Was the Text of the Septuagint Christianized?

On the one hand, all of the deuterocanonical books and all of the supplements to Daniel, Esther, Jeremiah have Jewish origin. In fact, there are only five Christian texts within the Septuagint, perhaps six, if Job 42:17a originated from a Christian circle (which is less likely than from a Jewish milieu). The five texts are found in the Psalter. After Psa 13:3ab, Psa 13:3c–j gives a lengthy quotation of Paul’s Rom 3:12–18. In the Odes, there are four Christian texts: three passages of Luke and one ecclesiastical composition. On the other hand, New Testament verses are introduced into the Septuagint. There are, at most, 159 possible Christianized verses listed for the whole of the Septuagint of which twenty-five occur in Psalms. Of these twenty-five, nine have very limited Christianization: the verses that align with the New Testament text occur only in one, two, or three manuscripts. There are twelve cases of partial Christianization attested in more than three manuscripts and there is only one example of a complete Christianization: Psa 39:7b (40:7b MT), but even this is debated among scholars. Finally, it happens that a few words (less than half a verse) are added into the verses of the Septuagint. There are just six potential Christian additions of this kind. Of these, Psa 65:1a has to be removed. Five cases remain: Psa 37:14a; 37:21c; 49:6a; 50:9a, and 95:10a. The latter is the most famous example: instead of ‘say among the nations: “the Lord became king”’, the Coptic versions, some manuscripts and some Fathers offer ‘say among the nations: “the Lord became king from (the) wood”’. So, a connection is established between the Lord of the Psalm and the wood of Jesus’ cross. In sum, the Septuagint text is very little Christianized: the translation remains remarkably close to its Jewish origin.

A Two-Man Show: Stylometric Analysis of Personal Names in Rudolf Slánský’s Staged Trial Newspaper Reports

The paper is aimed at personal names (anthroponyms) in newspaper reports on Rudolf Slánský’s staged trial, which was held against the leaders of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia – mostly of the Jewish origin – who were “uncovered” as political enemies; the trial took place in an anti-Semitic atmosphere. The examined texts were published in the period of November 21−28,1952, in Rudé právo, the main newspaper of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia. Proper names, mostly personal names, are analysed from several perspectives. The quantitative analysis is focused on the keywords of the studied texts and typical collocations of the names. The qualitative analysis, developing the quantitatively researched data, is aimed at the image of enemy or traitor and its presentation via thematization of personal names. The ways of language presentation of the Jewish origin of the accused are in the scope of the contribution as well. Within the scope of collocation analysis, the newspaper texts on the trial were contrasted with the ones published by Rudé právo on the occasion of Rudolf Slánskýʼs 50th birthday (July 31, 1951).

The Jew Is to Be Burned: A Turning Point in the Communist Approach to the “Jewish Question” on the Eve of Catastrophe

Otto Heller, the Austrian-Czech-German communist intellectual of Jewish origin, was known almost exclusively for his 1931 orthodox Marxist book, Der Untergang des Judentums (The Decline of Judaism). A recently rediscovered unpublished manuscript of a second book on the “Jewish Question,” written by Heller in 1939 and entitled Der Jude wird verbrannt (The Jew Is to Be Burned), sheds new light on the man and his work. Furthermore, the unknown manuscript, as one of the longest communist accounts of the Jewish Question and antisemitism from that period, reveals a substantial turning point in the history of the communist discussion on those issues. Existing scholarship has identified novel political stances among communists, such as recognizing the Jews as a nation and as unique victims of Nazism only from 1942 onwards. Although Heller did not express such far-reaching political views in this lost manuscript, he did introduce an original theoretical approach to the Jewish Question. This article analyzes Heller’s theoretical innovations as early intellectual precursors of later dramatic developments in the communist political discourse.

Jesuits and Conversos as a “Tragic Couple”: Introductory Remarks

This article introduces the phenomenon of Jesuit-converso interactions, mostly in the early modern Iberian world. It summarizes the shifting attitudes of the Society of Jesus vis-à-vis New Christians of Jewish origin as actual or potential Jesuits and maps the multifaceted and variegated interplay between Jesuit priests and converso laymen, understood as a “tragic couple” relationship. This brief survey emphasizes the historiographical contribution of the last generations of Jesuit scholars, and of the five articles included in this special issue of the Journal of Jesuit Studies, to disclose a more overt “historical memory” of the Society of Jesus.

The Culmination-Book. Trying to Make Sense of the Nazi Years

Are we entitled to consider the exiled German legal historians of Jewish origin, Fritz Pringsheim, Fritz Schulz and David Daube, on equal footing with Franz Wieacker, Paul Koschaker and Helmut Coing as founding fathers of the shared European legal tradition? In this way, the asylum seekers would be equated with the perpetrators or profiteers of their expulsion. But first of all: have the exiled actually contributed something to this “shared” legal history?

Ethno-cultural Borderline: Conceptual, Typological, and Circumstantial Aspects (Alien — Other — One’s own). Third article

The final part of the triptych is devoted to the problematics of Ukrainian-Jewish literary border. Unlike two previous parts, where geoplitical and regional aspects prevailed (Galitchina, Kharkov — Donbass), here the “internal” border is focused on, or, according to M. Bakhtin, “the dialogical contact between texts (statements)” which implies the priority role of the synchronic approach. As а semantic and methodological “common denominator” for two approaches, the formula for the dialectical interconnection of categories “Alien,” “Other,” “Own” is used. The research is conducted in three directions: 1) the Jewish theme in Ukrainian literature as the “text;” the accent is put on the specificity of literary solutions; 2) writers-Jews in the liminal literary space of Ukraine, the phenomena of cultural diffusions and interferences; 3) Ukrainian writers of the Jewish origin — sociopsychological version of the ethnocultural border.

Obraz Żydówek na froncie wschodnim II wojny światowej we współczesnych rosyjskojęzycznych mediach żydowskich. Na przykładzie wydania internetowego amerykańskiego czasopisma „Jewriejskij Mir”

The Image of Jewish Women on the Eastern Front of World War II in Contemporary Russian-Language Jewish Media: The Example of the Online Edition of the American Newspaper Yevreiski Mir The main aim of this paper is to present the image of Jewish women participating in hostilities on the Eastern Front of World War II in the contemporary Russian-language Jewish media on the example of the online edition of the American newspaper Yevreiski Mir. An analysis of its articles proves that the fates of women of Jewish origin in the Red Army and the Soviet resistance movement are used by the authors to strengthen social ties among Russian-speaking Jews. Moreover, it is shown that the use of biographical threads of selected Jewish women helps journalists create a new narrative in which Jewish women are presented not only as victims but also as war heroines proud of their origin.

Fiction from “Semi-Asia”: Galicia, Podolia, Bukovina in Karl-Emil Franzos’ Texts

The purpose of this article is to analyze the texts of Karl Emil Franzoz, reflecting in an ironic, comic way the peculiarities of the existence of different ethnic groups in the multi-confessional, multicultural region of Galicia, Podolia and Bukovina during their entry into the Habsburg Empire. The sources of the research are short stories and ethnographic sketches of an Austrian writer of Jewish origin, an expert on the way of life and customs of the inhabitants of the eastern provinces of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, which he called semi-Asia due to the contrast of their cultural poles. Analysis shows that an adherent of the ideas of the Enlightenment, K.E. Franzos is critical toward the traditional views of his fellow Jews, but the target of his criticism is also the Christian population. Due to the fact that Franzos combined closeness to both Jewish tradition and European culture, he was able to depict the multicultural situation of Austria-Hungary volumetric, without one-sided pathos and accusatory tonality, while maintaining an ironic distance.

Experiencing the multiculturalism of people of Jewish origin in the perspective of intergenerational transmission

In this paper we present the ways in which young adults of Jewish origin experience multiculturalism. Gaining such experiences helps to shape self-knowledge and to build narrative identity. We also analyze the role that different cultures play for the socialization of a young person. The following concepts constitute the theoretical axis of our article: cultural pattern, habitus, intergenerational transmission, communicative knowledge, conjunctive knowledge and multiculturalism. We supplement our consideration of them with data from interviews that were conducted in a community of young adults of Jewish origin. We refer primarily to such life experiences as: sources of knowledge about oneself and Jewish culture, intergenerational transmission, the sense of one’s own difference, giving meaning to one’s origin, the need for community, intellectualism and mysticism, and constructing one’s own identity. The research referred to falls within a qualitative orientation.