The Renewal of Perception in Religious Faith and Biblical Narrative

Religious faith may manifest itself, among other things, as a mode of seeing the ordinary world, which invests that world imaginatively (or inspiredly) with an unseen depth of divine intention and spiritual significance. While such seeing may well be truthful, it is also unavoidably constructive, involving the imagination in its philosophical sense of the capacity to organize underdetermined or ambiguous sense date into a whole or gestalt. One of the characteristic ways in which biblical narratives inspire and teach is by renewing their characters’ and readers’ imagination. The texts do so not inexorably but in a similar way as (other) works of art. This paper therefore investigates the ways in which works of art engage and develop the imagination, and thereby enable renewed perceptual and cognitive engagement with the world. The paper introduces predictive processing as a helpful psychological theory for analyzing this dynamic, and outlines questions for further research.

Accuracy and Reception: On Theological and Aesthetic Novelty in Two Novels by Teodora Dimova

Accuracy and Reception: On Theological and Aesthetic Novelty in Two Novels by Teodora DimovaThis article raises the question of functioning of the Biblical narrative in modern literature in the context of the local/individual experience of faith and the epistemological and existential question of truth. The focus is on two novels by the Bulgarian writer Teodora Dimova (born in 1960): Марма Мариам [Marma, Mariam, 2010] and Първият рожден ден [The First Birthday, 2016]. This case is particularly interesting because the Biblical story about Jesus has not been used here in order to create a parody or blasphemy, which could be expected as far as the postmodern de-contextualisation and re-evaluation of tradition are concerned, but to offer both an aesthetically original and theologically orthodox vision of the Christian God. So how to paraphrase the Biblical story and remain orthodox? How to actualize the existential potential of the Bible and achieve novelty? The analysis is conducted in the perspective of Paul Ricoeur’s existential hermeneutics and phenomenology of memory, especially his concepts of testimony and mimesis, with regard to the question of the reception of Biblical paraphrases in (Bulgarian) modern culture.Zgodność i recepcja. O teologicznej i estetycznej nowości w dwóch powieściach Teodory DimowejW artykule została poruszona kwestia funkcjonowania narracji biblijnej w literaturze nowoczesnej w kontekście lokalnego i indywidualnego doświadczenia wiary oraz epistemologicznego i egzystencjalnego pytania o prawdę. Autorka koncentruje się na dwóch powieściach bułgarskiej pisarki Teodory Dimowej (ur. 1960): Марма Мариам [Marma, Mariam, 2010] i Първият рожден ден [Pierwsze urodziny, 2016]. Przypadek ten jest szczególnie interesujący, ponieważ biblijna opowieść o Jezusie nie została tu wykorzystana w celu stworzenia parodii lub bluźnierstwa, czego można by oczekiwać w kontekście ponowoczesnych dekontekstualizacji i przewartościowań, ale aby zaproponować wizję chrześcijańskiego Boga, która jest zarówno estetycznie oryginalna, jak i teologicznie prawowierna. Jak więc sparafrazować historię biblijną i pozostać ortodoksyjnym? Jak urzeczywistnić egzystencjalny potencjał Biblii i stworzyć oryginalne dzieło? W analizie autorka odwołuje się do hermeneutyki egzystencjalnej i fenomenologii pamięci Paula Ricoeura, zwłaszcza jego koncepcjiświadectwa oraz mimesis, w odniesieniu do kwestii recepcji parafraz biblijnych w (bułgarskiej) kulturze nowoczesnej.

“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.

Satanological Myth in the Coptic literature and its development

The article deals with the satanic myth, its Biblical genesis and further development in Judaism and early Christianity as well as its variants in Coptic literature. The myth is based on the story about the fall of the Supreme Angel and his subsequent transformation into an evil spirit. Two versions of the myth are known conventionally called “The proud man” and the “Envious man”. The first is the “legend of Lucifer” when Satan wished to become higher than God or equal to Him and was cast down. This legend goes back to the Biblical prophets as well as the pre-Christian exegesis. The second version describes how Satan was cast down for refusing to worship Adam. This legend is partly rooted in the book of Job and could have developed as a result of two coexisting, however, separate motives were found in the Jewish and early Christian exegesis. Both variants occur in great detail in various Coptic texts, including magical ones. The Biblical basis of the myth enlarged by various additions. Besides, there is also a version, which comprises details from both legends. The Satanological myth, like other apocryphal legends about angels and demons based upon the Biblical narrative in Coptic literature is developed in two ways: 1) personification of abstract concepts and properties, 2) allegorical interpretation of stories regarding Biblical characters as legends about angels or demons.

Of Proust and Prophets: Samuel, Elijah, and Charles Swann

The discovery of a much smaller draft of a multi-volume novel has suggested a partial analogy with the writing of Samuel-Kings in the Hebrew Bible. The draft makes no mention of the novel’s main character; and the proposed earlier version of the biblical narrative is silent about the prophetic giants that dominate the text we know.

The Creation of Adam and the Biblical Origins of Race in The Slave’s Friend (1836–1838)

The creation of Adam out of dust is a familiar tradition from the Book of Genesis. In abolitionist literature of the nineteenth century, this biblical narrative became the basis for a theory about the origins of race, arguing that because Adam was formed from red clay, neither he nor his descendants were white. This interpretation of Genesis underscored the value of non-white ancestors both in the biblical narrative and in human history and undermined popular theological arguments that upheld color-based racial hierarchies that privileged whiteness in the United States. This article examines the creation of Adam in Genesis 2 and its use in racial theory and abolitionist rhetoric, focusing on the children’s anti-slavery periodical The Slave’s Friend, published from 1836 to 1838.

Sending Away Foreign Wives in Ezra 9–10: With a Brief Reflection from a Minority Tribal Perspective

Ezra 9–10, commonly known as “intermarriage crisis” or “forced divorce of foreign wives,” has attracted a wide variety of interpretations of the dismissal of foreign wives. Some of the proposed rationales include political, social, economic, and ethnic purity. Such rationales, while having their own merits, are not evidenced in the text. This article offers a literary reexamination of what the text portrays about the protagonist group’s motivation to take such stringent action. The protagonist’s strong self-perception is the main factor behind their negative perception of the antagonist “others” and thus its stringent resolution to deal with foreign wives. I also briefly reflect on what a minority Christian tribal today could do with such a strong biblical narrative.

When the Canaanite Conquest Met the Enlightenment: How Christian Apologists of the English Enlightenment Harmonized the Biblical Canaanite Conquest with the Moral Values of the Eighteenth Century

This article examines British and American Christian apologists’ reinterpretation of the biblical account of the Canaanite conquest in response to concerns about natural rights and ethical behavior that emerged from the English Enlightenment. Because of Enlightenment-era assumptions about universal rights, a new debate emerged in Britain and America in the eighteenth century about whether the divine order for the biblical Israelites to slaughter the Canaanites was morally right. The article argues that intellectually minded Christians’ appropriation of Enlightenment values to reframe their interpretation of the biblical narrative (often in response to skeptical attacks from writers classified as deists) demonstrates that in the English-speaking world, Enlightenment rationalism and Christian orthodoxy frequently reinforced each other and were not opposing forces. Though many orthodox Christians repudiated traditional Calvinist interpretations of the biblical Canaanite conquest, they defended the authority of the biblical narrative by drawing on Enlightenment-era assumptions about natural rights to provide justifications for what some skeptics considered morally objectionable divine orders in the Bible. By doing so, they set the framework for the continued synthesis of natural rights and rationality with a biblically centered Protestantism in the early nineteenth-century English-speaking world and especially in the United States.