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Systemic thought has been utilized to deconstruct various works of literature and art, such as novels, plays, and even sculptures. Even though the Bible is viewed as a work of faith by many, it also combines aspects of mythology and history with prose and poetry. Using four major theories of family therapy, namely structural, contextual, Bowenian, and narrative, the family of King David, as presented in the first and second Books of Samuel and the beginning of the first Book of Kings, is investigated and explored. Using the King James Version of the Bible as the main text, consideration is given to what each theory has to offer in expalining what occurs throughout this narrative, as well as what the David story has to say about each theory. Confirmation of certain aspects of a given theory and possible refinements to these are also given consideration. Reflexivity on the part of the author is also given consideration in the final chapter. / Ph. D.

The thesis argues that we can maintain that the so-called History of David’s Rise (HDR) existed independently before the deuteronomistic work, by identifying its beginning in I Samuel 16. 14 and ending in II Samuel 5. 3. Additionally, the thesis proposes that the source was first composed during Hezekiah’s reign with a view to persuading the northerners to embrace Hezekiah’s one Israel policy, and then went through two major redactions – one in the late exilic period and the other in the post-exilic period. These later redactions were prompted not only by the political situations of the time, but also by the literary milieu. In other words, a growing interest in narratives and the emergence of the ‘Jewish novelistic impulse’ in the Neo-Babylonian and Persian period triggered the creation of more extensive narratives about Saul and David. These historical-critical arguments are preceded in the thesis by a methodological argument that a traditio-historical issue is inevitably related to a literary understanding of the larger whole. The background for this two-foci research is the wild disagreement on the issue, and the confusion around the methodology that has been aggravated by an unnecessary tension between different approaches. The thesis therefore discusses the methodological issues as carefully as possible, so that it might be transparent what actually happens when one does biblical criticism. This gives the thesis the features of a case study, but the thesis also hopes to present a satisfactory and attractive view on a particular traditio-historical issue in its own right. The study hopes to be an experiment of self-reflective biblical criticism that is serious but open. Since the thesis has two different but essentially related theses, the conclusion is established in two stages – methodological and historical. Chapter 1 shows that a literary understanding of the whole is foundational to traditio-historical discussions, and Chapter 2 demonstrates that literary understanding is always open to revision, and so are historical answers, as the latter are inevitably related to the former. Chapter 3 asks what is the most appropriate understanding of the whole HDR at this point, and the answer provides the last two chapters with the foundation by which various evidences can be measured. Chapter 4 revisits the initial question, and provides a provisional answer. And Chapter 5, after discussing the relationship between the materials in the books of Samuel, confirms the conclusion reached in the previous chapter, and elaborates further implications.

In 1409 Pierre Salmon created the Dialogues, an illuminated manuscript, for Charles VI of France. The miniature of David and Solomon, found in the Dialogues, compared King Charles VI to the two Old Testament Kings of Israel. An exploration of this comparison reveals the inability of the king of France to rule his kingdom. Salmon purposefully brought this comparison to the attention of Charles VI to encourage the king to repent of his sins in order to restore his health and the political stability of France.

This thesis examines three genres of the oral heritage of the Neo-Aramaic-speaking Jewish community of Zakho, Kurdistan: the proverb, the enriched biblical narrative, and the folktale. During the past three decades, there has been a renewed interest in research on Neo-Aramaic, and a substantial growth of research in the field has been seen. However, the contemporary study of Neo-Aramaic has been focused almost exclusively on linguistic description and analysis. Content-based aspects of the study of the language and its cultures have received very little attention. This thesis is a first step towards filling this gap. The introduction to the thesis provides background information about the Jewish community of Zakho and about the Neo-Aramaic subgroup to which the Jewish Zakho dialect belongs, North-Eastern Neo-Aramaic (NENA). It then gives a brief review of relevant aspects of the study of folklore, before providing a description of the database of audio recordings upon which this thesis is based. The first chapter presents several approaches to the study of the proverb (paremiology). It is argued that an important component for the understanding and analysis of proverbs, one that is often overlooked, is the context of each proverb. The second chapter analyses an example of the genre of enriched biblical narrative through the lens of a concept taken from the field of thematology: the motifeme - a small meaning-bearing contextual-structural unit of the narrative. It demonstrates the non-linear historical development of the sequence of motifemes in the narrative analysed here, a feature which is particularly typical of Jewish narratives. The folktale is a genre central to the formation and maintenance of the Jewish Zakho communal identity, and the third chapter contains a detailed analysis of one particular folktale. The folktale chosen for analysis in this chapter features a cross-culturally uncommon motif: the motif of magical gender transformation. The NENA materials contained in this thesis are transcribed and translated into English. They are drawn from a database of recordings of members of the Zakho community living now mainly in Jerusalem, and were collected in the course of fieldwork undertaken by the author.

The main task of diploma thesis titled The character of King David in the literary works of Jewish German authors is a reflection of the biblical character of David in selected works. It classifies perspectives of particular Jewish German authors in belles-lettres and reference literature and compares their approaching methods. The goal is to evaulate particular interpretations and attributes of the biblical King David, one of the most beloved although inconsistent figures of all times. The diploma thesis is divided into three parts; comparison of two mainly followed litterary works and a personal short reflection of the David's charakter. Powered by TCPDF (www.tcpdf.org)

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At the end of the fourteenth century Jean d’Arras rewrote a popular folktale. The tale told how Mélusine, a fairy who was serpent from the navel down every Saturday, married a knight and founded the fortress of Lusignan. In his introduction to the tale Jean d’Arras presents the ideas of four authority figures to convince the reader that fantastical things are possible and that his work should be taken seriously. These authority figures are David, Aristotle, Paul and Gervaise de Tilbury. It is the contention of this thesis that Jean d’Arras presents these figures in his introduction to provide context and serve as doubles for characters in the narration as well as convince the reader to take the work seriously. Through his allusion to Tilbury, Jean d’Arras establishes a context and a doubling for the story-line which he so repetitiously tells. Through his allusion to David we see a doubling for Raymondin, who in fact bears the name of earthly king, a position which David held in archetype. Through his allusion to Paul we see a doubling for Geoffrey à la grande dent, enfant terrible who becomes a responsible leader. And finally we suggest that Aristotle is a type for Jean d’Arras himself, who is presenting to his reader a methodical study of the telos of earthly kings. The thesis contains a discussion of these four individuals, how they were viewed in the late fourteenth-century and what the implications are for reading the text with them in mind. When viewed in the light of these comparisons the text can be seen, not only as a fantastical story, but as political commentary. Jean d’Arras glorifies the Duke of Berry, his patron, by connecting him to a supernatural being, but he also suggests throughout the narration, that the true justification for nobility and political power is not a supernatural connection, but a practical ability to deal with earthly affairs.

The work deals with the historicity of King David, how muchcorresponds to the biblical story of David's ancient reality. Usingarchaeological survey of contemporary Israel and is run in the end of the 19th century. AD, the scientific community is divided into two main directions Maximalists conservative and liberal minimalists try to objectively assess the time of David the United Kingdom. The aim of my work is to capture the state of discussions withrepresentatives of scientists and scholars on the subject. The firstsection describes the basic concepts and contexts related to the topic with an introduction to the study and interpretation of thestudied biblical story of David. The second part is devoted to the interpretation of arguments and opinions of authors of publications,with perspectives on the historical authenticity of the biblical story of David. In conclusion, the thesis I try to summarize all the work using the main data connection, and data along with archeologicalfindings and express their personal opinion

The thesis constitutes the analysis of selected Czech dramas from the beginning of the 20th century representing various portrayals of national leaders. In my view, the dramas are Apollonian images of a kind representing the dreams of their creators about the strength and greatness, both individual and national. That is because, on one hand, the national leader is an exceptional individual, an exquisite human specimen and as such he or she corresponds to Nietzsche's characterization of a tragic hero as the highest phenomenon of the will. But at the same time, he or she is a national educator. Individual works represent various forms of how the leader educates and edifies the nation and whether he or she leads by command or by example. The dramas show us the leaders, who not only tame, purify, but also urge to growth those, whom they lead. The approach of the Czech playwrights is essentially mythopoetic. Their works constitute contributions to the creation or re-creation of national mythology, in other words, they deal with the meaning of the existence of the nation, or the national condition. They represent a dialogue or a polemic with one particular national mythology formed at the time that of T. G. Masaryk as he stated it in his works Česká otázka (1895), Naše nynější krise (1895), and Jan Hus...