The Beast Between Us the Construction of Identity and Alterity Through Animal Symbolism in Late Antique Jewish and Christian Tradition
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DOI number: DOI - 10.14754/CEU.2017.11 Doctoral Dissertation The Beast between Us The Construction of Identity and Alterity through Animal Symbolism in Late Antique Jewish and Christian Tradition By: Andor Kelenhegyi Supervisor(s): Carsten L. Wilke Submitted to the Medieval Studies Department, and the Doctoral School of History Central European University, Budapest in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Medieval Studies, and for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in History CEU eTD Collection Budapest, Hungary 2017 Table of contents Acknowledgements .............................................................................................................................. 5 I. Introduction....................................................................................................................................... 7 I.I. Animal symbolism and the study of Jewish-Christian interrelations ......................................... 7 I.I.II. Research questions, sources and methodology ................................................................. 10 I.I.III. State of the art and hypothesis ......................................................................................... 12 I.II. Animal symbolism and human communities .......................................................................... 19 I.II.I. The Darwinian turn ........................................................................................................... 19 I.II.II. Animals describing reality ............................................................................................... 23 I.III. The Animal Symbolism of Jewish and Christian Traditions ................................................. 27 I.III.I. Animal symbolism in the Hebrew Bible ......................................................................... 27 I.III.II. Animal symbolism in the New Testament ..................................................................... 31 I.III.III. The Church fathers’ animal symbolism ........................................................................ 34 I.III.IV. The rabbis’ animal symbolism ..................................................................................... 37 I.IV. The frameworks of the dissertation ....................................................................................... 41 I.IV.I. The structure of the dissertation ...................................................................................... 43 2. The animal that is too close ............................................................................................................ 45 2.1. The Graeco-Roman context .................................................................................................... 47 2.2. Rabbis define humankind........................................................................................................ 50 2.2.1. Humans in between .......................................................................................................... 50 2.2.2. Hagggada and the hybrid human ..................................................................................... 51 CEU eTD Collection 2.2.3. Halakha and animalization ............................................................................................... 58 2.2.4. The crisis of animalization ............................................................................................... 62 2.3. Church Fathers define humankind .......................................................................................... 66 2.3.1. The influence of Stoic tradition ....................................................................................... 67 2.3.2. The dualistic human ......................................................................................................... 71 2.3.3. The role of reason ............................................................................................................ 75 2.3.4. Animalization and its consequences ................................................................................ 79 2.3.5. Stable borders ................................................................................................................... 82 3. The animal that thinks .................................................................................................................... 85 3.1. Whatever happened to sacrifices? ........................................................................................... 85 3.1.2. The end of sacrifices in Graeco-Roman context .............................................................. 86 3.1.3. The spiritualization of sacrifices ...................................................................................... 89 3.1.4. The allegorization of sacrifices ........................................................................................ 92 3.2. Church fathers and animal sacrifices ...................................................................................... 97 3.2.1. From a gentle lamb to the martyrs ................................................................................. 101 3.3. Rabbis and animal sacrifices ................................................................................................. 110 3.3.1. Isaac, the ram and Israel ................................................................................................. 112 3.4. The sheep and its mentor ...................................................................................................... 118 3.4.1. Royal shepherds of the past ........................................................................................... 123 3.4.2. Teaching shepherds of the future ................................................................................... 125 3.5. Conclusions ........................................................................................................................... 130 4. The animal that seduces ............................................................................................................... 131 4.1. Animal impurity as an identity marker ................................................................................. 131 4.1.1. The roots of metaphorizing impurity ............................................................................. 134 4.2. Moral animals ....................................................................................................................... 139 4.2.1. The consumption of immorality ..................................................................................... 142 4.3. Cruel oppressors and hypocritical pigs ................................................................................. 152 4.3.1. The most troubling swine ............................................................................................... 154 CEU eTD Collection 4.3.2. The impure Empires ....................................................................................................... 159 4.3.3. The hypocritical pig ....................................................................................................... 162 4.4. Impurity as a taxonomy of the world .................................................................................... 165 4.5. Conclusions ........................................................................................................................... 171 5. The animal that destroys .............................................................................................................. 173 5.1. An ever threatening wilderness and its inhabitants ............................................................... 173 5.1.1. The Old Testament’s Verwilderung ............................................................................... 174 5.1.2. The wild beasts of the New Testament and early Christian tradition ............................ 177 5.2. The porous boundary between wild and domesticated animals ............................................ 184 5.2.1. Who are the conquering sheep? ..................................................................................... 185 5.2.2. And who are the wolves? ............................................................................................... 189 5.3. The wild nature within .......................................................................................................... 192 5.3.1. The two lions .................................................................................................................. 193 5.3.2. The individual and the communal wild beast ................................................................ 198 5.3.3. The hunter and the hunted .............................................................................................. 202 5.4. Daniel’s kingdoms ................................................................................................................ 205 5.4.1. The rabbis read Daniel’s vision into the present ............................................................ 208 5.4.2. The Church fathers read Daniel’s vision into the past ................................................... 214 5.5. Solutions of the wild beast-problem ..................................................................................... 219 5.5.1. The rabbis’ eschatology: removal of the wild beast ...................................................... 219 5.5.2. The Church fathers’ eschatology: ultimate taming of otherness...................................