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Yosef ṿe-ḥalomotaṿ : miḳra, sifrut, psikhoʼanalizah = Joseph and his dreams : Bible, literature, psychoanalysis

Agnon's Moonstruck lovers : the Song of Songs in Israeli culture

Agnon's Moonstruck Lovers explores the response of Israel's Nobel laureate S. Y. Agnon to the privileged position of the Song of Songs in Israeli culture. Standing at a unique crossroads between religion and secularism, Agnon probes the paradoxes and ambiguities of the Zionist hermeneutic project. In adopting the Song, Zionist interpreters sought to return to the erotic, pastoral landscapes of biblical times. Their quest for a new, uplifting, secular literalism, however, could not efface the haunting impact of allegorical configurations of love. With superb irony, Agnon's tales recast Israeli biblicism as a peculiar chapter within the ever-surprising history of biblical exegesis.

Online EBSCO Academic Comprehensive Collection

Melville's Bibles

Many writers in antebellum America sought to reinvent the Bible, but no one, Ilana Pardes argues, was as insistent as Melville on redefining biblical exegesis while doing so. In "Moby-Dick, " he not only ventured to fashion a grand new inverted Bible in which biblical rebels and outcasts assume center stage, but also aspired to comment on every imaginable mode of biblical interpretation, calling for a radical reconsideration of the politics of biblical reception. In "Melville's Bibles, " Pardes traces Melville's response to a whole array of nineteenth-century exegetical writings - literary scriptures, biblical scholarship, Holy Land travel narratives, political sermons, and women's bibles. She shows how Melville raised with unparalleled verve the question of what counts as Bible and what counts as interpretation.

Online EBSCO Academic Comprehensive Collection