This thesis will apply performance criticism to ancient Jewish letters in order to answer two connected questions. First, how do we adequately describe the form and function of letters as they were read in antiquity in order to be able to define the genres of letters in a more precise way and second, to consider how performance theory in conjunction with other approaches can be applied to ancient letters. In order to address these concerns, we will include examples of free-standing letters from Elephantine, embedded Hebrew and Aramaic letters, and embedded Greek letters. By studying these texts, we will gain a substantial perspective on the variety of Second Temple period letters and we will be able to consider how probing the form and function of those letters may be applied for a better understanding of MMT. The intent of this inquiry is to help explain how MMT, or a section thereof, may have been performed in various situations and thereby provide a clearer view of the genre(s) of MMT.

Diese Doktorarbeit befasst sich mit Fragen der Sprache und Identität von drei Generationen sephardischer Juden in Sarajevo. Aufgrund der Komplexität sephardischen Geschichte in Sarajevo untersuche ich Bosnien-Herzegowina/Jugoslawien, Israel und Spanien als mögliche Identitätsoptionen für die Sephardim in Sarajevo nach der Shoah. In einem weiteren Kontext ist die Arbeit auch ein Beitrag zu Minderheiten in Europa und zum facettenreichen Zusammenspiel von Sprache und ethnischer und religiöser Identifikation. Typisch für die jüdische Gemeinschaft im heutigen Sarajevo ist, dass nur ein Gesprächspartner seine jüdische Identität auf der traditionellen halachischen Definition aufbaut, einer Definition, die von der matrilinealen Abstammung abhängt. Ebenso ist die Feier der jüdischen Feiertage meinen Informanten für die Aufrechterhaltung der Identität wichtiger als das Sprechen einer jüdischen Sprache. Gleichzeitig vertreten die Individuen auch alternative Formen des Bosnischseins, die mehrere Ethnien und religiöse Zuschreibungen umfassen. Zu den einzigartigen Merkmalen der Sephardim in Sarajevo zählen der Status der Sephardim und der anderen Minderheiten in Bosnien und Herzegowina, die sie (1) durch die diskriminierende bosnische Verfassung zugeteilt bekommen haben; (2) das Fehlen eines Gesetzes in Bosnien über die Rückgabe von Eigentum; (3) die besondere Situation, in der drei ethnische Hauptgruppen und nicht nur eine einzige ethnisch homogene ‚Mehrheit‘ das Land beherrschen; (4) das Fehlen einer gut entwickelten jüdischen kulturellen Infrastruktur. Trotz alledem findet eine Annäherung der Mitglieder der Jüdischen Gemeinde von Sarajevo an ihre Religion und Tradition statt. Dieses Phänomen ist zum Teil dem jungen religiösen Aktivisten und chazan (Kantor) der Gemeinde, Igor Kožemjakin, zuzuschreiben, der jüngere Mitglieder zu den Gottesdiensten angezogen hat. / This study analyzes issues of language and Jewish identification pertaining to the Sephardim in Sarajevo. Complexity of the Sarajevo Sephardi history means that I explore Bosnia-Herzegovina/Yugoslavia, Israel and Spain as possible identity-creating factors for the Sephardim in Sarajevo today. My findings show that the elderly Sephardic generation insist on calling their language Serbo-Croatian, whereas the younger generations do not really know what language they speak – and laugh about the linguistic situation in Sarajevo, or rely on made-up categories such as ‘Sarajevan.’ None of the interviewees emphasize the maintenance of Judeo-Spanish as a crucial condition for the continuation of Sephardic culture in Sarajevo. Similarly, the celebration of Jewish holidays is more important for the maintenance of identity across the generations than speaking a Jewish language. At the same time, the individuals also assert alternative forms of being Bosnian, ones that encompass multiple ethnicities and religious ascriptions. All the youngest interviewees however fear that the Sarajevo Sephardic identity will disappear in a near future. Unique characteristics of Sarajevo Sephardim include the status of the Sephardim and minorities in Bosnia and Herzegovina given (1) the discriminatory Bosnian Constitution; (2) the absence of a law in Bosnia on the return of property; (3) the special situation wherein three major ethnic groups, and not just a single, ethnically homogeneous ‘majority,’ dominate the country; (4) the lack of a well-developed Jewish cultural infrastructure. Despite all of this, a rapprochement between the Sarajevo Jewish Community members and their religion and tradition is taking place. This phenomenon is partly attributable to the Community’s young religious activist and chazan, Igor Kožemjakin, who has attracted younger members to the religious services.

In 1972, with the publication of Violence and the Sacred, René Girard makes the stunning assertion that violence is the foundation of culture. Humanity’s innate urges for competition and rivalry entrap us in cycles of violence, which left alone would find no resolution. Girard calls the cause of this rivalry “mimetic desire”, and the only way out of this deeply embedded vengeance is to create a scapegoat to take the blame, reconciling the conflicting parties. Girard asserts that the biblical texts uniquely reveal the mechanisms of mimetic rivalry and scapegoating, and even demystify sacrificial rituals as nothing more than sacrilized “good” violence to keep a fragile peace. This revelation, according to Girard, can finally allow us to remove violence from the sacred. Much scholarship has been devoted to Girard’s theory, in particular how it offers a viable alternative to the still-dominant sacrificial theology of the cross. But there is little scholarship on the connection between Girard and Judaism; and Girard’s own work leaves us with a picture of Judaism that is at best incomplete, and at worst unable to find an answer to disturbing violence permeating the scriptures. This dissertation brings the Hebrew Bible into dialogue with Girard’s ideas in a systematic fashion to assert, contra Girard, that the Jewish revelation is a full, effective and even practical expression of his theory. After an overview of Girard’s work in the first chapter, the dissertation examines three Jewish “vaccines” to the mimetic disease as follows: the Birkhat ha-Banim (“The Blessing of the Children”); the reading of the Book of Esther on Purim; and the reading of Jonah on Yom Kippur. The conclusion to the dissertation asserts, drawing on these three demonstrations, the following points: 1) Rene Girard gives an important and clarifying lens to aid us in finding a new way to talk about, understand, and unify Jewish scripture and ritual; 2) a Jewish perspective can help flesh out what a different “revelation” of Girard’s mimetic desire looks like—even providing prescriptions to curtail this desire; and 3) positive mimesis is possible, and there are Hebrew examples of it free of originary violence. The final chapter addresses certain challenges in reconciling Girard with Judaism, moving toward a sincere Jewish Girardianism that will harmonize with the central views of the tradition.

In the year 1504 the grand prince Ivan III convened a Council of the Church to try several Muscovites and Novgorodians accused of heresy. The Council found the men guilty and they were burnt at the stake in public executions in Novgorod and Moscow. The 1504 trial and execution was the last of three trials of a group of men accused of a 'judaizing' heresy and known to historians as the Zhidovstvuyushchie, or Judaizers. The first trial of the heretics had taken place in 1486 and the second in 1490. The evidence compiled for these trials by Archb'shop Gennady of Novgorod, who claimed to have discovered the heresy, the chronicle accounts for 1486 and 1490, the documents produced by the Councils of 1488 and 1490, and the Prosvetitel' of Iosif of Volokolamsk, a polemical work against the heresy of the 'Novogorod heretics who philosophize judaistically' provide much material for a study of the first documented heresy in the Russian Church. Many historians have been attracted to such a study for, as a review of the historical background and historiography of the heresy in Chapter I shows, the involvement of many of the alleged Judaizers in the affairs of the Church and State during a period of important changes affecting both the Church and the State and the relationship between them, makes an understanding of the heresy important to our view of Russia in the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries. But the many studies of the heresy of the Judaizers undertaken by historians from the nineteenth century to the present day have failed to yield agreement on the origin and nature of the heresy. It is seen variously as the result of Jewish propaganda in the Russian Church, of the influence of Western Renaissance and Reformation ideas in Russia or, and this is the view which has dominated recent Soviet historiography, as a symptom of an indigenous Reformation (or proto-Reformation) movement affecting the whole of Russian society in the late fifteenth-early sixteenth centuries. The present work is an attempt to resolve the questions posed by studies of the heresy on the basis of a re-examination of primary published and manuscript sources. These fall into two categories: sources presenting the evidence against the Judaizers (evidence of the accusers), and sources associated with the heretics themselves. Chapter II examines the evidence of the accusers in connection with the trials of 1488 and 1490 (the so-called Novgorod stage of the heresy). Most of this evidence comes from the pen of Archbishop Gennady of Novgorod - consideration of the pre-1490 writings of Iosif of Volokolamsk shows that these do not have a direct bearing upon the subject of this study. Gennady's evidence has not received the attention it deserves, for it provides valuable information not only about the heresy he discovered in Novgorod, but also about the procedures accepted in the Russian Church in this period for discovering and identifying any heresy. His evidence explains his choice of the 'judaizing' label and shows that heretical acts had been committed in Novgorod, though not necessarily by the men condemned in 1488 and 1490. Gennady's letters are complemented by the official documents issued by the Councils of 1488 and 1490, and it is clear that the heretics were tried according to properly accepted procedure and that evidence and condemnation was obtained by Gennady with the full co-operation of the grand prince. Gennady remained Archbishop of Novgorod until 1503, but a study of the works produced at his court after 1490 (in Chapter III) provides little evidence of a continuation of his campaign against the heresy. For evidence against the heretics tried in 1504, historians have had to rely on the writings of losif of Volokolamsk, but an examination of his polemical tracts (later incorporated in the Prosvetitel') and letters written before 1504 yields little reliable information about the beliefs of the Judaizers. Even the Prosvetitel', written probably after, and not before the Council of 1504, as has been generally accepted, does little more than reiterate the accusations raised originally against the Novgorod heretics condemned in 1488 and 1490. The evidence of the accusers between 1490 and 1504 thus provides little information on the case presented against the heretics condemned by the Council of 1504. Such information has also been sought in the so-called 'literature of the Judaizers', works written by, or associated with, the men labelled by the accusers as 'judaizing' heretics. Chapter IV examines such works, most of which are associated with the Moscow Judaizers. Several survive in MSS. of the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries and it is clear that most were not considered heretical at the time. On the contrary, they belonged to the category of instructive Orthodox literature. Chapter V draws some conclusions from the evidence of the sources. If it is accepted that a heretic is someone whom the established Church recognises as such, the Novgorodians condemned in 1488 and 1490 by a body representative of the Church and according to accepted Orthodox procedure were heretics. However, the available evidence about the Novgorod heretics and about the methods used in identifying and naming the heresy suggests that they were not guilty of a departure from Orthodox Christian beliefs: only of offences against ritual and of criticism of ecclesiastical and, perhaps, secular authority. There is little evidence that the men accused of heresy in 1504 were condemned in accordance with the precedent established by the-case of the Novgorod heretics of 1488 and 1490, or by a body representative of the established Church. The accepted view that they were heretics is not substantiated by the evidence available and the reasons for their condemnation were probably not religious but political.

"The purpose of this study is to make a critical and detailed analysis of the references in the ancient sources, Philo, Josephus, Pliny and the church fathers, Justin, Hegesippus, Hippolytus and Epiphanius. The main emphasis will be on the less well-known sects. The Sadducees and the Pharisees will be dealt with only as they appear in the references to the lesser sects and for contrast and similarity. The study will attempt to correlate the separate reports and to support or cast doubt on the validity and reliability of the accounts. In order to do this it has been necessary to examine the life and work of each witness as a means of evaluating his credibility and the sources of his information. No attempt has been made to establish a specific thesis of relationship and derivation. That remains for a further study but possible lines for the development of such a thesis have been indicated where the evidence suggests such." -- from the Introduction.

Le but premier de notre travail est de restituer la complexité des relations qui existent entre Franz Rosenzweig, son œuvre "l'Étoile de la Rédemption", et son lectorat. L'"Étoile de la Rédemption" est connue pour être un livre difficile, dont le langage est aussi conceptuel que littéraire. Mais la véritable difficulté de la pensée de Rosenzweig dans l'"Étoile" est d'arriver à garder liées une dimension dialogale qui participe d'une existence vivante à travers la correspondance que Rosenzweig a écrite à destination de ses amis et la dimension textuelle qui tend à se constituer comme un monde en tant que tel – un livre est toujours quelque chose qui se suffit à lui-même. Pouvons-nous être satisfaits par l'idée que l'"Étoile" est seulement une transition entre deux états : entre un point de vue philosophique - où ne se trouve nul espoir – et un point de vue révélé – où existe uniquement l'espoir ? L'"Étoile" est plus qu'une simple transition. Rosenzweig parle aussi d'un seuil et d'un porche. Avec ces deux termes, une tension se trouve au sein de l'"Étoile" entre une vie révélée qui se dévoile à l'intérieur même de celle-ci et une vie révélée qui ne peut commencer qu'au-delà de celle-ci. Auteur, œuvre et lecteurs auront un rôle important à jouer important pour élucider ce problème. / The entire point of our work is to give back the complexity of the relations between Franz Rosenzweig, his work, The "Star of Redemption", and his readership. The "Star of Redemption" is known as a difficult book, whose language is as many conceptual as literary. But the very difficulty of the Rosenzweig's thought in The "Star" is to keep in bound the dialogical dimension,which is participating to a lively existence through the letters he wrote to his friends -, and the textual dimension, which tend to be a world in itself - a book is something that is self-sufficient. Can we be satisfied by the idea that The Star is only a transition between two states: between a philosophical point of view – where is no hope – and a revealed one – where is hope and orientation? The Star is more as simply a transition. Rosenzweig speaks also of a Threshold and a Gate. With these two terms a tension inhabits The "Star" between a revealed life which begins inside the book and a revealed life which begins outside the book. Author, work and readership will have a significant role to play in this problem.

Au début de l’Exil babylonien, les prophètes expliquent la correction infligée par Nabuchodonosor au peuple de Juda comme un châtiment voulu par YHWH. Leur vocabulaire se fait alors riche en termes techniques de la rupture d’alliance. La 1° partie de ce travail présente une brève synthèse de l’histoire de la recherche sur la théologie de l’alliance et son lien avec des traités de vassalité du Proche-Orient ancien. La 2° partie étudie le voc. de la rupture de l’alliance en Jr, Éz mais aussi dans le Dt- És afin de spécifier son usage à la fin de l’Exil. La 3° partie s’arrête sur la section d’És 52,13 - 53,12 et son paradoxe : 2 verbes hébreux de la rupture d’alliance au service d’un message d’espérance. L’étude linguistique et sémantique de ce passage révèle une notion de fin explicite de rupture d’alliance. Dans la conclusion, la sortie d’impasse théologique est suivie jusqu’à la découverte d’un lien théologique entre les trois derniers chap. du Dt-És : le concept d’alliance éternelle. / The prophets see the Babylonian Exile as a punishment of God. Therefore, they use a rich variety of technical terms to describe the Covenant breaking. The 1st part of this work summarizes the history of research on the Alliance Theology in relation to the ancient Near Eastern vassal treaties. The 2nd part analyzes the words used to express the Covenant breaking in Jer and Ez. It carries on with this study in Dt-Isa as well, in order to tackle the problems posed by the use of the same words for a different purpose at the end of the Exile. Then, the 3rd part focuses on Isa 52:13 –53:12 and its inside paradox : whereas it shows 2 Hebrew verbs typical for the Covenant breaking, its core message speaks of a hopeful future. Through close linguistic and semantic scrutiny, this bright expectation reveals itself as the explicit end of the breaking of the Covenant. The conclusion of the work expounds the new theological idea which provides a way out of this theological dead-end (eternal Alliance).

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