Form and Content in Buber’s and Schweid’s Literary-Philosophical Readings of Genesis

Jonathan Cohen

doi:10.3390/rel10060398

Abstract

The following essay is presented as part of a long-term project concerned with the theory and practice of modern Jewish thinkers as interpreters of the Bible. The recent Bible commentaries of Eliezer Schweid, who is one of the foremost Jewish scholars and theologians active in Israel today, are analyzed in comparison with parallel interpretations of Martin Buber, with special reference to the first chapters of Genesis. Their respective analyses of Biblical narrative reveal notable similarities in their treatment of the literary “body” of the text as the key to its theological significance. Nonetheless, Buber articulates religious experience largely “from the human side,” striving to mediate Biblical consciousness to the contemporary humanistic mindset, while Schweid positions himself more as the clarion of the “prophetic writers” for whom the fear of God, no less than the love of God, must inform an authentic religious sensibility. Schweid’s more theocentric perspective has great import for contemporary issues such as the universal covetousness engendered by the violation of our ecological covenant with the Earth.

Highlights

In this essay, I hope to make a modest contribution toward the placing of the work of Prof.Eliezer Schweid, who is perhaps the greatest living Jewish thinker in Israel today, in a growing tradition of modern Jewish philosophical interpretations of the Bible
During the course of his activities as director of cultural activities in his kibbutz, and later as scholar and educator, Schweid has never ceased speaking and writing, as a Jewish thinker and theologian in his own right, systematically yet passionately, on issues relating to Judaism, humanism, and the possibility of a religious relation to Jewish tradition under conditions of secularity, modernity, and post-modernity
To what degree, Eliezer Schweid had recourse to Buber’s thought when he formulated his own reflections on the experience of Creation, both in his earlier writings and in his later commentary on Genesis

Summary

Introduction

I hope to make a modest contribution toward the placing of the work of Prof.Eliezer Schweid, who is perhaps the greatest living Jewish thinker in Israel today, in a growing tradition of modern Jewish philosophical interpretations of the Bible. To what degree, Eliezer Schweid had recourse to Buber’s thought when he formulated his own reflections on the experience of Creation, both in his earlier writings and in his later commentary on Genesis.15 Whatever the case, we find a close kinship between some of Schweid’s insights on this theme and those we have come upon in Buber’s writings.

Results

Conclusion