Language:
English
Year of publication:
2021
Titel der Quelle:
"Into Life"
Angaben zur Quelle:
(2021) 139-193
Keywords:
Rosenzweig, Franz, Criticism and interpretation
;
Bible Translating
;
Philosophy
;
Jewish philosophy 20th century
;
Art Philosophy 20th century
;
History
;
Art and religion
Abstract:
According to Siegfried Kracauer the Buber-Rosenzweig Bible translation was an expression of a religious renewal that in an anachronistic and artificial way tried to revive a form of truth that he saw as overcome by the profane reality in modernity. What was for Kracauer merely religious sensationalism was for Rosenzweig an answer to what he saw as the pressing problem of a crisis of orientation in modernity, but also a need to reformulate the relationship between Germanness and Judaism for his own time. Against the background of Kracauer’s critique and the debate that revolves around it, the following essay explores how Rosenzweig formulated an answer in his approach to language and translation and in his theory of art, and thereby shows how he developed his position against what he characterizes as the premises of the idealist tradition. Rosenzweig’s critique was a struggle through what he saw as the contradictions of modernity and the false promise of freedom and autonomy. The essay asks to what extent Rosenzweig entangles himself in the contradictions that he wanted to overcome. Can these contradictions be found in the project of the Bible translation and in Rosenzweig’s work more generally? Can his endeavor be characterized as what Theodor W. Adorno described as a Dialectic of Enlightenment that has been “broken off too early” as a longing for a new form of heteronomy?
DOI:
10.1163/9789004468559_008
URL:
Locate this publication in Israeli libraries
