TRANSFORMATIONS OF THE BIBLICAL NARRATIVE IN JEWISH CULTURE (based on the works of KThA professor Yakym Olesnytsky)

Abstract

The article represents the work of the prominent Kyiv Hebrew scholar and biblical scholar, professor of the Kyiv Theological Academy, Yakym Olesnytskyi. This researcher was one of the first in domestic humanitarian science to analyze the Haggadic layer of Talmudic writing. Metamorphoses of biblical images and plots, and events of the ancient history of the Jewish people, which arose under the influence of various mythological, philosophical, and folklore traditions, were discovered. Olesnytsky also distinguished himself with a deep historical and textological analysis of the development of the ancient Hebrew biblical text. Based on the little-studied works of the Kyiv biblical scholar, the transformations of the biblical narrative in the medieval Judaism have been identified. It is primarily about the transformations that appeared in the formation of the canonical text of the Jewish tradition (from the Yamnia canon to the Masoretic versions). Researched by Olesnytsky, socalled «tendential corrections» made by Jewish scribes of the pre-Masoretic tradition had reasons not only religious and dogmatic but also cultural and even political. Also interesting are the transformations that took place during the development of Talmudic aggadic culture. Thus, the aggadic picture of the world became the product of a religious fantasy fueled by both biblical prophetic religious experience, and alternative mysticism. Thus, according to Olesnytskyi, aggadic pneumatology demonstrates a peculiar deification of the Torah, full of pantheistic motives. The biblical narrative about the creation of the world, living beings, and man by God appears as the mystical and symbolic basis of the architecture of the universe and the righteousness of man. The Hagadic doctrine of metempsychosis is full of symbolism of the sacred unity of each person with all living things on Earth.