Biblical Myth Research Articles

Martin Buber's Dialogical History: Theopolitics as a Critique of the History of Human Power

This essay explores the relationship between Buber's philosophy of history and his political theory, known also as theopolitics. Buber's first book on theopolitics, Kingship of God (1932), implemented the principle of dialogue as a critique of leadership. Dialogue reconciles the paradox of authoritarian theocracy and absolute freedom of anarchy: it unites the interhuman relationship (religious anarchy) and the divine-human relationship (direct theocracy). Without dialogue, anarchy would become chaotic and theocracy would actually mean the tyranny of the priests (hierocracy). But Buber's theopolitics also revealed a particular understanding of history. As this essay demonstrates, Buber held a notion of dialogical history (contrary to Hegelian dialectic history), which ultimately functioned as a critique of the history of victory and power. Dialogical history criticizes not only secular but also any kind of religious or sacred history claiming to authorize human power by divine justification. Dialogical history, therefore, should be seen as "counter-history," not only because it is based on a rehabilitation of myth (Hasidic tales and biblical myths) but also because it is engaged in an alternate philosophy of history, whose fulfillment is vouchsafed neither by the necessary unfolding of a spirit, nor by "great" historical deeds, but by everyday human agency and responsibility alone.

MYTHS IN THE POETIC WORLD OF LINA KOSTENKO: PROJECTIONS OF THE AESTHETIC IDEAL

The article analyzes the intertextual connections of Lina Kostenko's work (in particular, her novels "Marusya Churai" and "Notes of the Ukrainian samashedshego", as well as individual poems) with world myths - ancient, biblical and literary. Such intertextuality gives rise to an artistic world where the individual and the collective, the human and the divine, the everyday-practical and the unspeakable-unexplainable, the national-historical and the eternal, the material and the spiritual, the rational and the irrational, interact. Allusive echoes of the texts of the Ukrainian poetess with the ancient Greek myths "Orpheus and Eurydice", "Hyacinthe", myth about the androgyne, biblical myths about St. John the Forerunner, Lilith and Eve, literary myths of Dante, M. Kotsyubynskyi are analyzed. All these myths are based on moral and philosophical maxims: love, creativity, immortality, beauty, responsibility, memory, integrity, compatibility of souls, dignity, spirituality, and chivalry, which are signs of the author's aesthetic ideal. The myth enriches her poetry with cultural codes that are most fully and adequately revealed only in the light of universal, not socio-historical or class criteria. It is proven that in the novel "Marusya Churai" Lina Kostenko created an alternative vision of the image of the poet, an important point of which was the position of "artist and love". Imitating Dante's myth about the journey through hell, Lina Kostenko in the novel "Marusya Churai" presents her vision of hell during her main female character's journey through war-torn Ukraine and sets her own priorities in matters of "sinfulness" and punishment of her characters. The article also examines the philosophy of androgynism interpreted in the poetess's work as a spiritual union of lovers and the poetess's attitude to the gender concepts of "strong man" and "strong woman". The interpretation of Lina Kostenko's work in a mythological way will contribute to the awareness of her universal sound, which is not subject to temporal and political changes.

Will to the Original: Platonism in Henry James’ Roderick Hudson

Will to the Original: Platonism in Henry James’ <i>Roderick Hudson</i>

Этический смысл «невыразимого» у Витгенштейна и Беньямина

The article draws parallels between the linguistic theories of Ludwig Wittgen­stein and Walter Benjamin’s ideas about the origin of language and its transfor­mations in our world today. Wittgenstein shows in the “Tractatus Logico-Phi­losophicus” the world as a whole, which is ordered in accordance with the grammatical structures of language. At the same time, it allows him to draw a certain border, beyond which is the “inexpressible”, namely, the sphere of ethi­cal values inaccessible to language. Benjamin’s approach to understanding lan­guage, on the contrary, seems completely illogical and irrational. The initial im­pulse here is the biblical myth of the creation of the world by the Word and the idea of language as a God-given gift to human. In the course of historical de­velopment, the power of language is gradually running out and moves further away from its sacred source. However, even in current language practices, it is still possible to recognize this prototype, which is present in speech in the form of the inexpressible. The religious connotations of the “inexpressible” don’t pre­vent Benjamin from associating it with the same area of moral reference that Wittgenstein characterized with the term “mystical”. The comparative analysis of the theories of Benjamin and Wittgenstein demonstrates that behind the dif­ferent strategies of philosophical understanding there is a common intention to catch the sphere of ethics that escapes direct expression. During the recon­struction of the teachings of two iconic figures of Western thought, important points of intersection are revealed: the tendency to ontologize language, the in­ability to express value meanings in normative statements, the incorporation of an ethical dimension into everyday practices of speech.

“THE LAST PROPHET” NOVEL BY LEONID MOSENDZ: SOURCES, GENRE, STRUCTURE, IMAGE

The paper analyzes the novel “Th e Last Prophet” by Leonid Mosendz focusing on its sources, the genre nature and structure, and the genesis of John the Baptist’s image. There were objective and individual reasons for Mosendz’s appeal to the biblical myth of John the Baptist, which have been explained. Attention is drawn to problematic areas in the interpretation of the novel by Mosendz’s critics. Among the sources that the writer turned to while working on the novel were “Jewish Antiquties” by Josephus Flavius, “The Life of Jesus” by Ernest Renan, and “Christ Unknown” by Dmitry Merezhkovsky. The traces of these books are recognizable in the text of Mosendz’s novel.&#x0D; “The Last Prophet” combines the elements of several genres, the most important of which are three: apocryphal, historical, and didactic. Mosendz’s work has a complex multifaceted structure. Th e novel’s three parts have their parallels with the biblical text: the Old Testament poetic model corresponds to the first part, the biographical model of the Gospels to the second, and the historical model of the Acts of the Apostles to the third. Special attention is paid to the connection of the novel to the literary biography of Joan the Baptist, an iconic figure in the European tradition. The interpretation of this image by the author is peculiar and unique to European literature. Thus, Mosendz’s “The Last Prophet” is a lengthy multifaceted epic story about John the Baptist, based on historical sources and religious texts and reproduced at high ideological and literary levels.

Виправлення іменувань речей: примус війни у освіті і суспільному житті

Education reveals itself as an area of priority use of the basic vocabulary of society, and at the same time that is why in the education it is best field to start correcting and refining this vocabulary. The war aims to radically reconsider social values, to abandon unjustified compromises, and the proper way to do this is to correct the names. At one time, with the help of naming, people recorded important characteristics of the world, categorized and classified them, set appropriate markers for vital phenomena and processes. This is reflected, in particular, in the biblical myth of Adam, who gave names to living beings. The Chinese philosopher Confucius had explained and conceptualized the situation of name rectification as a necessary procedure to which society should periodically turn. However, one should not wait until a war or other deep social crisis necessitates the rectification of names – the correction of names should be carried out constantly, as a routine procedure, as an element of the application of critical thinking. However, in contrast to the traditional view of critical thinking, the correction of names also requires faith – to establish those values that are not subject to critical review. In times of war, it is faith in Victory. Correction of names has its bearer – a new generation, whose values were formed by participation in the war. Russia’s current war against Ukraine largely reproduces the value disposition of the Southern Confederate war against the North in the United States in 1861-1865 – important lessons from the war can be learned from this. One of the most important tasks is to properly name evil as evil, to oppose the unanimous public outrage at the desire of the strong to establish themselves at the expense of the weak. The naming of evil as evil opens up the possibility of establishing good as a force, of discovering the economic, political, and military advantages of moral right.

We Are All Cain: Thomas Wolfe’s Transformation of Biblical Myth in “The Lost Boy”

We Are All Cain: Thomas Wolfe’s Transformation of Biblical Myth in “The Lost Boy”

K problematice "Green theology": Spirituální obrat ke stvoření skrze mystiku Dorothee Sölle

The issue of ecological theological discourses has been neglected and abandoned for a long time by the end of the theological spectrum, which resulted in the topic of Christian faith as a co­-perpetrator in the context of the current ecological crisis. It is above all an anthropocentric turn in Christian faith and the interpretation of the Biblical myth of creation that has been identified as a reason which has led to the spread of ecological disaster and despotic dominance of man over nature. The theological discourse in the 1980s, however, strongly reinforced the idea of ecology, which is related to an increasingly urgent ecological state. The theological space begins to apply, in particular through the ideas of the Evangelical Jßrgen Moltmann, a certain turn to creation, where, along with the accenting task of the Kingdom, the relation at the level of man­-nature is brought to the attention of man as a creation. Turning towards creation along with responsibility for the veil was a change in the paradigm of theological thinking that opened up space for the accentuation of Matthew Fox&#8216;s &#8220;living cosmology&#8221; and, in particular, the &#8220;mystique of defiance&#8221; of the Protestant theologian Dorothee SÜlle. It is precisely the ideas of &#8220;ecotheology&#8221; or &#8220;green theology&#8221; that center on creation in its divine unity, Dorothee SÜlle considers the basis for consistently accentuating relations and reciprocity in the context of creation where the essential aspect is active participation and responsibility for connivance which God has entrusted to humanity.

Lot’s Wife is Still Standing: In Search of the Pillar of Salt

AbstractThis article explores how readers search for Lot’s wife at the shore of the Dead Sea and how they use the pillar of salt as a destination, as a symbol, and as a lasting memorial. Whether Lot’s wife turned into a pillar of salt that travelers to the Dead Sea can visit today is not relevant for this analysis. Spanning many centuries, this reception history of Lot’s wife argues that readers use her for their own interests to address their own cultural concerns. Three chronological areas are addressed for a broad-sweeping coverage of some trends and traditions about Lot’s wife. While the Hebrew text remains ambivalent about memorializing Lot’s wife, Hellenistic Jewish and early Christian sources reveal a concern to remember Lot’s wife in terms of God’s final judgments. The article then turns to medieval Christian travel narratives and maps that use Lot’s wife to mark the borders of Christendom, with pilgrims seeking her amid Crusades-era concerns. Finally, modern sources are discussed that deal with Lot’s wife in terms of symbolizing sexual trauma, deviance, and danger. Gender theory and queer theory are utilized in the article as secondary ideological lenses through which to engage reception history. What results is a complex picture regarding how people use Lot’s wife to negotiate boundaries, engage biblical myth, and further their own agendas.

Rousseau e Hegel: poder e impotência da má-infinitude

This article compares Rousseau’s and Hegel’s interpretations of the biblical myth of the fall from paradise since both philosophers’ comprehensions of the original sin offer an original perspective on their works and a guiding thread to mark their similarities and differences concerning the concepts of imagination, consciousness and bad and good infinity. Whereas for Rousseau bad infinity (schlechte Unendlichkeit) remains, after the loss of the state of nature, a structure out of which humans can no longer escape, for Hegel, on the other side, it is, simply put, a one-sided experience of infinity that has to and will be overcome by true infinity. This entails consequences concerning the way both philosophers see the sphere in which bad infinity unfolds its power and has to be limited: civil society and the state. Although Hegel is thoroughly acquainted with Rousseau’s denunciation of the evils degenerated society has brought about, with its moral and social corruption, Hegel searches not to overcome, but to sublate such evils by binding the consumer and the worker to a higher well-determined purpose: the state. Hand in hand with this ‘solution’ to the problem goes his critique of Rousseau: as Rousseau demands the ‘total exteriorisation’ of every citizen – the complete replacement of the particular by the general will, without any mediation –, his way of overcoming bad infinity is abstract and therefore ineffective. At the same time Rousseau provides the tools to criticize Hegel’s attempt to reconcile the bourgeois and the citoyen. In a closing section their concepts of state are confronted with one another.

God says ‘gay rights’: queering Christian theology in the Good Omens fandom

ABSTRACT In this essay I investigate how fandom discourse comments on, adapts, and reinvents existing theology. Using a selection of Good Omens fan works and ‘meta’ online posts as a case study, I argue that they welcome instances of queer theology while moving forward issues pertaining to the LGBTQ+ liberation movement. In expanding and altering the source material, fan fiction authors retrieve Biblical myths to legitimise the inclusion of queer individuals in Christian theology – the stated intent of the LGBTQ+ liberation movement. Additionally, they often offer a revisited, inclusive depiction of God as the ‘ur-ally’, framing them/her/him as an ‘ineffable’ figure made of encompassing and all-accepting love. Moreover, Good Omens fan fiction situates the binary forces of Heaven and Hell as the antagonists to the much more nuanced and queer-coded protagonists, who embrace humanity and reject notions of hard-set dichotomies. This celebration of queerness as opposed to strict dualisms fits into the purported goals of queer theology, which has no direct interest in finding a place for queer people within the existing Christian tradition, but rather works towards the dismantling of harmful dualities.

Revolution as herald of new bliss in early English romantic poetry

The idea that the Great French Revolution for the age of early English Romanticism is a signal for mankind to transition into a new era, into a new apocalyptic time of the end of human history, is considered established in modern literary studies. At the same time, such issues remain underdeveloped as the relationship between the images of the Golden Age, paradise regained, and New Jerusalem in the poetry of Elder English Romantic poets and the interpretation of modernity in its connection with the past in the context of a biblical myth. The search for answers to these two questions is the goal of this research. The study is conducted within the framework of comparative literary studies with elements of comparative cultural studies. The significant results include the ideas that the human history during the early poetry by Elder English Romantic poets is depicted as mankind’s transition from blissful primordial harmony of the unity of the person-in-love with nature and another person to the oppressed-divided internal (spiritual) and external (social and political) state and, finally, to the new external (free) and internal (spiritually harmonious) bliss. In this new image of human history, the biblical myth of the Last Judgment and the New Jerusalem is superimposed on the idea of the return of the Golden Age and, simultaneously, paradise lost, and is interpreted through enlightenment ideas and romantic philosophy and aesthetics. The Great French Revolution seems to be the precursor of not only the common longing for the new bliss but also the transformation of human nature on the way to returning to the righteous state of sacrificial love.

(Re-)kreacyjny rejs arką na koniec świata, czyli jak autor stworzył się Bogiem, czyli diablada z Darwinem. O Galapagos Kurta Vonneguta

This paper analyzes the novel Galapagos by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. in its thematic and formal dimensions. The author aims, first, to identify the work’s references to scientific issues concerning Darwin’s theory of evolution and so-called “social Darwinism.” Secondly, he identifies the novel’s strictly literary references, the citation of which allows him to draw conclusions about the nature of its intertextuality. Of particular relevance here is the relationship of the Galapagos with the biblical myth of the Flood. As a result, the author of the article substantiates the hypothesis that Vonnegut consistently cultivates, for deeply didactic purposes, postmodern metafiction with a moralistic message.

Utopia of School, Disobedience, and Translation. Two Biblical Myths in the Interpretation of Erich Fromm and George Steiner

It can be assumed that two biblical myths ‒ about Adam and Eve leaving the Garden of Eden and about the builders from Babel ‒ are interesting expressions of the utopian imagination, because these myths narrate about two places where projects of sufficiently perfect social order were implemented in two different ways. At present, the school is one of the places that could be understood as the ambiguous effect of an implemented utopia of the industrial revolution era; the school is an education space designed as an important part of the project of a sufficiently perfect social order. Two original readings of the mentioned biblical myths ‒ by Erich Fromm and George Steiner ‒ shall contribute some new themes and outlooks to the discussion of the condition of the modern school and the discourses of critical pedagogy or the pedagogy of resistance and hermeneutic pedagogy.

Calea (Din)Spre Eden. Motive Biblice În Lirica Blagiană

Abstract The following paper revolves around the concept of biblical motifs, legends and a series of analyses that occur because of their complex and stately nature. Concerning several aspects regarding the similarities between Blaga’s poetry and biblical myths, this study reflects Blaga’s confrontation with God and an analysis of how he invokes God in his poems. Poems like „Paradis în destrămare”, „Bunăvestire”, „Întâia duminică”, „Lacrimile”, „Ioan se sfâşie în pustie”, „Pe ape”, „Balada fiului pierdut” allowed Blaga to create genuine artistic imagery with a very penetrating content, loaded with biblical motifs.

Rebels in Biblical and Chinese Texts: A Comparative Study on the Interplay of Myth and History

This study offers a new approach for studying biblical myth in two directions: first, by expanding the scope of investigation beyond the clearly mythological elements to other areas of biblical literature, and second, by drawing comparisons to classical Chinese literature. This article thus reconsiders the relationship between myth and history in both biblical and Chinese literature, while seeking to broaden the endeavor of the comparative method in biblical studies. Two examples are offered: (1) the story of Moses’s call narrative and his relationship with Aaron in Exodus in light of the story of Xiang Liang and Xiang Ji in the Shiji; (2) the story of Saul and David in 1 Samuel compared with the story of Dong Zhuo and Lü Bu in the Romance of the Three Kingdoms. Both comparisons demonstrate the operation of Claude Lévi-Strauss’s inversion principle. Conclusions regarding each of these literatures are presented separately, followed by cross-cultural insights and shared aspects in the study of myth, historiography, and religion.

“To Struggle Against the Tree of Life”: Reading Bonhoeffer’s Creation and Fall in the Anthropocene

ABSTRACT Bonhoeffer’s Creation and Fall guides readers through a “theological” exegesis of Genesis chapters 1–3 and was an early manifestation of the “German Church Struggle” (Kirchenkampf) against National Socialism. In this paper, I propose a re-reading of Creation and Fall attentive to contemporary environmental and political conditions. Drawing on the work of William E. Connolly, I outline points of affirmation, critique, and supplementation. Just as Bonhoeffer recognized the need for a “crisis theology” in the face of Nazism, so now global warming and the rise of “aspirational fascism” demands analogous efforts. I argue that Bonhoeffer’s focus on biblical myth as a counter to fascist myth, his articulation of a relational ontology and embrace of “incarnational humanism,” are all relevant to the task of Christian political theology today. There is a need, however, to transcend Bonhoeffer’s anthropocentric bias, supplementing his readings of Eden’s mythic symbols to encourage forms of “entangled humanism” that are essential to Creation’s defence.

Water, Source of ‘Genesis’ and the End Macro and Micro Viṣṇu in the Hymns of the Āḻvārs

The pañcabhūtas convoked are pṛthvi ‘earth’, ap ‘water’, tejas ‘fire’, vāyu ‘air or wind’ and ākāśa ‘ether’. They are the five elements of nature in Hindu mythology. These are considered the abstractions of Viṣṇu (Figures 1–3, 6 and 10), Śiva (Figure 11) or Dēvī (Figures 7 and 15) as the case may be. Most virile among the five are ‘water’ and ‘fire’, the symbols of creation and destruction. Water from the Darwinian point of view is the creative force in which living organisms originate and survive. It is the sustaining principle, for example, the Mother feeding the child with milk as rain for the plant kingdom. Water is the symbol of destruction at the time of deluge, the mahāpraḷaya ; cf. trees on the banks felled when rivers inundate (PTM 11.8.1). Fire creates when channelised through the oven; for example, Kumāra’s birth as also Mīnākṣī (Figure 16) and Draupadī emerging through yajñas. These ideas are best exemplified by the avatāras, aṃśāvatāras and other emanations of Viṣṇu. Śiva destroys the worlds by the power generated by his third eye (e.g., Sodom and Gomorrah in case of Biblical mythology), the God of Love, Kāmadeva symbolic of the seed of creation (Priapus in Roman mythology; Beard, 2008. Pompeii: The Life of a Roman Town. London: Profile Books Ltd: 104, figure 36). We are concerned in this article with water as the creative and destructive force, an idea that is as old as the Vedic and Biblical times. The focus is on the Āḻvārs’ Nālāyirativviyappirapantam. The Biblical myth of ‘Noah’s Ark’ may be of value for inter-religious dialogue. Several hundreds of the Tamil hymns have something to say on the symbolism of water. We cite a few examples hereunder. The emphasis is on water and Viśvarūpa.

Countermythologies: Queering Lives in a Southern African Gay and Lesbian Pentecostal Church

AbstractBlack gay and lesbian Christians belonging to a grassroots Pentecostal charismatic church spanning small towns in Southern Africa make everyday claims to normativity with interpretive recourse to biblical myths and church rituals. Members of the church embody a range of gendered and sexual self‐expressions that also tend to reproduce prevailing masculine and feminine sexual roles and subject positions. By situating their identities, rituals, and exegeses in global perspective, I argue that church members queer more orthodox biblical interpretations to create what I describe as a life‐affirming countermythology to predominant discourses of religion, gender, and sexuality that otherwise structure their lives. In sum, this article shows how vernacular hermeneutic practices can be a queering force within presumedly restrictive religious settings and demonstrates how recovering conventional ethnographic topics like myth can move Black queer anthropology and African studies toward a critically imaginative becoming.

The Hebrew Bible as Mythic “Vocabulary”: Towards a New Comparative Mythology

In this article, I argue that the history of the study of myth in the Hebrew Bible has been, and continues to be, shaped in negative ways by an essentially Romantic Nationalist understanding of the relationship between a people and their traditions. I then argue that more appropriate ways of modeling the construction of the Bible’s myths, combined with new investigations into the historical development of biblical traditions themselves, reveals a surprising continuity between the myth-making activity of biblical authors and editors and that of all those who retell and adapt biblical traditions in extrabiblical materials. I conclude that the existence of large-scale continuities between the adaptation of biblical traditions in different periods allows for a new kind of comparative investigation. By studying the use of biblical traditions in biblical literature, extrabiblical literature, and art, on approximately equal terms, we can gain new insights about the construction of biblical myths themselves, while connecting the study of the Hebrew Bible far more closely to the study of other bodies of tradition, elsewhere and later on.