Biblical Myth Research Articles

In vivo, in silico: Ark Codex ± 0 and the vital forms of bookwork

Abstract This article examines a central aspect of bookishness in the digital age, wherein the coexistence of paper codices along with their electronic counterparts fosters the interaction of life and code, as code is the inscription of life, and life the instantiation of code. Ark Codex ± 0 exemplifies this feedback loop. Ark Codex ± 0 traces the development of biological organisms through scientific notation, language and math, all while illustrating a bloody collage of the biblical myth. The Calamari Press, its vanity publisher, situates itself as a codex-maker in a time of digital production by privileging the book form over the digital file, while simultaneously fostering a print culture through digital paratexts, such as videos of the production process, on its website. While you can purchase the book for $40 on the Calamari site, a pdf of Ark Codex ± 0 is also offered at a ‘pay what you want rate’. Ark Codex ± 0 is a remix with multiple channels of distribution, a text you encounter in multiple ways. This article argues that the new environment of print culture elicits not only the act of reading, but an embodied encounter with the text both in vivo and in silico, the vital forms of bookwork in the digital age.

“Maurice est si loin qu’on ne peut qu’en rêver”: le Paradis perdu de J.M.G. Le Clézio entre mythe et mémoire

The theme of paradise or better the paradise lost, understood as the Garden of Eden where natural harmony, innocence and principles of liberty reigned, is developed by the writer J.M.G. Le Clezio with a certain obsession. Different within his work are the geographical points which from time to time adapt to represent this topos; but one in particular repeats consistently: it is the island of Mauritius. A curious relationship unites the author to this island – from which his parents and relatives were unjustly exiled – beginning from the typical Mauritian education he received, even though born and grown up in France. The feeling with which Le Clezio approaches the island, until today by the majority considered a paradise on Earth, differs indeed from the search of an exotic place (even though his novels do not miss descriptions of breathtaking landscapes and pure nature) and it identifies itself as a contemplation of the homeland – cradle to which he and his family remained bound despite the forced distance. Starting by detecting some factors that various Leclezian novels have in common, this article offers itself to bring to light an attempt of the author to regain through writing his own Mauritian paradise. A research which passes for Le Clezio as will be seen across a miscellanea of elements of a Biblical myth involved in the genesis of man with stories, memories, dreams and family hopes.

‘Let me Die with the Philistines’: Israeli documentaries as a critique of the enactment of ancient myths in Israeli society

ABSTRACTUdi Aloni's Local Angel: Theological Political Fragments (2002) and Avi Mograbi's Avenge but One of My Two Eyes (2005) are two documentaries that differ greatly in style. What they have in common, however, is a critique of the many ways and forms in which ancient myths of sacrifice and self-sacrifice are revived and enacted in Israeli society. Aloni's documentary deals with the Biblical myth of the Binding of Isaac (the sacrifice of sons), examining the insidious effects of its appropriation and concretization on Judaism at large and on Israeli society in particular. Mograbi's documentary engages with the story of Masada and the Biblical story of Samson (self-sacrifice/suicide and heroism). It creates a ‘Moebius strip’ structure, which generates a logic whereby the voices of the Palestinian suicide bombers echo the enacted voices of the people of Masada and Samson. Using a variety of cinematic devices, intended to problematize the notion and the different forms of enactment, both films impel the viewer to ask acute questions regarding the dire repercussions of the protracted revival and enactment of ancient myths, and their manifestation in the Israeli Palestinian conflict.

From Ars Moriendi to Assisted Suicide: Bonhoefferian Explorations into Cultures of Death and Dying

The essay is intended to shed light on the back-stage of contemporary debates about death and the dying, and more specifically on newer trends that emphasise the importance of ‘dying well’ and the moral viability of a ‘good death’. It raises the question as to whether there is a hidden conceptual link between the high medieval tradition of ars moriendi and the modern trend towards embracing (assisted) suicide as a final expression of human autonomy and suggests that this link becomes visible only when death is theologically understood in a twofold way: according to its spiritual side on the one hand, and according to its physical on the other. Drawing inspiration from Bonhoeffer’s exposition of the biblical myth of the Fall and his insights into the link between thanatos and techne, the essay suggests that the compulsive fashion in which modern societies tend to shy away from any contact with the dying that is not mediated by technology or bureaucracy is owed to their refusal to acknowledge the dual character of death, as it is open to theological analysis.

Naked Liberty: Taming Wild Lions, Washing Sticky Honey

Myths fulfill a cultural and psychological function, to “dress” the nakedness of the Real, to give meaning to the meaningless. Culture, psyche, and eventually psychoanalytic discourse are crucibles where these primitive exchanges become possible. In this article, the author reflects on the biblical myth of Samson as a story of a double betrayal: the trauma of neglect and violence and its denial by the family, and more generally, by society. Recounting his work with 2 patients, the author shows how the “madness” of their symptoms transpired as an effort to process and express the vicissitudes of suffering such double betrayals. He argues that only in recognizing and acknowledging how the patient's trauma inflicts and resonates in the analyst can the vicious cycle of betrayal be broken and the patient's loneliness be breached.

‘Not Simple, Not Pure’: Revisioning of Mythical Wicked Women in the Stories of Sara Maitland

The British novelist, feminist and religious thinker Sara Maitland (b.1950) is renowned for her short stories, many of which involve the rewriting of fairy tale and classical and biblical myth. This article situates Maitland's retellings within the contemporary feminist tradition of literary revisioning, but emphasises that her retelling of old tales is distinguished by a deep—and often discomforting—engagement with questions of morality. This is rooted in Maitland's political commitment and Christian faith, and is particularly evident in her treatment of mythical female evil. Her short stories take a morally ambiguous approach, paying attention to the moral and psychological complexities of the wicked stepmothers in fairy tale, gorgons and child-killers of classical myth, and temptresses of the Hebrew Bible. Maitland's feminist revisioning of mythical wicked women does not flinch from their darkness, or impose simple ethical lessons, but at the same time she is (sometimes horribly) aware of their moral significance. This article examines the portrayal of feminist theology's concept of the ‘female sin’ of passivity in Maitland's revisioning of Delilah (in Daughter of Jerusalem, 1978) and ‘Helen of Troy's Aerobics Class’ (in On Becoming A Fairy Godmother, 2003); how the crimes of mythical wicked women are retold as being motivated by revenge against men in ‘Deborah and Jael’ (Daughter of Jerusalem), ‘Siren Song’ and ‘The Swallow and the Nightingale’ (Far North and Other Dark Tales, 2008). The latter of these raises issues of women's conflicting loyalties, which is also considered in ‘The Swans’ (2008). The taboos of incest and child abuse are explored powerfully and sensitively in ‘Jocasta’ (2003) and ‘The Wicked Stepmother's Lament’ (A Book of Spells, 1987), and resistance to simplistic moralising is encapsulated in the story of a menopausal Eve, in ‘Choosing Paradise’ (2003).

A new science: the discovery of religion in the Age of Reason

* Preface Introduction: The Study of Religion as Cultural Criticism I. Paradigm Shift: Exploring the World's Religions * A New World: Religions Unthinkable * A New Science: Explorers of Religions II. Respublica Hebraeorum: Biblical Religion and European Culture *Antiquitates Judaicae: The Early Modern Study of Israelite Religion *Homeros Hebraios: Homer and the Bible at the Origins of European Culture III. From Biblical Philology to the Study of Judaism IV. Biblical Myth, Religious History, and Idolatry * Noah's Sons and the Religious Conquest of the Earth * Idolatry and Its Roots V. Iranian Religions and the Idea of Dualism * The Prophet of Iran and Zoroastrianism * The Birth of Manichaean Studies VI. From Mohammedis Imposturae to the Three Impostors: The Study of Islam and the Enlightenment VII. From China to Rome: The Discovery of Civil Religion * Chinese Atheism and the Querelle des Rites * Enlightenment Perceptions of Roman Religion * Epilogue: From Ritual to Myth * Notes * Acknowledgments * Index of Names * Index of Subjects

O passaporte para a poesia n’ A Arca De Noé, de Vinícius de Moraes

In this text, we analyze the child work A Arca de Noe, by Vinicius de Moraes, considering the resources used by the poet in the representation of the universe of childhood. We contacted that this is dealt with creatively in playful texts that depart from the personification of animals to talk with the biblical myth and the tradition of Fables, so the taste of the child reader. The author simulates children's experiences and emotions without simplify them through poems whose simple language and colloquial approach the reader of the text.

Babel, Pfingsten und Rock ’n’ Roll – Sprache und Mythos in Mikael Niemis Populärmusik från Vittula

In his novel Populärmusik från Vittula (2000), Mikael Niemi uses the regional background of a remote area in the far North of Sweden to address universal themes such as growing up, identity and communication. The theme of linguistic identity in particular illustrates how Niemi refers to both biblical and secular myths to show the universal in the local. By evoking the biblical myths of Babel and Pentecost, Niemi transcends the geographical confines of his novel and shows the search for language and understanding to be not just a local, but a global, universal concern. The linguistic fragmentation of Pajala reflects the problems of mutual understanding of human civilization per se. The Pentecost vision of universal communication through artificial languages or through popular music as secular equivalents of the biblical myth, is ultimately revealed to be an illusion. By ironically citing the myths he refers to, Niemi questions their potential as explanatory models for human behaviour and the human condition.

The Logic of Biblical Subversion in Chaim Potok’s “The Trope Teacher”

a brief overview of the novella's plot summary, I analyze Potok's treatment of the biblical myth in tandem with an expose of the character liana Davita Chandal, who is a central figure in all three of the short stories in Old Men at Midnight, and who originally appeared in Potok's novel Davita's Harp (1985). The Trope Teacher is an allegorical tale structured around the fate of Isaac Zapiski, an observant Ashkenazi Jew who makes his living in the United States by teaching trope - the punctuation marks for musical motifs and tones used in the chanting of Biblical Hebrew. Although gravely wounded during World War I and expelled from his university in Vienna on account of his being Jewish, Zapiski still feels himself to be very much a part of civilized Europe. At the beginning of the story, he decides to leave behind the America in which he does not belong, in order to return to Vienna on the eve of the Second World War. Benjamin Walter, the narrator of the story (as well as Zapiski 's student and the tale's main protagonist), describes him thus: A small, bumbling, stooped man who wore his hat low over his eyes . . . looking to all intents and purposes like a turtle in the act of withdrawing into its shell. He had a habit of shaking his head in a sort of nervous twitch . . . as if trying to disentangle himself from some web in which he had been caught

Croce lettore di Giordano Bruno

Benedetto Croce was keen reader of the Italian works of Giordano Bruno when Giovanni Gentile published the Dialoghi metafisici e morali in 1907-1908. Just like his mentor Francesco De Sanctis, Croce sees Bruno as a great thinker and a great writer. What he attaches great value to above all is Bruno as philosopher deeply engaged in distinguishing between science and philosophy and combating the of the Renaissance. He used Bruno in his own fight against the Aristotelians of his age: the Neo-Kantians. In his interpretation of the Italian Renaissance as the age of rationalism, whose main thread was soon broken, Croce puts Bruno and Campanella among the «few scattered and scared apostles of the future» who continued to weave the thread of rationality, later taken up by Vico and Giannone and, finally, by the Italian Risorgimento, starting with the Neapolitan patriots of 1799. When he defined the Italian Renaissance as the historical age of the emersion of rationality and of true break the tradition, Croce made use of the fundamental intuition of Spaventa and of some of the latter’s disciples. They had stressed in the name of Bruno the sharp break between the Middle Ages and Renaissance philosophy while Croce here came closest to the philosopher from Nola, who had made trenchant critique of the biblical myth of the golden age.

The hopeless ape

The hopeless ape

The Broken Structure of the Moses Story: Or, Moses and the Jerusalem Temple

ABSTRACT Close examination of the biblical myth of Exodus shows that the reasons for the punishment of forty years of wandering in the wilderness are far from clear. Furthermore, there is no reference to Moses’ fault, causing his death before accomplishment of his life duty, i.e. bringing Israel to the Promised Land. In addition, the narratological analysis of the Exodus account points to the fact that Moses’ death in Moab breaks the logical (i.e., I posit, original) structure of the story. One could envisage a coherent narrative according to which Moses succeeds in entering Canaan. The aforementioned reasoning and a few other biblical (e.g., 1 Sam 12,8) and extra-biblical hints may suggest a reason of the breaking of the narrative structure. This paper aims at reconstructing the original form of the Exodus story, according to which Moses not only enters Canaan but also founds the temple in Jerusalem, as Hecateus of Abdera puts it.

Biblical Myths and Humanism in Cat’s Cradle and Slaughterhouse-Five

This paper examines how Vonnegut uses biblical myths and his newly created religion Bokononism as effective weapons to uphold the worth of human beings in the contemporary society. He searches for a new way of life through this religion to make human existence meaningful amid the incomprehensible realities of the present day scientific world. He has incorporated the philosophy of humanism in this religion. It searches for morality through human means in support of human interests. The paper also analyzes how Vonnegut’s theories and concepts of religion would help man to survive in the world devoid of values.

Recourse to Eden: Tracing the Roots of Nabokov’s Adamic Themes

This essay examines both the breadth and the depth of Nabokov's engagement with the biblical myth of Eden and its many resonant, interrelated themes: divine creation, Adamic man, paradisal love, diabolic temptation, exile and loss, the persistence of memory, and the desire to regain—either in this world or the next—one form or another of Edenic bliss. While focusing principally on the "roots" of Nabokov's Adamic and Edenic themes as they appear in several early poems and short stories, in the autobiography, Speak, Memory , and in his first novel, Mary , this essay also argues more broadly that the biblical myth of a lost paradise (and the subsequent echoes of this biblical tradition in later representational art and literature) continued to influence and inform Nabokov's writings significantly throughout his entire career, particularly in such later masterworks as Lolita and Ada . Since the author regularly dismissed all claims of "influence" upon his works, this essay aims chiefly at establishing and exploring, with fresh appreciation, Nabokov's substantial understanding of, and sustained intertextual reliance upon, biblical narrative and the extended tradition (Dante, Milton, Marvell, etc.) of Edenic paradise and Adamic fall.

Caïn et Abel: Rivalité et responsabilité by Véronique Léonard-Roques

502 Reviews the livesof theiroffspring,even ifthese descendants know nothing of them.Chapter 5 then turns to evaluate this theory in relation toCharlotte Delbo's Holocaust testi mony Spectres, mes compagnons, positing Delbo's text as a work haunted by secrets the author cannot know, for they are inherited from those around her. Despite the consistent quality of each chapter,Davis's reading inChapter 7 ofDerrida as a variety ofmelancholic, blocking and protesting against the normal process ofmourning as an ethical obligation to the deceased other, stands out as a particular high point. Its power stems asmuch from itsclose reading ofChaquefois unique, lafin dumonde and Beliers as from itsexploration ofDerrida's impossible endeavour. Colin Davis's Haunted Subjects is essential reading foranyone researching ghosts literal,metaphorical, theoretical, and literary. It also holds a broader interest for scholars of theory, identity,and twentieth-century culture in general. It is intricate, innovative, compelling and will, I suspect, rapidly become seminal. SWANSEA UNIVERSITY KATE GRIFFITHS Cain etAbel: rivalite et responsabilite. By VERONIQUE LEONARD-RoQUES. (Figures et Mythes) Monaco: Editions du Rocher. 2007. 285 pp. EI8. ISBN 978-2-268 06175-7. Just as most accidents happen in the home, so most violence is intrafamilial. Cain and Abel aremuch more than two individuals. They stand forany formof brotherly enmity,whether in the family, the neighbourhood, or in themisnamed civil wars (Wars of theRoses, Rwanda, Northern Ireland, Iraq). Thus, theirarchetypal story is forever topical. As its setting embraces the firstcity after the firstgarden, italso cor ralsGreen hobby-horses. Veronique Leonard-Roques notes that theGenesis account is virtually devoid of psychological motivation. Her book centres on the verymany post-Genesis writers who have rushed to fillthatgap. Raising Cain (and prostrating him) has been amajor divertimento, or recycling-plant, for millennia and all over the place. Our fascinationwith its inherentdrama seems toderive fromour insatiable lust forpolarities, forbinary oppositions. Genesis offersus the first murderer, and the first city-planner. In theoriginating hotchpotch, then, theBible kicks off in ambivalence, holey narrative. The supposedly all-loving God practises inexplicable favouritism. The verymark set on the guilty Cain is ambiguous: a stigma, but also a buffer-state against his being killed in turn. In today's terms,he was tagged but declared bullet proof. God has itboth ways (but 'c'est sonmetier'). All these anomalies have incited writers toembroider theirown variants on the central text. The antagonisms include: the farmervs the shepherd/cattleman (familiar tous from Westerns), technology vs nature, insurgent against conservative, and sedentary con trastedwith nomadic. In the film East ofEden, every right-minded cinema-goer surely roots for the brooding Caleb (his being James Dean helps) in his violent punching of his priggish siblingAaron, complacently confident of divine favour.Over history, Cain and Abel have taken turns at being thevillain or thevictim, though Cain prob ably comes offbest overall. Itwas mainly a Romantic topos (boosted principally by Byron and Nerval) tomake themurderous Cain the hero, rebel, exile, genius, and in so doing to invert the biblical myth. Indeed theRomantic urge was to present him as better than his unjust Maker. Leonard-Roques points to theparodic rewriteof the myth inTournier's 'La Famille Adam' (in Le Coq de bruyere). Tournier then twists again (as he does every summer) inLe Roi des aulnes, where the dubious hero, Abel Tiffauges, symbolizes thewandering Jews and gypsies imprisoned then slaughtered by the Cain-like Nazis, locked in their ideology of Blut und Boden. At this novel's apotheosis, however, thewarring halves of Cain and Abel are reunified in the pro tagonist. In 'La Famille Adam', Cain eventually represents an avatar of theOriginal MLR, I03.2, 2008 503 Oneness (the Platonic Androgyne), melding the best ofmale and female elements. Comparably, forCamus inLe Premier Homme, themythic split is made to lead to the reconciliation of enemies (in this case, Arabs and colons). A common leitmotif is theantithesis of theblack or brown Cain and thepure-white Abel. One tradition, illustrated byHugo, posits Cain as the son of Satan, and harps on the eye of conscience hounding him everywhere likeBig Brother. A furtherem broidering is to see the twomen as twins or doubles. Yet another plays 'Cherchez la femme', and holds that thebrothers were fightingover awoman, sometimes...

Ciencia prohibida... ciencia buscada (A propósito de <i>La ciencia del bien y del mal</i> de Javier Echeverría)

A labyrinth was the infinite for Leibniz (who declares on several occasions that,as much from the angle of the infinite large as from that of the infinite small, infinity is nothing but a fiction in the attempts of thought to explain the phenomena). But another labyrinth was also for him the problem of the evilness, together with the correlative problem of goodness. Used, since he was a young mathematician, to the Leibnizian puzzle of the infinite, Javier Echeverria faces now the second labyrinth. And he approaches the subject by restoring the biblical myth of the tree that hides the mystery. Taken implicitly the opposite point of view that leads Kant to assert the intrinsic division of the reason, Echeverria, from the very title of his book, aims at goodness and evilness as effective goals for science. In this paper we discuss some implications of Echeverria’s bet.

As Pérfidas salomés : o tema do amor na estética simbolista e as novas formas de amar na Belle époque carioca – Fon-Fon ! e Para Todos... (1900-1930)

As Pérfidas salomés (Perfidious salomés) analyses a modern representation of the feminine, using the biblical myth as a reference to invite reflection upon the new female sexuality as presented in the Brazilian illustrated magazines, Fon-Fon ! and Para Todos…, both of which were edited by a group of intellectuals from the symbolist literary tradition in Rio de Janeiro in the first three decades of the 20th-century.

Christian identity of secular Europe

Among other things, intensification of process of European integrations has imposed the need for realization and strengthening of common European cultural identity, that is for creating a new set of values, which would be common to all European citizens and which would be the basis for their permanent feeling of community and an experience of belonging to Europe as a common area. What are the chances of such a project since, on one hand, Islam is appearing in Europe as a religion that does not know secularity and, on the other hand, an important part of European inhabitants is showing the rise of anti-immigrant and , especially, anti-Islamic feelings, opposition to the presence of foreigners, fear of majorization and the loss of one's own identity and the values of European culture? The existing conflict with Islam is, most often, described as a conflict between secularized West where religion is a matter of private choice and religious (primarily Islamic) world where religion is regulating every aspect of life. However, innumerable examples all around us (starting with the fact that the time is counted according to the Christian calendar, Christian holidays and iconography, Biblical myths, moral codes, architecture, toponims-to mention only few) constantly reminds how much Christianity (primarily as a cultural tradition) is strongly present in the lives of the secular Europeans, how much is that secular context in fact permeated with Christian story. Vestiges of that past, which are all around us, are not in fact perceived as a Christian story - in meeting with European secularism such recognition comes only to others to whom that story is not familiar. On what premises then can such a common forum be created on which all would really feel equally at home? In this work I will try to consider possible directions in which, considering the existing circumstances, Europe could move in search of the new common denominator. Since nations, according to the nature and the sense of the idea itself of Europe without borders, can not figure as elements of cohesion (multiethnicity, turning towards market laws, obligatory decrease of sovereignty of national states towards, etc.), there are two logical possibilities: 1) Strengthening of Christian identity, that is returning to the previous paradigm, which is for Europe Christian paradigm - hence Christianity as new/old collective identity, 2) An attempt to de-fine a new type of plural secularism, that is, to establish secular society of non-Christian type that would be inclusive also for members of other, non-Christian cultures.

Biblical and Classical Myths: The Mythological Framework of Western Culture. By Northrop Frye and Jay Macpherson.

Biblical and Classical Myths: The Mythological Framework of Western Culture. By Northrop Frye and Jay Macpherson.