Biblical apocrypha and the in-betweenness of maskilic translation

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

Abstract

In recent years, the role of translation in the Jewish Enlightenment (Haskalah) has become the focus of increasing scholarly attention. Often, the maskilic engagement with translation is viewed as an unambiguous route to modernity and to modern Jewish literature. But while the maskilim’s utilization of translation as a means for cultural innovation is now almost a truism among literary historians, their hesitations surrounding the importation of foreign works into the Hebrew literary sphere have been largely overlooked. This article discusses the translation of biblical apocrypha in the early Haskalah. It argues that the tangential position of translation in general, and the translation of biblical apocrypha in particular, posited this literary activity as an especially productive platform for unpacking concerns surrounding the means, forms, and languages of interreligious dialogue. For the maskilim, translation was not merely a device for literary and cultural modernization, so much as it was a way of reflecting on the promise and perils of modernity.

Original languageEnglish
JournalJournal of Modern Jewish Studies
DOIs
StateAccepted/In press - 1 Jan 2024

Keywords

  • apocrypha
  • early Haskalah
  • eighteenth-century Hebrew literature
  • Haskalah
  • translation

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Cultural Studies
  • History
  • Sociology and Political Science
  • Political Science and International Relations

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