Philosophical Themes in the Tanakh: The Idea of Encounter

While various philosophical approaches to Tanakh abound, this chapter probes a dialogical interpretation of Tanakh. Retaining the main categories of philosophical consideration—God, creation, revelation and so on—this chapter places at the center of its approach the concept of ‘encounter’ as development by Judaism’s main existentialist and phenomenological thinkers of the modern period including Abraham Joshua Heschel and Franz Rosenzweig. In this dialogical approach to Tanakh, the concept of encounter will be analyzed at three main levels: encounter with Tanakh, encounter in Tanakh and the role of the interpreter in modern continental philosophy. The role of the interpreter includes an evaluation of the concept of translation as interpretation and develops the view of some of the main Jewish philosophers of the modern period, that the interpretation of otherness is the primary encounter from this dialogical perspective.