The sense of sight in rabbinic culture : Jewish ways of seeing in late antiquity / Rachel Neis. [electronic resource]

By:

Neis, Rachel

Material type: Text

TextSeries: Greek culture in the Roman worldPublisher: New York : Cambridge University Press, 2013Description: 1 online resource (333 pages)ISBN:

9781107290280 (e-book)

Subject(s):

Genre/Form:

Electronic books.

Additional physical formats: Print version:: Sense of sight in rabbinic culture : Jewish ways of seeing in late antiquity.DDC classification:

LOC classification:

BM496.9.V57 N45 2013

Online resources:

Click to View

Contents:

Visual theory -- God-gazing and homovisuality -- Heterovisuality, face-bread and cherubs -- Visual eros -- Eyeing idols -- Seeing sages.

Summary: "This book studies the significance of sight in rabbinic cultures across Palestine and Mesopotamia (approximately first to seventh centuries). It tracks the extent and effect to which the rabbis living in the Greco-Roman and Persian worlds sought to appropriate, recast and discipline contemporaneous understandings of sight. Sight had a crucial role to play in the realms of divinity, sexuality and gender, idolatry and, ultimately, rabbinic subjectivity. The rabbis lived in a world in which the eyes were at once potent and vulnerable: eyes were thought to touch objects of vision, while also acting as an entryway into the viewer. Rabbis, Romans, Zoroastrians, Christians and others were all concerned with the protection and exploitation of vision. Employing many different sources, Professor Neis considers how the rabbis engaged varieties of late antique visualities, along with rabbinic narrative, exegetical and legal strategies, as part of an effort to cultivate and mark a 'rabbinic eye'"-- Provided by publisher.

Holdings ( 1 )
Title notes ( 5 )

Holdings
Item type	Current library	Call number	Status	Date due	Barcode
Ebook	TUS: Midlands, Main Library Athlone Online	eBook (Browse shelf(Opens below))	Available

Includes bibliographical references and indexes.

Visual theory -- God-gazing and homovisuality -- Heterovisuality, face-bread and cherubs -- Visual eros -- Eyeing idols -- Seeing sages.

"This book studies the significance of sight in rabbinic cultures across Palestine and Mesopotamia (approximately first to seventh centuries). It tracks the extent and effect to which the rabbis living in the Greco-Roman and Persian worlds sought to appropriate, recast and discipline contemporaneous understandings of sight. Sight had a crucial role to play in the realms of divinity, sexuality and gender, idolatry and, ultimately, rabbinic subjectivity. The rabbis lived in a world in which the eyes were at once potent and vulnerable: eyes were thought to touch objects of vision, while also acting as an entryway into the viewer. Rabbis, Romans, Zoroastrians, Christians and others were all concerned with the protection and exploitation of vision. Employing many different sources, Professor Neis considers how the rabbis engaged varieties of late antique visualities, along with rabbinic narrative, exegetical and legal strategies, as part of an effort to cultivate and mark a 'rabbinic eye'"-- Provided by publisher.

Description based on print version record.

Electronic reproduction. Ann Arbor, MI : ProQuest, 2015. Available via World Wide Web. Access may be limited to ProQuest affiliated libraries.