This essay argues that there is a relationship between the presentation and evaluation of emotions, on the one hand, and the genre(s) in which these are present, on the other hand. A significant difference can be observed between narrative and paraenetic texts. In narrative texts, we find a plurality of emotions that are evaluated in a differentiated manner, accepted as reality, and linked to the body. In paraenetic texts, emotions are often reduced to a single alternative. Great authorities urge one to avoid these emotions in future, whereas narratives tend to give the reader the opportunity to take one’s distance from them. Different anthropological possibilities of perceiving and coping with reality correspond to the different genres.
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A. Wierzbicka, Emotions across Languages and Cultures: Diversity and Universals (Studies in Emotion and Social Interaction, II; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999). In addition to the question of concepts, there is also the question of the universality of emotions. Here too, we must be cautious. Many historians, such as R. Boddice, have recently pointed ‘to historical differences in the ways in which emotions themselves were conceptualized (as passions, e.g., centred in the heart, the spleen, and only latterly in the brain)’. See R. Boddice, ‘The Affective Turn: Historicizing the Emotions’, in C. Tileagă and J. Byford (eds.), Psychology and History: Interdisciplinary Explorations (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014), pp. 150–51.
On this, see T. de Bruin, The Great Controversy: The Individual’s Struggle between Good and Evil in the Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs and in Their Jewish and Christian Contexts (NTOA, 106; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2015), pp. 36–42. M. Winter (Das Vermächtnis Jesu und die Abschiedsworte der Väter [FRLANT, 161; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht 1994], pp. 199–204) proposed the genre of ‘Vermächtnisrede’.
E. von Nordheim, Die Lehre der Alten, I. Das Testament als Literaturgattung im Judentum der hellenistisch-römischen Zeit (ALGHJ, 13.1; Leiden: Brill, 1980), vol. 1, p. 15; de Bruin, Controversy, p. 43.
T. Onuki, Gnosis und Stoa: Eine Untersuchung zum Apokryphon des Johannes (NTOA, 9; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1989), pp. 35–37.
See Hollander and de Jonge, Commentary, p. 277. In contrast to Hollander and de Jonge, J. Becker (Die Testamente der zwölf Patriarchen [JSHRZ III, Gütersloh: Gütersloher Verlag, 1980], p. 92) proposes that the version of manuscript β (“I rejoiced”) is secondary and influenced by T. Dan 1:5.
Translation by de Jonge, Testaments, p. 91; see also M. Konradt, ‘“Fliehet die Unzucht” (TestRub 5,5): Sexualethische Perspektiven in den Testamenten der Zwölf Patriarchen’, in M. Konradt and E. Schläpfer (eds.), Anthropologie und Ethik im Frühjudentum und im Neuen Testament (WUNT, 322; Tübingen: Mohr, 2014), p. 265 including n. 77 (cf. also T. Reu. 5:3b).
See I. Rosen-Zvi, ‘Bilhah the Temptress: The Testament of Reuben and the “Birth of Sexuality”’, JQR 96.1 (2006), pp. 65–94. In T. Reu 3:11–15 (unlike its ‘parallel’ in Jubilees 33), the emphasis lies (1) on the διάνοια, which is influenced by the sight of the naked Bilhah, and (2) on the thoughts influenced by this sight, which precede the action (Konradt, ‘“Fliehet die Unzucht”’, p. 252). This is why T. Reu. 4:1 also exhorts: ‘Pay no attention, therefore, to women’s beauty’.
On this, see U. Luz, Das Evangelium nach Matthäus (Matt. 26–28) (EKK, I.4; Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag, 2002), p. 272 n. 43.
See G. Theißen, ‘Frauen im Umfeld Jesu’, Jesus als historische Gestalt: Beiträge zur Jesusforschung. Zum 60. Geburtstag von G. Theißen (ed. A. Merz; FRLANT, 202; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2003), p. 103.
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This essay argues that there is a relationship between the presentation and evaluation of emotions, on the one hand, and the genre(s) in which these are present, on the other hand. A significant difference can be observed between narrative and paraenetic texts. In narrative texts, we find a plurality of emotions that are evaluated in a differentiated manner, accepted as reality, and linked to the body. In paraenetic texts, emotions are often reduced to a single alternative. Great authorities urge one to avoid these emotions in future, whereas narratives tend to give the reader the opportunity to take one’s distance from them. Different anthropological possibilities of perceiving and coping with reality correspond to the different genres.
All Time | Past 365 days | Past 30 Days | |
---|---|---|---|
Abstract Views | 386 | 45 | 11 |
Full Text Views | 301 | 16 | 1 |
PDF Views & Downloads | 187 | 48 | 3 |