The Garden of Double Messages: Deconstructing Hierarchical Oppositions in the Garden Story
This article is dedicated to the analysis of four hierarchical oppositions in the Garden of Eden story: ‘good-bad’ (‘Good-‘Evil’), ‘male-female’, ‘human-animal’ (‘culture-nature’), ‘life-death’ (‘cosmos-chaos’). A deconstructive reading of the story is proposed which subverts these oppositions. Seve...
| Main Author: | |
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| Format: | Electronic Article |
| Language: | English |
| Check availability: | HBZ Gateway |
| Journals Online & Print: | Drawer...
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| Fernleihe: | Fernleihe für die Fachinformationsdienste |
| Published: |
Sage
2003
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| In: |
Journal for the study of the Old Testament
Year: 2003, Volume: 27, Issue: 4, Pages: 439-460 |
| Online Access: |
Volltext (lizenzpflichtig) |
| Parallel Edition: | Non-electronic
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| Summary: | This article is dedicated to the analysis of four hierarchical oppositions in the Garden of Eden story: ‘good-bad’ (‘Good-‘Evil’), ‘male-female’, ‘human-animal’ (‘culture-nature’), ‘life-death’ (‘cosmos-chaos’). A deconstructive reading of the story is proposed which subverts these oppositions. Several double messages can be discovered in the story, including: eating from the Tree of Knowledge is both ‘good’ and ‘bad’; ‘female’ both precedes ‘male’ and represents a later ‘supplement’ to it; the source of (the corruption of) culture lies in nature, but nature itself is represented as something late and ‘supplementary’, a kind of ‘culture’; the world into which Adam and Eve were exiled reflects both Life and Death, Cosmos and a (partial) return to Chaos. |
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| ISSN: | 1476-6728 |
| Contains: | Enthalten in: Journal for the study of the Old Testament
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| Persistent identifiers: | DOI: 10.1177/030908920302700403 |