Authors: Howard Schwartz
ISBN-13: 9780195115116, ISBN-10: 0195115112
Format: Paperback
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Date Published: January 1998
Edition: 1st Edition
Reimagining the Bible collects a dozen essays by Howard Schwartz. Together the essays present a coherent theory of the way in which each successive phase of Jewish literature has drawn upon and reimagined the previous ones. The book is organized into four sections: The Ancient Models; The Folk Tradition; Mythic Echoes; and Modern Jewish Literature and the Ancient Models. Within these divisions, each of the essays focuses on a specific genre, ranging from Torah and Aggadah to Kabbalah, fairy tales, and the modern Yiddish stories of S.Y. Agnon and Isaac Bashevis Singer.
Arguing the important thesis that there is a continuity in Jewish literature which extends from the Biblical era to our own timesa period of over 3,000 yearsthis collection also serves as a guide to the history of that literature, and to the genres it comprises.
Preface | ||
Acknowledgments | ||
Pt. I | The Ancient Models | |
1 | Reimagining the Bible | 3 |
2 | The Aggadic Tradition | 12 |
3 | Tools of Interpretation | 31 |
Pt. II | The Folk Tradition | |
4 | On Jewish Fairy Tales | 43 |
5 | Mermaid and Siren: The Polar Roles of Lilith and Eve | 56 |
6 | Jewish Tales of the Supernatural | 68 |
Pt. III | Mythic Echoes | |
7 | The Mythology of Judaism | 85 |
8 | Tales of the Great Jewish Mystics | 100 |
9 | The Quest for the Lost Princess: Transition and Change in Jewish Lore | 131 |
Pt. IV | Modern Jewish Literature and the Ancient Models | |
10 | Rabbi Nachman of Bratslav: Forerunner of Modern Jewish Literature | 163 |
11 | S.Y. Agnon, I.L. Peretz, and I.B. Singer: Modern Masters of the Aggadah | 176 |
12 | Modern Jewish Literature and the Ancient Models | 188 |
Notes | 203 | |
Glossary | 231 | |
Bibliography | 237 | |
Index | 273 |