Language:
English
Year of publication:
2020
Titel der Quelle:
"His Pen and Ink Are a Powerful Mirror'"
Angaben zur Quelle:
(2020) 329-349
Keywords:
Yahuda, Yitshak Ben Binyamin,
;
Hebrew prose literature History and criticism
;
Arabic literature Influence
;
Jews History Middle Ages, 500-1500
;
Martyrdom Judaism
;
Cultural relations
Abstract:
In this article I take the story of a Jewish female wine merchant (chapter 28, Mishle he-ʿarav) as a witness of the phenomenon of cultural translation that was developing within the Jewish communities in Medieval Iberia and Provence. I present the Hebrew transcription of the story and provide the first English translation. Then, I examine the motivations that led the author of the work to stress the religion of the wine seller and the consequences of this fact from a cultural translation perspective. The objective is not to find the source and parallels of the story but to understand its meaning in a specific cultural context. Therefore, this article offers my reading of the story as a multilayered text in which we can see intermingled traces of different cultural traditions: the story of the hermit Barṣīṣā, the doctrine of martyrdom in Judaism and the ḥudud crimes in Islamic law.
DOI:
10.1163/9789004407541_018
URL:
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