FRINK Linked Data Fragments server

Matches in SemOpenAlex for { <https://semopenalex.org/work/W1966304849> ?p ?o ?g. }

• W1966304849 endingPage "868" @default.
• W1966304849 startingPage "863" @default.
• W1966304849 abstract "Pain and Pity in Two Postbiblical Responses to Joseph’s Power in Genesis Donald Lateiner Josephus’s first-century rewrite of ancient Jewish biblical legend and “history” (Ant. 1.17: “neither adding nor omitting anything”) and the brief, anonymous, somewhat chronologically unanchored Testament of Zebulun both address Joseph and his brothers. Both attribute unforgiving and compassionate responses by Joseph and his many brothers to others’ pain in the original biblical narrative. Françoise Mirguet’s essay innovatively pairs these two works conceived in different genres and flowing from divergent cultural expectations. The Jewish historian wrote his narrative in Aramaic, then translated it with help into Greek for the educated, wealthier Mediterranean classes thriving under Roman rule (War, praef.; cf. Ant. 20.11). This was two decades after he had promised an “archaeology” and finished his polemical Jewish War. On occasion, Josephus foregrounds pity and presents examples of the emotion in a manner familiar to readers of Aristotle’s Rhetorics and Poetics. There, pity (if an emotion at all, as Mirguet notes [p. 843]) follows someone’s appraisal from safety and emerges from a sensed superiority to the situation of the pitiable person. In contrast, and possibly enriched by Christian contaminations, Testament of Zebulun (Jewish or Jewish-Christian in origin and apparently written in Greek), foregrounds human vulnerability as an unavoidable, universal trait, and compassion, consequently, as a universally desirable response. The relatively insignificant sixth son of Jacob narrates events of his life that invite or require his deathbed meditation on mercy and compassion (surely motivating early Christians’ interest). Josephus’s Joseph, desperately appealing for supportive action and practical assistance, evokes pity in a situation far from any Hellenic theatrical stage but in the context of postclassical Hellenic values and expectations. In Testament of Zebulun, however, the pitier who is helpless to help can still show pity (emotional support) by intensifying his or her emotional display, however ineffectual. The self in these two texts calibrates its reaction toward others’ suffering differently, depending [End Page 863] on one’s own situation and on one’s view of the extent to which cognition and judgment of suffering are essential to feeling pity. Hellenists will worry that Mirguet inadequately explains or explores the vague and capacious Hellenic “rhetorical tradition.” Just what was “the influence of Aristotle’s Rhetoric on [Josephus’s] historiography” (p. 847)? Mirguet looks no further than Herodotus for the literal meaning of σπλάγχνα, the inner organs of sacrificial animals, but the noun appears earlier, in both the Iliad (1.464) and the Odyssey (3.461). She then traces the metaphorical meaning, “gut-felt compassion (root σπλάγχν-)” (p. 839)—whether anger, anxiety, or love—to its appearances in the dramatists and Theocritus, the poet of love idylls (p. 851). There the word provides the seat of erotic passion (7.99), part of the Hellenistic poets’ eroticization of all sorts of figurative vocabulary. Josephus, like previous “Hellenistic” historians, features emotions in his accounts—characters’ feelings and passions that agitated susceptible readers supplement, if not displace, dryer accounts of battle strategies, assembly debates, and partisan bickering. Such matters of state earlier filled more of the pages of Thucydides, although Herodotus’s narrative before, and Xenophon’s later, found greater room for scenes of pathos. Like these distant fifth-century congeners, Josephus claims a dedication to truth, not to entertainment or distortion from prejudice (Ant., praef.; War, praef.). Nevertheless, he also proudly proclaims himself the successful deceiver in tight quarters of many contemporaries (Ant., praef. 3.14, 26), so his own words call into question this rhetoric posturing about his dependability. Meanwhile, he faults those scurrilous compatriots who write garbled accounts designed to flatter or abuse, or who commemorate, he alleges, from ignorance, zealotry, or hearsay. If one wishes to evaluate properly Josephus’s emotional or dramatizing quotient in narratives, the better comparand would be his own lively account of the Roman war with the Jews. Otherwise, one might compare contemporary historiographers such as the Romans Tacitus or Pliny the Elder (mostly lost) or the biographers, both Greek Plutarch and the nearly contemporary North African Latinist Suetonius, who had access to the Roman imperial archives. The severely senatorial and savage critic of the emperors, Cornelius Tacitus, is..." @default.
• W1966304849 created "2016-06-24" @default.
• W1966304849 creator A5077425035 @default.
• W1966304849 date "2014-01-01" @default.
• W1966304849 modified "2023-10-17" @default.
• W1966304849 title "Pain and Pity in Two Postbiblical Responses to Joseph’s Power in Genesis" @default.
• W1966304849 cites W2035480401 @default.
• W1966304849 cites W587720740 @default.
• W1966304849 cites W614641805 @default.
• W1966304849 doi "https://doi.org/10.1353/jbl.2014.0048" @default.
• W1966304849 hasPublicationYear "2014" @default.
• W1966304849 type Work @default.
• W1966304849 sameAs 1966304849 @default.
• W1966304849 citedByCount "0" @default.
• W1966304849 crossrefType "journal-article" @default.
• W1966304849 hasAuthorship W1966304849A5077425035 @default.
• W1966304849 hasConcept C121332964 @default.
• W1966304849 hasConcept C124952713 @default.
• W1966304849 hasConcept C138885662 @default.
• W1966304849 hasConcept C142362112 @default.
• W1966304849 hasConcept C150152722 @default.
• W1966304849 hasConcept C163258240 @default.
• W1966304849 hasConcept C166957645 @default.
• W1966304849 hasConcept C171190658 @default.
• W1966304849 hasConcept C199033989 @default.
• W1966304849 hasConcept C2776142151 @default.
• W1966304849 hasConcept C2777976675 @default.
• W1966304849 hasConcept C40477301 @default.
• W1966304849 hasConcept C62520636 @default.
• W1966304849 hasConcept C74481535 @default.
• W1966304849 hasConcept C95457728 @default.
• W1966304849 hasConceptScore W1966304849C121332964 @default.
• W1966304849 hasConceptScore W1966304849C124952713 @default.
• W1966304849 hasConceptScore W1966304849C138885662 @default.
• W1966304849 hasConceptScore W1966304849C142362112 @default.
• W1966304849 hasConceptScore W1966304849C150152722 @default.
• W1966304849 hasConceptScore W1966304849C163258240 @default.
• W1966304849 hasConceptScore W1966304849C166957645 @default.
• W1966304849 hasConceptScore W1966304849C171190658 @default.
• W1966304849 hasConceptScore W1966304849C199033989 @default.
• W1966304849 hasConceptScore W1966304849C2776142151 @default.
• W1966304849 hasConceptScore W1966304849C2777976675 @default.
• W1966304849 hasConceptScore W1966304849C40477301 @default.
• W1966304849 hasConceptScore W1966304849C62520636 @default.
• W1966304849 hasConceptScore W1966304849C74481535 @default.
• W1966304849 hasConceptScore W1966304849C95457728 @default.
• W1966304849 hasIssue "4" @default.
• W1966304849 hasLocation W19663048491 @default.
• W1966304849 hasOpenAccess W1966304849 @default.
• W1966304849 hasPrimaryLocation W19663048491 @default.
• W1966304849 hasRelatedWork W1993915965 @default.
• W1966304849 hasRelatedWork W2365934634 @default.
• W1966304849 hasRelatedWork W2375210645 @default.
• W1966304849 hasRelatedWork W2381500507 @default.
• W1966304849 hasRelatedWork W2384292358 @default.
• W1966304849 hasRelatedWork W2748952813 @default.
• W1966304849 hasRelatedWork W2885566854 @default.
• W1966304849 hasRelatedWork W2899084033 @default.
• W1966304849 hasRelatedWork W2933608806 @default.
• W1966304849 hasRelatedWork W2999118069 @default.
• W1966304849 hasVolume "133" @default.
• W1966304849 isParatext "false" @default.
• W1966304849 isRetracted "false" @default.
• W1966304849 magId "1966304849" @default.
• W1966304849 workType "article" @default.