its sacred language, the Lucumí (Anagó) language related to the Yoruba language of West Africa. While the Spanish-Lucumí bilingualism plays an important role in Santería rituals, the mechanisms of reference are very different from those of the Hebrew-Yiddish bilingualism in Judaism. In Santería, divinations about the meaning of Lucumí words play a role similar to the translations from Hebrew in Judaism. I further discuss the role of ritual dances in Santería for the transition from the sacred to the secular domain and a function of Hebrew epitaphs to connect the ideal world of Hebrew sacred texts to the everyday life of a Jewish community.

Gospel of Joseph (I. Brodsky’s poem “Gorbunov and Gorchakov”)

The article traces the intertextual layers of I. Brodsky’s poem “Gorbunov and Gorchakov” (Shakespeare, Goethe, Dante, A. Chekhov, L. Andreev, M. Bulgakov, etc.), establishes a connection with the sacred texts of the Old and New Testaments. The hidden disciple (apostolic) plot is revealed and, as a result, a different arrangement of characters is proposed than is traditionally accepted in Russian studies: the heroes Gorbunov and Gorchaks are considered not as opponentsantipodes, but as heroes closely connected, in particular, by the relations of the teacher and the follower. The three-part (conditional) composition of the poem, focused on the three days and three nights depicted in the text, with its symbolic trinity emphasizes the progressive apostolic path of Gorchakov and emphasizes his special role in the fate of Gorbunov (after L. Andreev, not Judas the traitor, but Judas the disciple). The inner “follower” layer of the poem allows Brodsky to move to the archetypal plot, metaphorizing details and symbolizing situations, translating them to a higher level, saturating them with a capacious philosophical and poetic meaning. The well-thought-out chronotopic structure of the poem — Easter Eve, Holy Week, madhouse — is based on complex allusions and the “internal semantics” of the sign, number, and letters. The theological function in Brodsky’s poem is assumed by the Word, the divine Verb.

General Introduction to Environmental Humanities in India The Ecocritical Discourse in Hindu Literature

The article offers a general overview of the ecological debate and Environmental Humanities in India. After an introduction on the legacy of Gandhian ecological thought and contemporary literature, the essay focuses on the most discussed themes of the Indian classical tradition, with particular references to sacred texts (Vedas, Puranas, the epics). The sum of this knowledge is placed on the recursive perspective of Indian time: as yugas change, new structures of social life arise, reformulating society and its environment in a more holistic and sustainable way. This would be possible without ever denying the responsibility we all have in maintaining that personal empathy towards the environment that is reflected in Indian classical texts.

The Concept of an Islamic Reformation

The first chapter defines reformation and examines what it means in a specifically Shi‘i context. It compares reformation in Islam and Christianity and argues that an Islamic reformation has to be an indigenous exercise, one that does not have to capitulate to the demands of a secular or exogenous religious tradition. The chapter considers why reformation in Shi‘ism started much later than it did in Sunnism. The chapter also examines juristic pluralism and the concept of hermeneutics and its effects on the reading of sacred texts. It argues that a hermeneutical approach is important to a discussion of Islamic reformation because of its insistence that the meaning of a text depends on various textual, contextual, and intertextual factors. The chapter demonstrates that a text requires multiple and continuous interpretations if it is to remain valid and able to respond to contemporary challenges.

Hebrew script for Jewish languages

That “script follows religion” is well known. Missionary activities by Christian, Manichaean and Islamic, and Buddhist and Hindu proselytizers brought literacy, in alphabetic, abjadic, and abugidic scripts respectively, to previously non-literate communities in Europe, Asia and Africa, and South and Southeast Asia respectively. Judaism, however, did not proselytize; instead, it “wandered,” bringing Jewish communities throughout Europe and a good part of Asia, to lands that were already literate thanks to those earlier missionaries. Jewish languages emerged when diaspora communities adopted vernaculars altered on the basis of the culture-languages Hebrew and Aramaic. Such communities treasured their Hebrew and Aramaic literacies and often wrote the vernaculars using Hebrew script. The Hebrew letters denote consonants only, but the Jewish languages usually have more than 22 consonants and a number of vowels. Medieval Hebrew scholars devised vowels marks, used almost exclusively in sacred texts, but most Jewish languages barely use them. Unlike the other missionary scripts, Hebrew-script orthographies were often influenced by the indigenous orthographies they encountered. Exploring those influences needs an abbreviated account of the development of Hebrew orthography from its second-millennium bce forebears. A few examples follow of the adaptations of Hebrew script to Jewish languages, and various commonalities are found among such adaptations that probably emerged independently with little contact between speakers of the various languages. The question arises as to whether similar divergences and commonalities are found in other scripts spread in Scriptural contexts. That they are generally not reflects the difference between scripts arriving in non-literate versus literate surroundings.

‘Ordre et beauté’

The British composer Jonathan Harvey is generally associated with Eastern sacred texts rather than the secular Western literary canon. However, evidence from works composed over several decades suggests that Charles Baudelaire was a significant if subterranean influence upon his music. This article considers these works in detail. ‘L’Horloge’ [‘The Clock’] (1963) is a remarkable interpretation of Baudelaire’s text which reveals in it parallels with Harvey’s own contemporary preoccupations with the nature of musical time. Correspondances (1975) is a sequence of settings from Les Fleurs du mal and interludes and ‘fragments’ for piano which may be arranged in numerous orders at the discretion of the performers. Finally, the instrumental works Hidden Voice (1996) and Hidden Voice II (1999) demonstrate that the poet’s ideas remained an inspiration to Harvey well into his compositional maturity. Particularly striking is the variety and originality of these musical responses. Baudelaire’s real significance for Harvey was perhaps as an exemplar of aesthetic ideals - of ‘order and beauty’ - rather than merely as a source of musically suggestive images and phrases.

Theorizing the (Un)Sounded in Sikhī: Anhad, Sabad, and Kīrtan

Listening to sabad kīrtan (sung scriptural verse) is a core, everyday, widespread, and loved worship practice of Sikhs around the globe. Thus, it would be fair to state that sounding is central to Sikh worship. Indeed, the Sikh scripture considers kīrtan to be an eminent mode of devotion. Yet, the ultimate aim of this sonic practice is to sense the “unsounded” vibration—anhad—and thereby the divine and divine ethical virtues. Based on a close reading of Sikh sacred texts and ethnographic research, and drawing on the analytic of transduction, the paper explicates the embodied vibratory dimensions of the (unsounded) anhad and (sounded) sabad kīrtan. It argues that the central purpose of the Sikh (un)sounding perceptual practice is embodied ethical attunement for an unmediated experience of the divine and divine ethical virtues, and thereby the development of an ethical life. At the intersection of music, sound, religious, and philosophical studies, the analysis reveals the centrality of the body in worship and ethical development, and contributes to interdisciplinary conversations on sensory epistemologies in faith traditions.

PHYSICS AND METAPHYSICS OF FICTION REFLECTED IN FILM: A CASE OF DECRYPTION

The article deals with religious, materialistic, and mixed interpretations of the thing and the personality as generic entities in the story «Oh, whistle, and I'll come to you, my lad» by M. R. James and its screen versions. The differences found in the versions concern petty and significant deviations from the original story, which influence the initial message. The method used to achieve the results represented in the article combines the ideas of Philosophical Hermeneutics and those of the medieval exegetical method of allegorese applied to deal with obscure passages in sacred texts. The original story treated within the Protestant ideological paradigm gives way to materialistic views that are subject to refutation, reconsideration, and combination with philosophical issues in the screen versions – transponents. The thing as an inanimate object is endowed with personal qualities of a living being; on the contrary, an individual is viewed as a thing with no mind.