The thesis deals with the figure of Lady Wisdom in the Old Testament in the wisdom books of Job, Proverbs, Wisdom and Sirach. The opening part specifies the selected biblical texts of the Old Testament, the concept of wisdom in antiquity from Egyptian and Mesopotamian sources, and their possible inspiration for authors of wise scriptures. Next the thesis briefly introduces the chosen biblical texts and analyses the concept of wisdom in the each of them. To illustrate the nature and conduct of Wisdom the next part describes the importace of building a house for the ancient people. As an opposite to Lady Wisdom there is Lady Foolishness. Final part describes various forms of personified Wisdom in particular biblical books explaining her transformation within the course of Old Testament history.

This dissertation provides a comprehensive account of Martin Luther’s Hebrew translation in his academic mid-career. Apart from the Psalms, no book of the Hebrew Bible has yet been examined in any comprehensive manner in terms of Luther’s Hebrew translation. Moreover, research to date has predominantly focused on either ascertaining Luther’s personal Hebrew skills, or on identifying his sources for Hebrew knowledge. This dissertation furthers the scholarly understanding of Luther’s Hebrew by examining his Minor Prophets translation, one of the final pieces of his first complete translation of the Hebrew Bible. As part of the analysis, it investigates the relationship between philology and theology in his Hebrew translation, focusing specifically on one of the themes that dominated his interpretation of the Prophets: his concept of Anfechtung. Chapter 1 establishes the context of Luther’s academic mid-career Hebrew, providing a brief sketch of the history of his Minor Prophets translation, followed by an overview of the Hebrew resources in and around Wittenberg which he had to draw upon. Chapter 2 examines the role of the obscurity of the Hebrew text in his translation, and how this obscurity led to various types of contradictions and vacillations in his interpretations. Chapter 3 investigates the role that Luther’s sense of the semantic intensity of the Hebrew language played in his translation. Chapter 4 examines Luther’s use of “inner-biblical interpretation” – i.e. biblical quotations and references – to support, and moreover, to build his translations of the Hebrew texts. Finally, Chapter 5 examines the influence of Hebrew on Luther’s exploitation of the mystical tradition in his translation of the Minor Prophets. This dissertation, in short, shows that by mid-career, the impact of Hebrew on Luther’s Bible translation was immense and very diverse, more so than has been appreciated. It expands the frame of reference with which scholars can understand Luther’s Hebrew. It provides detailed analyses of many examples of his Hebrew translation which have never before been discussed or examined in any depth, and it provides hundreds of examples of his methodological handling of Hebrew translation issues. And it includes one of the most exhaustive analyses to date of three key philological challenges that confronted him in translating the Bible: Hebrew figures of speech, the Hebrew trope of repetition, and Hebrew transliteration. This dissertation also includes as an Appendix a substantial body of refined data from Luther’s Hebrew translation, which further illuminates the examples in this study, and facilitates additional analysis for future research.

This study considers the origin and purpose of Ruth and concludes that it is best to read the narrative as a call for an inclusive attitude toward any person, Jew or Gentile, who desired to join the Judean community in the Restoration period. In chapter one, I review the difficulties that scholars face in ascertaining Ruth's place in Israel's history, and I outline approaches that they have used to try to establish its purpose and origin. I discuss major interpretive positions, which date the book either to the monarchic period, to the exilic period, or to the Restoration period, and I articulate the format of my own study. In chapter two, I consider how the author of Ruth uses characterization to highlight Ruth, a Gentile outsider, and to criticize the Bethlehemite community. Only Boaz accepts Ruth, which leads to his participation in the line of David. In chapter three, I discuss how the author also magnifies Ruth's character by comparing her with Israel's ancestors. In these ways, Ruth demonstrates that an outsider can embody the ideals of the Restoration community and that they can also be a benefit to the nation. In chapters four and five, I examine arguments for dating Ruth to particular periods in Israel's history. In chapter four, I consider efforts to date the language of Ruth as well as the legal practices that the story describes. I also discuss the narrative's supposed congruence with the concerns of various social settings in Israel's history. In chapter five, I draw on current research on refugee communities to see how the experiences of such people can help us understand the concerns of the Restoration community. In chapter six, I review my arguments for regarding Ruth as a call for inclusion in the Restoration period, and I consider how this conclusion should affect the field of Ruth studies as well as the wider field of Second Temple studies.

Cette thèse s’inscrit dans le débat actuel relatif au monothéisme biblique et au pluralisme religieux. Ces dernières décennies, ce débat a été influencé par des auteurs comme Jan Assmann pour lequel le monothéisme vétérotestamentaire constitue une racine importante de l’intolérance dont les trois religions monothéistes se seraient rendues coupables. Le but de notre thèse n’est pas d’entrer dans ce débat mais d’approfondir un sujet négligé par la recherche : qu’en est-il des tendances inclusives du monothéisme vétérotestamentaire ? Cette thèse ne se veut pas une contribution historique mais son but est d’étudier les principes théologiques permettant de concevoir des rapports positifs entre le Dieu d’Israël et des individus ou des peuples étrangers. En particulier, nous cherchons à analyser trois textes, le Livre de Jonas, le Psaume 33 (TM et LXX) et le roman Joseph et Aséneth. Bien qu’il s’agisse de trois textes différents en ce qui concerne le genre littéraire, l’origine et la datation, ils ont en commun d’aborder le problème du rapport entre le Dieu d’Israël et les non-Israélites. Plus concrètement, chacun de ces trois textes présente le Dieu d’Israël comme un créateur universel qui, en tant créateur, a pitié de toutes ses créatures. / The starting point of this study is the current debate on monotheism and religious pluralism. In recent decades, this debate has been strongly influenced by some authors such as Jan Assmann for whom the monotheism originating in the Old Testament is the root of the intolerance and violence of the three monotheistic religions. Rather than participating at this debate, the intention of this study is to answer the following questions: what about inclusive tendencies in Old Testament monotheism? Thus, this thesis is aimed at looking into the theological principles motivating and supporting the possibility of an approach by individuals and peoples to the God of Israel. With this aim, our objective is to analyse three texts where the relationship between YHWH, Israel and the non-Israelites is examined: the book of Jonah, Psalm 33 (MT and LXX), and the novel, Joseph and Aseneth. Although these three texts are different concerning their genre, period and provenance, they have the following ideas in common: the relationship between the God of Israel and non-Israelites as well as the concept of God as an universal creator who has pity of all his creatures.

Composé à la fin de 406, le Commentaire sur Osée de Jérôme de Stridon (c. 347-419/420) se trouve à la charnière entre ses commentaires bibliques sur les Petits et les Grands prophètes. Au sein de ce vaste projet exégétique, l’ouvrage constitue un bon exemple d’une herméneutique désormais bien maîtrisée. Avec un fort souci de cohérence, l’exégète y déploie l’interprétation littérale essentiellement historique pour lancer l’interprétation spirituelle déclinée en deux sens, l’un anti-hérétique, l’autre mystique, tous deux présentés comme fondamentaux pour comprendre le livre d’Osée. L’œuvre constitue également un témoin clé pour saisir l’importance de la typologie, christocentrique et ecclésiale, pour expliquer les Prophètes selon Jérôme. Du reste, l’ouvrage n’a fait l’objet d’aucune recherche approfondie tant sur son contenu que sur son texte. Aussi, des recherches philologiques inédites ont permis d’établir l’histoire de la transmission manuscrite et de proposer les prémices d’une édition scientifique du texte. / Written in the end of 406, the Comment on Hosea by Jerome of Stridon (c. 347-419/420) is the transition between its biblical comments on Minor and Major Prophets. Within this vast exegetical project, the work constitutes a good example of an hermeneutics well mastered. With a strong concern of coherence, the exegete displays the essentially historic literal interpretation to introduce the spiritual interpretation declined in two senses, the one anti-heretic, the other one mystic, both presented as fundamental to understand the book of Hosea. The work also constitutes a key witness to seize the importance of the typology, both centered on Jesus Christ and his Church, to explain the Prophets according to Jerome.Besides, the work was the object of no in-depth research both on its contents and on its text. So, new philological researches allowed to establish the handwritten transmission and to propose the first elements of a scientific edition of the text.

Cette étude vise à fournir une vision de la poétique de l'auteur contemporain Erri De Luca, à travers l'étude des éléments et des motifs empruntés aux Écritures particulièrement prégnants dans son œuvre. De tels éléments, renvoyant aux sources bibliques, fournissent une clef pour la lecture et pour l'interprétation de l'œuvre deluchienne dans sa complexité. L'insertion de l'imagery biblico-littéraire, chargée d'éléments qui depuis des siècles sont ancrés dans l'imaginaire collectif confère une unité à l'écriture de cet auteur, en dépit de sa variété. Le terme imagery est utilisé pour exprimer un ensemble d'images auxquelles appartiennent les symboles, les métaphores, les comparaisons, les thèmes, les conventions, ainsi que les archétypes, appartenant aux Saintes Écritures. La poétique de De Luca est analysée ici au moyen de l'identification des images qui constituent les principaux éléments de la narration des auteurs de la Bible, comme de l'auteur napolitain.En prenant comme objectif l'étude de l’œuvre deluchienne du point de vue de l'imagery des Saintes Écritures, ce travail se divise en quatre parties. La première partie vise à fournir un cadre général des échos bibliques dans la littérature italienne contemporaine, en proposant une brève description des thèmes et motifs qui ont inspiré, et continuent d'inspirer, les romanciers et poètes italiens. En outre, dans cette partie nous traitons les principales tendances que l'on peut dégager dans les différents écrits littéraires d'inspiration biblique, en nous appuyant sur quelques exemples. Ainsi, il est possible de déterminer la place qu'occupe la poétique de De Luca dans le contexte de la littérature italienne du XXième siècle, où la présence de la Bible est considérable. L'auteur napolitain, bien que dépourvu de sentiments religieux, non seulement comprend les Saintes Écritures à travers leur sens métaphorique, mais en fait également la matrice conceptuelle de ses propres œuvres littéraires, en créant un univers biblico-littéraire cohérent et entièrement personnel.Dans le deuxième chapitre, nous parcourons brièvement la biographie de De Luca, et en particulier certains aspects de sa vie personnelle en référence à ses œuvres. De telles références, récurrentes dans l'écriture deluchienne, forment un des deux macrotextes où l'écrivain puise pour créer sa propre poétique, celui de la vie. Dans cette partie, nous évoquons les concepts et les mots-clés forgés par De Luca lui-même, à travers le prisme desquels il semble souhaiter être lu et interprété. Le premier de ces concepts est la nostalgie des racines, idée à laquelle se rattachent les réflexions sur l'autre possibilité, ainsi que sur l'extranéité au monde. Il découle de cette analyse une description du militantisme politique de l'auteur. Enfin, on abordera l'expression utilisée par l'auteur pour définir son rapport avec la religion, à savoir sa condition de non-croyant. Dans la troisième partie, nous décrivons l'évolution de l'intérêt de De Luca pour la littérature, la traduction et l'interprétation des Saintes Écritures. Nous commençons par évoquer sa passion pour la culture et pour l'histoire juive, indissociable de l'étude de la langue de l'Ancien Testament, cette dernière ayant été apprise en vue de lire le texte biblique dans sa forme originaire. Cela a ensuite mené l'auteur vers un approfondissement des pratiques cabalistiques qui, à leur tour, lui ont permis de se lancer dans l'exégèse biblique. Ensuite, nous passons à une brève description des traductions deluchienne de certains livres de la Bible dans lesquelles l'auteur tente de restituer le plus fidèlement possible la forme originaire, en utilisant la langue italienne comme un simple moyen de faire entrevoir l'original. C'est pour cette raison que les traductions sont abordées dans cette analyse comme étant des connecteurs, ainsi qu'un moyen pour arriver du texte d'origine vers l'écriture, plus dans le sens conceptuel que séquentiel. / The aim of the dissertation is to analyze the prose of the modern Italian writer Erri De Luca through the lens of biblical motifs and references, which bind his works together. Such references to biblical sources are the key to understanding and interpreting the author's writings, which, despite their multifaceted character, nonetheless remain grounded in biblical-literary imagery; one rich in references rooted in the human imagination since centuries past. The term imagery encompasses the entire set of biblical images including symbols, metaphors, comparisons, motifs, and archetypes. The analysis of De Luca's writings consists in foregrounding those images which constitute the fundamental elements of the narration both in the case of biblical authors, as in the case of the Neapolitan writer himself. The dissertation comprises four parts. Chapter One attempts to present the general framework of biblical references in modern Italian literature in the form of a short description of the themes and motifs taken up by Italian poets and prose writers alike. Furthermore, the chapter discusses and exemplifies the main tendencies in literary references to biblical imagery, which will then allow us to observe the ways in which De Luca's works partake in the larger body of 20th century Italian literature with visible biblical influences. Despite his declared lack of religious faith, the Neapolitan writer not only decodes the metaphorical sense of the Bible, but also adopts the Bible as the framework for his writings, thus creating a personal, unified, and unique biblical-literary universe. Chapter Two includes a short biographical note on the writer with a strong emphasis on those aspects of his life which are reflected in his writings. And because such references are numerous indeed, they comprise one of the two macrotexts that the writer refers to in his poetics, i.e. the life (vita) macrotext. This section also presents keywords introduced by De Luca himself. It can be assumed that the author wanted to point his readers and critics to a specific method of reading and interpreting his art. The first keyword of this kind refers to the concept of a longing for the return to the source, which is tied to reflections on the so-called other possibility (altra possibilità) and one's alienation from the exterior world. The later part of the chapter describes the author's political engagement and reflects on the meaning that De Luca ascribes to the word non-believer (non-credente), which the author uses to describe his personal approach to religion. Chapter Three describes the author's interest in reading, translating, and interpreting the Bible, starting with his interest for Jewish history and culture, the roots of which may be traced back to De Luca's study of the Hebrew language. The author undertook the study in order to be able to read biblical texts in their original language, which, in turn, has led him to acquaint himself with Cabalistic practices, enabling him to employ his own biblical exegesis. The chapter then provides an overview of De Luca's own translations of selected biblical texts, a distinguishing feature of which is the author's attempt to remain as faithful as possible to the original text. In this regard, De Luca treats the Italian language as a mere tool and does not consider the process of translation to be an end in and of itself. For this reason, the dissertation treats his translations as a “connector” of sorts, as well as a stepping stone in the journey from the source text to writing itself – more so in a conceptual sense than a temporal sense. The further part of the chapter will consist of an analysis of those of De Luca's works which could be described as “rewriting” biblical tales (riscritture), a process which is not only considered to be a distinct kind of translation, but even the next stage in the work of the translator.

[pt] O presente trabalho estuda os textos de Os 11,8-9; 13,12-14,1. As perícopes foram selecionadas a partir do paradoxo instaurado entre elas. Os 11,8-9 apresenta uma reflexão de Deus diante da questão se Israel deve ou não ser destruído e que suspende o aniquilamento do povo. Dois capítulos depois, no último texto antes da promessa final do livro, Os 13,12-14,1, o mesmo Deus decreta a execução do castigo que levará à extinção do Reino do Norte. Com o intuito de tentarmos indicar como se coadunam as duas perspectivas, que implicam suspensão do juízo e sua afirmação, estabeleceremos elementos de aproximação e oposição entre os textos. Para tanto, serão considerados também os dados redacionais, a fim de elucidar a concatenação entre as duas perspectivas aparentemente contraditórias. / [en] The present work studies the texts of Hos.11,8-9; 13,12-14,1. The pericopes were selected from the paradox established between them. While Hos.11: 8-9 presents a reflection of God on the question of whether or not Israel should be destroyed as to suspend the annihilation of the people, two chapters further, in the last text before the final promise of the book, in Hos.13,12-14,1, the same God decrees the execution of the punishment that will lead to the extinction of the Northern Kingdom. In order to try to indicate how the two perspectives converge, which imply suspension of the judgment and its affirmation, we will establish elements of approximation and opposition between the texts, taking into consideration the writing data, in order to elucidate the concatenation between the two apparently contradictory perspectives.

The text of the Bible projects for its readers a Biblical-textual world. Christians live within the seminal, normative contours of this symbolic Biblical world. In this regard, a Ricoeurian hermeneutics presents a helpful apparatus to the reader of the Biblical text. In his hermeneutical studies, Ricoeur organises his considerations around four poles that operate as guidelines for this study – distanciation, objectification, projecting of a world and appropriation. In this thesis each of these considerations is applied to Proverbs 10:1–15:33 to facilitate an exploration of the symbolic-textual world projected for the reader in this literature. It is the thesis of the study that the proposed reading strategy is, in terms of the threefold movement within postmodern thought – the movements beyond foundations, beyond totalities and towards the Other – a most productive effort. When this reading strategy is utilised for Proverbs 10:1–15:33, with specific reference to the fear of the Lord, the concept of the fear of the Lord is found to have a functional definition within this collection rather than an ontological or theoretical one. With this approach, the fear of Yahweh-proverbs in Proverbs 10:1–15:33 are understood not to be dogmatised, absolute, universal truths but finds, in line with the movement beyond totalities, its authority in the context within which it is applied. Instead of communicating propositional content, which is in line with the movement beyond foundations within postmodern thought, by their power to disclose a symbolic world, it confronts the reader with the Other, in line with the movement toward the Other, and consequently opens up new modes of being, orienting the reader’s practical actions. / Thesis (PhD)--University of Pretoria, 2013. / gm2013 / Old Testament Studies / unrestricted

Les études présentées dans ce thèse, The Violence of Bearing Witness in Flannery O’Connor and Cormac McCarthy, portent sur les représentations narratives de l’acte de témoigner dans les textes des écrivains américains Flannery O'Connor et Cormac McCarthy. Plus précisement, j'identifie l'acte de témoigner comme étant une fonction essentielle du prophète et situe ensuite la représentation narrative de cet acte dans la tradition de la jérémiade américaine. Je débute alors mon étude de O’Connor en examinant son interprétation du rôle du prophète aussi bien dans ses textes que dans la société en générale et sa culture en particulier. Je place ensuite son corpus dans le contexte du mouvement des droits civiques des 1950s-60s et retrace l’évolution de ses personnages noirs à travers la progression d’un groupe de récits que je term « The Geranium Variations ». Mon analyse herméneutique de Blood Meridian emploie la typologie de la violence de Slavoj Žižek pour affirmer que, bien que le roman soit rempli de représentations vives de la violence, McCarthy démontre que la violence structurelle est à l’origine des flambées individuelles – c’est-à-dire de guerre, d’expansion territoriale agressive et de génocide sanctionné par l’État. De plus, mes études démontre que les descriptions excessives de violence du roman sont juxtaposées à une pénurie de description narrative dans la mesure où les représentations incessantes de violence tout au long du roman aboutissent à la mort non décrite du protagoniste, the kid. Enfin, je conclus que les allusions aux Écritures au tout début du roman prédit que the kid aura un rôle liminal dans le texte en tant que prophèt maudit qui a pour fonction de témoigner les horreurs indescriptibles de la nuit des temps. / This dissertation, The Violence of Bearing Witness in Flannery O’Connor and Cormac McCarthy, investigates the narrative expressions of bearing witness in the fiction of two writers of the American South: Flannery O’Connor and Cormac McCarthy. I identify the act of bearing witness as an essential function of the prophet and locate the narrative representation of this act within the tradition of the American jeremiad. I begin my study of O’Connor’s works by investigating her understanding of the significance of the role of the prophet in her writing as well as in modern society. I then situate O’Connor’s literary art within the context of the civil rights movement and trace the evolution of her treatment of Black characters through the progress of a group of stories I have termed the “Geranium Variations.” My hermeneutic analysis of Blood Meridian employs Slavoj Žižek’s typology of violence to argue that though the novel is replete with vivid portrayals of violence, the true horror with which McCarthy reckons is the structural violence that fosters the individual outbreaks of brutality, i.e. warfare, aggressive territorial expansion, and state-sanctioned genocide. I demonstrate that the novel’s excessive descriptions of violence are juxtaposed with an absence of description insofar as the relentless representations of gratuitous violence throughout the novel culminate in the unnarrated death of the protagonist, the kid. I conclude that the allusions to scripture in the opening sentences of the novel foretells the kid’s liminal role in the text as a cursed prophet whose function is to witness the unspeakable horrors of history.

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