 previous article in this issue | next article in this issue  |
Preview first page |
Document Details : Title: 'Nothing Beside Remains' Subtitle: Ephemerality and Endurance in Biblical Textuality Author(s): VAYNTRUB, Jacqueline Journal: Ephemerides Theologicae Lovanienses Volume: 100 Issue: 3-4 Date: 2024 Pages: 409-426 DOI: 10.2143/ETL.100.3.3293819 Abstract : How did the authors of the Hebrew Bible conceptualize the production of textual objects and their corresponding meaning-making properties? Considering text and its production alongside the broader ancient Levantine context of memorializing and commemorating monuments, I argue that for the biblical authors, texts contained animate presence on the model of the human body as a vessel containing and transmitting speech. I structure my argument in three parts: 1) on metaphors for speech in biblical Hebrew that underscore its ephemerality and need for maintenance in human social groups; 2) on the maintenance and transmission of the voice (and pars pro toto, animate presence) in entities meant to contain it; and 3) that textual objects were meant to be physically experienced by the bodies of others and thereby effect them. Absent a visual representation of the speaker’s body, text employed other strategies to reembody and uphold presence through the invocation of one’s name, one’s reputation and authority to make good on threats, and ultimately, the closest component of one’s own body that can be textually represented: their voice. The argument is one piece of a large project of situating biblical textuality within its broader cultural practices of representation in which texts and objects are meant to have tangible, embodied effects on their audience. |
|
