Abraham Abulafia's Mystical Theology of the Divine Name and its Philosophical Revision in Walter Benjamin
The thirteenth century kabbalist Abraham Abulafia held Hebrew to be the divine language, designed by God as an ontological aspect of reality. Through meditating on and deconstructing names into their letters, one could then engage in the process of reunifying reality into the primordial Name of God,...
| Published in: | Medieval mystical theology |
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| Main Author: | |
| Format: | Electronic Article |
| Language: | English |
| Check availability: | HBZ Gateway |
| Journals Online & Print: | Drawer...
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| Fernleihe: | Fernleihe für die Fachinformationsdienste |
| Published: |
Routledge, Taylor and Francis Group
[2015]
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| In: |
Medieval mystical theology
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| IxTheo Classification: | AG Religious life; material religion BH Judaism TG High Middle Ages TK Recent history VA Philosophy |
| Further subjects: | B
Abulafia
B Language B Messianism B Judaism B Kabbalah B Benjamin B Name |
| Online Access: |
Volltext (Resolving-System) |
| Summary: | The thirteenth century kabbalist Abraham Abulafia held Hebrew to be the divine language, designed by God as an ontological aspect of reality. Through meditating on and deconstructing names into their letters, one could then engage in the process of reunifying reality into the primordial Name of God, the Tetragrammaton. This paper offers an original analysis, aligning Abulafia with Walter Benjamin's writings on language wherein the world speaks itself phenomenally to human beings, who must take an active role in translating this silent speech. Here the human, as name-giver, is finalizer of reality; by translating base phenomena into named entities humanity elevates them into a new realm, beyond the merely real into the true. This epistemic-soteriological theory speaks to common speculative questions about language and the world, offering a new way of understanding how human beings can come to know the world as-it-is, and as-it-should-be; a way that is philosophical, yet based firmly in Medieval Jewish theology. |
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| ISSN: | 2046-5734 |
| Contains: | Enthalten in: Medieval mystical theology
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| Persistent identifiers: | DOI: 10.1179/2046572615Z.00000000033 |