Levinas Faces Biblical Figures

Contributions by Ephraim Meir, Edna Langenthal, Gary D. Mole, Elisabeth Goldwyn, Catherine Chalier, Eli Schonfeld, Michal Ben-Naftali, Richard A. Cohen, Hanoch Ben-Pazi, Tamar Abramov Edited by Yael Lin

Not available to order

Publication date:

20 March 2014

Length of book:

236 pages

Publisher

Lexington Books

ISBN-13: 9780739182833

The book offers new insights on the opening up of Levinas's thought and biblical stories to one another; it considers the ways in which Levinas can open up the biblical text to requestioning, and how the biblical text can inform our reading of Levinas. Setting up in dialogue the heteronomic texts – the narrative texts of the bible and Levinas's philosophical texts – allows an enforced and renewed understanding of both. The examination of these issues is pursued from diverse perspectives and disciplines, probing the role biblical figures play in Levinas's thought and the manner by which to approach them. Do the biblical allusions serve in Levinas's thought merely as a rhetorical and literary device, as illustrations of his ideas, or perhaps they have a deeper philosophical meaning, which contributes to his project in general? Do the references to biblical figures work in Levinas's philosophy in a way that other literary figures are incapable of, and how do these references comply with his conflicted attitude towards literature?

Introduction
The Bible, Ethics and Poetics
Yael Lin
1) Subjectivity, Hospitality and Exile
The Meaning of the Abrahamic Adventure in Levinas's Thought
Ephraim Meir
Welcoming the Other: Hospitality, Subjectivity and Otherness in the Thought of Emmanuel Levinas and the Biblical Story, the Hospitality of Abraham
Edna Langenthal
2) Suffering, Justice, and Forgiveness
Cruel Justice, Responsibility, and Forgiveness: On Levinas's Reading of the Gibeonites
Gary D. Mole
The Power of Goodness – Rizpah Bat Aya in the Interpretation of Levinas
Elisabeth Goldwyn
3) Choice and Election
Ruth : The Meaning of a Conversion
Catherine Chalier
Jonah: Hero of the Impossible Escape: The Biblical Interruption of Philosophy in Levinas
Eli Schonfeld
4) The Face, Death, and Responsibility
Abel's Look – Levinas Reads Cain
Michal Ben-Naftali
The Mystery of the Red Heifer – Solved, to Nobody’s Satisfaction
Richard A. Cohen
5) Judaism, Messianism, and Zionism
Joseph: The Voice from the Coffin
Hanoch Ben-Pazi
Ladders to Heaven: Caleb, Levinas and the Challenge of the Explorers
Tamar Abramov

A series of passionate readings that convincingly demonstrate how the continuing dialogue between philosophical and biblical wisdom informs and guides Levinas's key concepts.