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This article deals with Michel Tournier as a writer of hypertexts. The first chapter of "Gaspard, Melchior et Balthazar" is considered with respect to two possible unmarked hypotextual connections. The first is a short story by Anatole France entitled "Balthasar", and the song of songs is the key element that connects France's and Tournier's texts. The second is an episode from Genesis which I term "The sister-wife Hoax". The main concern in this study is the issue of human dignity as it relates to race and sexuality.
This essay deals with two retellings of Genesis: Thomas Mann's "Joseph and his brothers" and Anita Diamant's "The red tent". Both authors note the presence of implicit pagan tendencies among the women of Jacob's clan (Gen 31:19; 35:2) and develop this subtext for their respective ideological purposes. Thomas Mann creates a dichotomy between the backwardness of the pagan female realm and the progressive nature of the monotheistically-oriented patriarchs. The path toward modern humanist values comes from the likes of Jacob and Joseph rather than Rachel and Leah in Mann's novel. Anita Diamant, on the other hand, adopts the opposite attitude, namely, that the paganism of Rachel, Leah, as well as other women in Jacob's family, is a humane and natural form of spirituality in contrast to the bloodthirsty Yahwism of Jacob and his sons. The latter point is illustrated by the sacking of Shechem. In order to question the patriarchal stance of the Old Testament Diamant reverses the key values informing the theology of the Bible. Thus, in "The red tent" Jacob's wives venerate the Ashera in particular. The latter constitutes a challenge to the stance of the Deuteronomic History where the cult of the Ashera is viewed as a key reason behind God's decision to let the Babylonians destroy the Southern Kingdom of Judah. And since Mann's novel upholds the patriarchal spirit of the biblical text, Diamant enters into debate with the continuity of female disempowerment which reaches all the way from Genesis to "Joseph and his brothers".
The pictorial art of the Church, as a spiritual product of the Christian civilisation, has continually received great influences from its ecclesiastical tradition and it was defined by its formal aesthetical standards and its iconographic preferences. A more nuanced reading of the parallels can be attained by placing the images in their visual context, which would allow a better appreciation of the meanings within. The biblical story of Adam and Eve, which is the theme of the following thesis, reflects the differentiation between the Eastern and the Western understanding of the events of the history of the holy Oikonomia, a point, which is the major ground for the development of the relative pictorial motifs. The protoplasts are the protagonists from their creation and life in paradise, the fall and expulsion until their resurrection through Christ. Their story is visualised in a number of scenes and episodes, having thus their original sin and resurrection for specific reasons centralised. This doctoral thesis attempts to collect as many parallels of the scenes is possible, trying to collate the Eastern with the Western visual approach in a deductive way, in order to reach our constructive conclusions and make available the combination of the art, theology and liturgy in the scenes of Adam and Eve in Genesis and in Resurrection (Anastasis). The reading we tried to perform was based upon the specific iconographical elements, which were worth to be commented. Our aim was to detect the direct bond between the production of art and the relevant patristic and apocryphal writings or even the theological theories, by quoting texts from the ecclesiastical literature, as well as the liturgical praxis.