Description
Book SynopsisTo better understand the phenomenon of Literature in the Second Degree – in Jewish and Biblical studies often characterized as parabiblical or Rewritten Bible – the current volume applies the theories of Gerard Genette to ancient and medieval literature from various cultures. Literature in the Second Degree realigns earlier (authoritative) texts to the dynamics of developing cultures and their changing cultural memories. In the case of authoritative base texts, Literature in the Second Degree reaffirms their authority by way of interpretative actualization. In the case of non-authoritative base texts it replaces them to effect cultural forgetting. Far from being just literary forgery (pseudepigraphy), Literature in the Second Degree has an important function in the development of the ancient and medieval cultures.
Table of ContentsAbbreviations Preface Introduction In the Second Degree: Ancient Jewish Paratextual Literature in the Context of Graeco-Roman and Ancient Near Eastern Literature Armin Lange I. Ancient Judaism Hypertextuality and the ―Parabiblical‖ Dead Sea Scrolls George J. Brooke The Book of Jubilees as Paratextual Literature Jaques T. A. G. M. van Ruiten II. Graeco-Roman World Trojan Palimpsests: The Relation of Greek Tragedy to the Homeric Epics Annemarie AmbühlThe Homeric Epics as Palimpsests Georg Danek III. Ancient Egypt and the Ancient Near East From Ritual to Text to Intertext: A New Look on the Dreams in Ludlul Bēl Nēmeqi Beate Pongratz-Leisten Priestly Texts, Recensions, Rewritings and Paratexts in the Late Egyptian Period Sydney H. Aufrère IV. Late Ancient and Medieval Paratextual Literature Rabbinic Paratexts: The Case of Midrash Lamentations Rabba Philip S. Alexander Some Considerations on Enoch/Metatron in the Jewish Mystical Tradition Felicia Waldman Three Latin Paratexts from Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages (―Sulpicia,‖ ―Seneca‖—―Paulus,‖ Carmen navale) Kurt Smolak Paratextual Literature in Early Christian Art (Acta Pauli et Theclae) Renate J. Pillinger Paratextual Literature in Action: Historical Apocalypses with the Names of Daniel and Isaiah in Byzantine and Old Bulgarian Tradition (11th–13th Centuries) Anissava Miltenova
