Marc Zvi Brettler
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- March 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780814740620
- eISBN:
- 9780814724798
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- NYU Press
- DOI:
- 10.18574/nyu/9780814740620.003.0014
- Subject:
- Religion, Judaism
This chapter focuses on Moshe Greenberg, who modeled himself after Yehezkel Kaufmann and elevated biblical discussion above ecclesiastical dogma into the realm of the eternally significant ideas. ...
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This chapter focuses on Moshe Greenberg, who modeled himself after Yehezkel Kaufmann and elevated biblical discussion above ecclesiastical dogma into the realm of the eternally significant ideas. Greenberg appreciated Kaufmann's role as a Jewish nationalist who emphasized the crucial nature of Jewish religion as defining Jewish ethnicity. He often writes from the double perspective of a university biblical scholar and a practicing Jew—unafraid to speak of God as a contemporary deity. Greenberg's model for how the Hebrew Bible should be read in a Jewish and critical context has influenced both Jewish and non-Jewish scholars. Despite some misgivings, Greenberg's model is compelling, arguing strongly for an image of the Bible as Scripture within Judaism.Less
This chapter focuses on Moshe Greenberg, who modeled himself after Yehezkel Kaufmann and elevated biblical discussion above ecclesiastical dogma into the realm of the eternally significant ideas. Greenberg appreciated Kaufmann's role as a Jewish nationalist who emphasized the crucial nature of Jewish religion as defining Jewish ethnicity. He often writes from the double perspective of a university biblical scholar and a practicing Jew—unafraid to speak of God as a contemporary deity. Greenberg's model for how the Hebrew Bible should be read in a Jewish and critical context has influenced both Jewish and non-Jewish scholars. Despite some misgivings, Greenberg's model is compelling, arguing strongly for an image of the Bible as Scripture within Judaism.
Jodi Eichler-Levine
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- March 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780814722992
- eISBN:
- 9780814724002
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- NYU Press
- DOI:
- 10.18574/nyu/9780814722992.003.0005
- Subject:
- Religion, Religion and Society
This chapter focuses on two authors who show monstrosity and the supernatural in a whole new light: Maurice Sendak and Virginia Hamilton. It first reads Sendak's 1963 picture book Where the Wild ...
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This chapter focuses on two authors who show monstrosity and the supernatural in a whole new light: Maurice Sendak and Virginia Hamilton. It first reads Sendak's 1963 picture book Where the Wild Things Are and how its power of fantasy makes the protagonist, Max, an Isaac unbound, as well as how Sendak's notions of monstrosity are informed by his renderings of Jewish ethnicity. It then analyzes Hamilton's “god chile” Pretty Pearl, which both does and does not escape the binding experienced by Jephthah's daughter. It also considers Hamilton's retellings of African American folk tales, with particular emphasis on those that feature women with magical powers, alongside David Wisniewski's picture book Golem. The chapter explains how Sendak and Hamilton move away from the myth of redemptively sacrificed children and toward more nuanced ways of articulating American identities through pain.Less
This chapter focuses on two authors who show monstrosity and the supernatural in a whole new light: Maurice Sendak and Virginia Hamilton. It first reads Sendak's 1963 picture book Where the Wild Things Are and how its power of fantasy makes the protagonist, Max, an Isaac unbound, as well as how Sendak's notions of monstrosity are informed by his renderings of Jewish ethnicity. It then analyzes Hamilton's “god chile” Pretty Pearl, which both does and does not escape the binding experienced by Jephthah's daughter. It also considers Hamilton's retellings of African American folk tales, with particular emphasis on those that feature women with magical powers, alongside David Wisniewski's picture book Golem. The chapter explains how Sendak and Hamilton move away from the myth of redemptively sacrificed children and toward more nuanced ways of articulating American identities through pain.
