Literary Construction of Identity in the Ancient World: Proceedings of the Conference Literary Fiction and the Construction of Identity in Ancient Literatures: Options and Limits of Modern Literary Approach

Published by Penn State University Press 2010

Literary Construction of Identity in the Ancient World

Proceedings of the Conference Literary Fiction and the Construction of Identity in Ancient Literatures: Options and Limits of Modern Literary Approach

Edited by: Hanna Liss and Manfred Oeming

https://doi.org/10.1515/9781575066219

Overview
Contents

About this book

Encountering an ancient text not only as a historical source but also as a literary artifact entails an important paradigm shift, which in recent years has taken place in classical and Oriental philology. Biblical scholars, Egyptologists, and classical philologists have been pioneers in supplementing traditional historical-critical exegesis with more-literary approaches. This has led to a wealth of new insights. While the methodological consequences of this shift have been discussed within each discipline, until recently there has not been an attempt to discuss its validity and methodology on an interdisciplinary level. In 2006, the Faculty of Bible and Biblical Interpretation at the Hochschule für Jüdische Studien, Heidelberg, and the Faculty of Theology at the University of Heidelberg invited scholars from the U.S., Canada, the Netherlands, Israel, and Germany to examine these issues. Under the title “Literary Fiction and the Construction of Identity in Ancient Literatures: Options and Limits of Modern Literary Approaches in the Exegesis of Ancient Texts,” experts in Egyptology, classical philology, ancient Near Eastern studies, biblical studies, Jewish studies, literary studies, and comparative religion came together to present current research and debate open questions.

At this conference, each representative (from a total of 23 different disciplines) dealt with literary theory in regard to his or her area of research. The present volume organizes 17 of the resulting essays along 5 thematic lines that show how similar issues are dealt with in different disciplines: (1) Thinking of Ancient Texts as Literature, (2) The Identity of Authors and Readers, (3) Fiction and Fact, (4) Rereading Biblical Poetry, and (5) Modeling the Future by Reconstructing the Past.

Topics

Frontmatter Publicly Available Download PDF	i
Contents Publicly Available Download PDF	v
Preface Publicly Available Download PDF	vii
Abbreviations Publicly Available Download PDF	ix
Part 1 Thinking of Ancient Texts as Literature
Memory, Narration, Identity: Exodus as a Political Myth Jan Assmann Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	3
Narrative Poetics and Hebrew Narrative: A Survey Joachim Vette Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	19
Is There a Universal Genre of “Drama”? Conjectures on the Basis of “Dramatic” Texts in Old Testament Prophecy, Attic Tragedy, and Egyptian Cult Plays Helmut Utzschneider Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	63
Narratology and the Classics: The Proof of the Pudding . . . Irene J. F. de Jong Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	81
Part 2 The Identity of Authors and Readers
Ancient Writers, Modern Readers, and King Ashurnasirpal’s Political Problems: An Exploration of the Possibility of Reading Ancient Texts Barbara N. Porter Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	103
The Achilles Heel of Reader-Response Criticism and the Concept of Reading Hermeneutics of Caution Christof Hardmeier Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	121
Tell Me Who I Am: Reading the Alphabet of Ben Sira Dagmar Börner-Klein Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	135
The Powers of a Lost Subject: Reinventing a Poet’s Identity in Catullus’s Carmen 8 Melanie Möller Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	145
Part 3 Fiction and Fact
Forms of Talk in Hebrew Biblical Narrative: Negotiations, Interaction, and Sociocultural Context Frank H. Polak Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	167
Of Mice and Men and Blood: The Laws of Ritual Purity in the Hebrew Bible Hanna Liss Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	199
Fiction and Imagination in Early Christian Literature The Acts of the Apostles as a Test Case Ute E. Eisen Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	215
Fictions and Formulations: The Talmud and the Construction of Jewish Identity David Kraemer Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	235
Are Vocation Texts Fictional? On Hesiod’s Helicon Experience Gerrit Kloss Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	245
Part 4 Rereading Biblical Poetry
From Aristotle to Bakhtin: The Comedic and the Carnivalesque in a Biblical Tale Nehama Aschkenasy Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	265
Where Is Isaiah in Isaiah? Francis Landy Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	283
Job 28 and the Climax in Chapters 29–31: Crisis and Identity Jan Fokkelman Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	301
Part 5 Modeling the Future by Reconstructing the Past
Samuel’s “Farewell Speech”: Theme and Variation in 1 Samuel 12, Josephus, and Pseudo-Philo Joachim Vette Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	325
The Exile Biblical Ideology and Its Postmodern Ideological Interpretation Adele Berlin Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	341
Index of Authors Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	357
Index of Scripture Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	365

Language: English
Publisher: Penn State University Press
Audience: Professional and scholarly;
Pages
- Main content: 384

eBook

Published: June 23, 2010
ISBN: 9781575066219