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This book provides a hermeneutical reflection on the biblical notion of labor, combining texts from the book of Genesis with the conceptions of work in psychoanalysts and philosophers such as Sigmund Freud and Karl Marx.
List of contents
Part One
What about the J Tradition?
The Bible and Cuneiform Texts: A Primary Stage of Intertextuality
What Do Philosophers Say?
First Excursus: The General and the Particular
The Garden Raises the Problem of Space and, Subsidiarily, of Evil
Homo Faber
Home and Exile: Encountering the Other
Once More on Production
Adam Is Property Tenant; Consumption
The Relation with God
Work Mechanized
Today's "Surplus Value"
Entelechy
Part Two
Introduction
A Response to Sigmund Freud
On Freud's Theory of Phylogenesis
Libido or Aedificatio?
Work as Knowledge
Work, Knowledge, and Death
Second Excursus: Ernest Becker
Work and Civilization: Morality and Guilt
Work and Worldview
Third Excursus: The Commandment
Synopsis
Part Three
For a Dialectical Understanding
Peripeteia
A Concluding Reflection on Dialectical Work and Creativity
The Dialectic Is Dialogical
The Enigmatic (Dialectic) Relationship of Israel and Land
On Lex Talionis
On Divorce
On Kashrut
Genesis 3 Revisited
Rebellion
Back to the Tree of Knowledge
Postscript: Dialectical Criticism among Other Methodologies
About the author
Andre LaCocque is emeritus professor of Hebrew Scripture and Director of the Center of Jewish-Christian Studies at the Chicago Theological Seminary. He is the author or coauthor of numerous books, including the Cascade Books trilogy on the Yahwist: The Trial of Innocence (2006), Onslaught against Innocence (2008) and The Captivity of Innocence (2009). Other volumes include Thinking Biblically (1998, with Paul Ricoeur) and Jesus the Central Jew (2015).
Summary
This book provides a hermeneutical reflection on the biblical notion of labor, combining texts from the book of Genesis with the conceptions of work in psychoanalysts and philosophers such as Sigmund Freud and Karl Marx.
