RELS 346 Lecture Notes - Lecture 4: Emmanuel Levinas, Israelites

• School: University of Calgary
• Department: Religious Studies
• Course: RELS 346
• Professor: Tinu Ruparell

Document Summary

Wisdom thinking in biblical lit: emphasis on meaning, integrity and structure of god"s creation by close observation of daily life to see wisdom of creator. Sleep of wisdom: nobody to guard against return of chaos monster. Book of job: only piece of lit exploring voice of pain, exhaustion of wisdom, wisdom"s best watchman, job"s friends are worn out by his voice of pain, undeserved suffering = crisis of cosmic proportions, giant breach in bible. In suffering, there is an absence of all refuge emmanuel levinas: acuity of suffering is absence of retreat. Job"s restless terror is opposite of psalm 139 (god is everywhere: divine omnipresence is creaturely terror, for job, death is refuge b/c he doesn"t want to be exposed. Creation of humankind: original human was formed with 2 faces, one front and one back, suggests that god faces the human from both sides, divine proximity.