Tanakh Epistemology: Knowledge and Power, Religious and Secular

by Douglas Yoder

Overview

In this volume, Douglas Yoder uses the tools of modern and postmodern philosophy and biblical criticism to elucidate the epistemology of the Tanakh, the collection of writings that comprise the Hebrew Bible. Despite the conceptual sophistication of the Tanakh, its epistemology has been overlooked in both religious and secular hermeneutics. The concept of revelation, the genre of apocalypse, and critiques of ideology and theory are all found within or derive from epistemic texts of the Tanakh. Yoder examines how philosophers such as Spinoza, Hume, and Kant interacted with such matters. He also explores how the motifs of writing, reading, interpretation, image, and animals, topics that figure prominently in the work of Derrida, Foucault, and Nietzsche, appear also in the Tanakh. An understanding of Tanakh epistemology, he concludes, can lead to new appraisals of religious and secular life throughout the modern world.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781108498609
Publisher:	Cambridge University Press
Publication date:	05/21/2020
Pages:	420
Product dimensions:	6.34(w) x 9.29(h) x 1.10(d)

About the Author

Douglas Yoder is an independent scholar of philosophy and biblical literature.

Table of Contents

1. Reading epistemology in the Tanakh; 2. Unveiling knowledge/power; 3. Apokalypto, revelation, Imperium; 4. A revelatory observable; 5. Sees hears knows; 6. Qoheleth's critique of wisdom, knowledge, and critical thought; 7. Tanakh epistemology in modernity; 8. Tanakh epistemology and postmodernism; 9. Synthesis; 10. Consequences; Conclusion.

Editorial Reviews

‘… Yoder’s prose is generally clear and accessible, his explicitly nonlinear approach to his subject matter may challenge nonspecialists.’ J. A. Gauthier, Choice

‘… a wide-ranging study of epistemology in the Tanakh … A very challenging and rewarding book.’ Norman S. Wilson, Journal for the Study of the Old Testament

From the Publisher