Levinas Faces Biblical Figures

This collection of essays is an attempt to capture the drama of the encounter, of the facing of Levinas and the biblical text. It seeks to link Jewish experience and Levinasian themes such as responsibility, substitution, hospitality, suffering and forgiveness, and at the same time make the biblical text accessible in a new way. The book offers new insights on the opening up of Levinass thought and biblical stories to one another; it considers the ways in which Levinas can open up the biblical text to requestioning, and how the biblical text can inform our reading of Levinas. Setting up in dialogue the heteronomic texts the narrative texts of the bible and Levinass philosophical texts allows an enforced and renewed understanding of both. The examination of these issues is pursued from diverse perspectives and disciplines, probing the role biblical figures play in Levinass thought and the manner by which to approach them. Do the biblical allusions serve in Levinass thought merely as a rhetorical and literary device, as illustrations of his ideas, or perhaps they have a deeper philosophical meaning, which contributes to his project in general? Do the references to biblical figures work in Levinass philosophy in a way that other literary figures are incapable of, and how do these references comply with his conflicted attitude towards literature?