Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Walter Mattfeld" <mattfeld AT mail.pjsnet.com>]

Liz,

Your post is very insightful of the problems existing on this list between
Jewish and Christian understandings of the Hebrew Bible and the narrator's
intent.

Could you send me a copy of the lecture via e-mail ? It sounds interesting.
It reminds me of a book I have on how the Greeks using allegory, transformed
the intent of Homer in the Hellenistic mindset. They didn't change the text,
they instead "influenced" via **allegory** how the reader would understand
the text, drawing conclusions never intended by the original author.

As we are both aware, it was via the employment of **allegory** that
Christians were able to draw differing conclusions about the meaning of the
Hebrew Bible and God's intent for his Messiah.

"The Neopatonic allegorists refashioned Homer not by any interference with
the text itself, but by exerting their influence on the other factor in the
equation of reading: the reader. In so doing, they pre-disposed subsequent
readers to expect, and so to discover, a certain scope of meaning in early
Epics. " (p.xi "Preface." Robert Lamberton. Homer the Theologian,
Neoplatonist Allegorical Reading and the Growth of the Epic Tradition.
Berkeley & Los Angeles. University of California Press. 1989)

All the best, Walter

Walter Reinhold Warttig Mattfeld
Walldorf by Heidelberg
Baden-Wurttemburg, Germany
www.bibleorigins.net


----- Original Message -----
From: "Lisbeth S. Fried" <lizfried AT umich.edu>
To: "Biblical Hebrew" <b-hebrew AT franklin.oit.unc.edu>
Sent: Friday, January 25, 2002 6:58 PM
Subject: RE: ONE AUTHOR Monotheism was: "admittedly syncretistic..


> > I suggest that you have a view of the god of the HB that is colored
> > by Christian and
> > Hellenistic conceptions. I suggest, respectfully, that you are
> > falling into the trap
> > that many fall into, and you are not reading the text that is
> > printed, but the text that is
> > in your head. I give a lecture called "What does God Look Like ? the
> > view from the
> > Bible." It sure does wake people up to the text.
> >
> > Best,
> > Liz Fried

All the best, Walter

Walter Reinhold Warttig Mattfeld
Walldorf by Heidelberg
Baden-Wurttemburg, Germany
www.bibleorigins.net