From metaphysics to midrash : myth, history, and the interpretation of Scripture in Lurianic Kabbala / Shaul Magid.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Magid, Shaul, 1958-

Series:

Indiana studies in biblical literature.

Indiana studies in biblical literature

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Cabala--History.

Cabala.

Metaphysics.

Other (Philosophy).

Tsefat (Israel)--Religion--16th century.

Tsefat (Israel).

Bible. Pentateuch--Criticism, interpretation, etc., Jewish.

Bible.

Luria, Isaac ben Solomon, 1534-1572.

Luria, Isaac ben Solomon.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (369 p.)

Place of Publication:

Bloomington : Indiana University Press, c2008.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

In From Metaphysics to Midrash, Shaul Magid explores the exegetical tradition of Isaac Luria and his followers within the historical context in 16th-century Safed, a unique community that brought practitioners of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam into close contact with one another. Luria's scripture became a theater in which kabbalists redrew boundaries of difference in areas of ethnicity, gender, and the human relation to the divine. Magid investigates how cultural influences altered scriptural exeges

Contents:

Kabbala, new historicism, and the question of boundaries

The Lurianic myth: a playbill

Genesis: "And Adam's sin was (very) great": original sin in Lurianic exegesis

Exodus: The "other" Israel: the erev rav (mixed multitude) as conversos

Leviticus: The sin of becoming a woman: male homosexuality and the castration complex

Numbers: Balaam, Moses, and the prophecy of the "other": a Lurianic vision for the erasure of difference

Deuteronomy: the human and/as God: divine incarnation and the "image of God".

Notes:

Description based upon print version of record.

Includes bibliographical references (p. [321]-345) and index.

ISBN:

1-281-86858-2

9786611868581

0-253-00037-8

OCLC:

476204879