86 research outputs found
Possible Topics for a Comprehensive Philosophical Approach to Qohelet’s Metaphysical Assumptions
No full textUp to now, philosophical approaches to Qohelet (Ecclesiastes) have tended to focus mostly on how parts
of the book relate to some concepts in ethics and epistemology. By contrast, metaphysical assumptions
in the text have received comparatively less attention. Yet while Qohelet is not a metaphysical textbook,
the language of the author invariably contains many metaphysical assumptions about issues of interest
popularly associated with this philosophical discipline (especially in its analytic form) and which still have
not been studied in a conceptually nuanced manner. In light of this gap, the present study aims to provide
a meta-theoretical prolegomenon to future descriptive metaphysical perspectives on the book. Bracketing
controversies regarding the nature and possibility of metaphysics as such, the author offers an
introductory overview of those concepts discussed therein and with reference to which Qohelet could be
read in a comparative-philosophical manner
A Comparative-Philosophical Solution to the Problem of Part-Whole Relations Between רוח -Type Entities in the Hebrew Bible
No full textWhat has been called “the pneumatology†of the Hebrew Bible is generally held to be an unsolved problem. To this day, available research operates on the assumption of a “missing link†between theological, cosmological, and anthropological domains distinguished within the meta-language. This is indeed evident from a comparative-philosophical perspective in that the conceptual background for רוח -type entities as encountered in scholarly discourse comes across as ontologically disjointed and metaphysically fragmented. In the present article, the author argues that the riddle of “The One and the Many†is a pseudo-problem generated by anachronistic Platonic dualism supervening on inquiries into the assumed nature of רוח as “Ursubstanz†and the mereology of רוח -type entities in the world of the text. In addition, a unified theory is put forward with reference to the problem of part-whole relations as can be reconstructed from the perspective of more monistic conceptions of spirit in the associated history and philosophy of religion
Why Old Testament prophecy is <i>philosophically</i>
No full textComparative philosophical perspectives on Old Testament predictive prophecy are rare. Yet whilst the Old Testament is not explicit in its views on the relation between God and time, its narratives do contain implicit metaphysical assumptions regarding the nature of divine foreknowledge. In this article the author listed a standard variety of possible perspectives on how one might construe the way in which YHWH as depicted in Genesis 15:12–16 was thought of with regard to his knowledge of the future, if any. Not opting for any particular view on the matter, especially given that most are anachronistic, the implications and problems of each are noted to show why Old Testament prophecy can also be philosophically interesting
The Hebrew Bible in Nietzsche's philosophy of religion
No full textWhile many texts discuss Nietzsche's philosophy of religion and his relationship to Judaism there is little research exclusively devoted to his views, use of, and allusions to the Hebrew Bible. In this article concerned with reception history, the author seeks to provide an introduction to the topic by looking at Nietzsche's general assessment of the Hebrew Bible, his understanding of the history of Israelite religion and his allusions to a number of biblical texts. Based on these observations it is argued that though of relatively marginal concern overall, the Hebrew Bible played a definite albeit varied and complex role in Nietzsche's philosophy of religion.http://reference.sabinet.co.za.nwulib.nwu.ac.za/webx/access/electronic_journals/semit/semit_v20_n2_a6.pd
Spectres of YHWH: some hauntological remarks on Lamentations 3
No full textIn this article, the author offers a brief hauntological perspective on Lamentations 3. After discussing some of the rudiments of the relevant type of Derridean philosophy of history/literature, the hauntological layers of Lamentations 3 are extracted by way of reconstructive informal philosophical commentary. This is followed by a closer look at the representation of Yhwh in Lamentations 3 as a spectre in the Derridean sense of the word. The conclusion is that, from the perspective of hauntology, Lamentations 3 is a good example of ancient spectral theology.http://reference.sabinet.co.za/document/EJC13174
The Hebrew Bible in contemporary philosophy of religion
No full textSome dialogue among these specialists, especially between biblical scholars and philosophers of religion, is unquestionably long overdue.(Stump 1985:1)�Over the last few decades, there has been an increased concern for the establishment of more sustained interdisciplinary dialogue between biblical scholars and philosophers of religion. In this article, aimed at biblical scholars, the author as biblical scholar offers a descriptive and historical overview of some samples of recourse to the Hebrew Bible in philosophical approaches in the study of religion. The aim is to provide a brief glimpse of how some representative philosophers from both the analytic and continental sides of the methodological divide have related to the biblical traditions in the quest for a contemporary relevant Christian philosophy of religion.</p
A comprehensive typology of philosophical perspectives on Qohelet
No full textIn this article, the author seeks to provide the first comprehensive typology of philosophical approaches to the book of Qohelet (Ecclesiastes). Six overlapping, yet functionally distinct, meta-philosophical categories are identified, namely (1) general philosophical profiling, (2) ancient philosophical comparisons, (3) modern philosophical comparisons, (4) topical philosophical exegesis, (5) philosophical reception histories and actualisations and (6) antiphilosophical readings. The conclusion of the study is that research on Qohelet in relationship to philosophy is quantitatively more complex and multifaceted than traditional overviews tend to show.Intradisciplinary and/or interdisciplinary implications: This study challenges the context of currently available perspectives on Qohelet in relationship to philosophy, resulting in the provisioning of a quantitatively more functional framework for meta-philosophical commentary, which in turn both demands and makes possible a change in the way philosophical approaches to the text are construed.</p
Possible analogies for imagining folk–philosophies in ancient Israelite religion
No full textIn this paper, the author seeks to facilitate the process of imagining the presence of philosophical assumptions in the religious language of the Hebrew Bible. After a meta-philosophical deconstruction of the concept of "philosophy" to blur the lines with folk-philosophies, the article seeks to dispute the scholarly consensus alleging the complete absence of philosophical data in ancient Israelite religion. This is done by way of several possible analogies for conceiving of philosophy in Yahwism(s), e.g., historical approaches in Jewish Philosophy, Area Studies in ancient Near Eastern philosophy, the methodological debates in African Philosophy, recent research on philosophy in literature and a century of philosophical approaches to the study of myth.http://reference.sabinet.co.za.nwulib.nwu.ac.za/webx/access/electronic_journals/semit/semit_v19_n2_a3.pd
Possible objections to a philosophical approach to ancient Israelite religion: A critical refutation
No full textThere exists a certain consensus amongst biblical scholars that involving philosophy in the attempt to understand ancient Israelite religion is hermeneutically fallacious. A philosophical approach to ancient Yahwism is considered out of place, given the non-philosophical nature of the Hebrew Bible, the normative concerns of philosophy and the historical agenda of biblical scholarship. In this article, however, the author attempted to show why none of the traditional objections should be considered as devastating as they were once thought to be
The concept of the love of wisdom in Proverbs (8): a comparative–philosophical clarification
No full textThe word "philosophy" can be literally rendered "the love of wisdom". However, while etymological definitions are not always reliable as to the actual use of words, in some sense it is not an inaccurate notion of what some of the ancient Greek philosophers thought they were up to. The ancient Greek senses of "love" and "wisdom" were, however, not univocal. In addition, though the Hebrew Bible is not as a rule considered philosophy proper in terms of genre, the Book of Proverbs does contain several verbal references to the love of wisdom. In this paper the author seeks to elucidate and compare what the love of wisdom meant in both the Greek and Hebrew contexts and how they might have conceptually overlapped and diverged.http://reference.sabinet.co.za/webx/access/electronic_journals/semit/semit_v22_n2_a6.pd
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