Westphal (2008, 47) concludes that "God of Levinas is not God of the Bible" and asks: "Are we dealing here with a
postbiblical Jewish reduction of religion to ethics, one that would rescue ethics from bankruptcy in a postmodern world by returning to Feuerbach and transferring all assets of the divine bank account to the human account?
Second, the debate featured an innovative approach to Christian anti-jewish polemic, as Paul made use of
postbiblical rabbinic teachings in an attempt to prove the truth of Christianity.
According to the
postbiblical, authoritative rabbinic
(9) Later Christian usage expands the patriarchal franchise to include pre-Abrahamic figures such as Adam, Abel, and Noah (the so-called "antediluvian patriarchs") and to
postbiblical bishops presiding over the chief sees of the early Church--for example, Alexandria, Antioch, Jerusalem, and Constantinople.
In shaping a poetry that is indebted to a biblical and
postbiblical archive at the same time that it seeks to imagine a sensibility differing from that associated with religious rituals, Reznikoff seizes upon this essential openness characteristic of the secular.
Although this story's role in Christian tradition has created obstacles for the historical study of Herodias and Salome, it is still conceivable to extract a degree of underlying truth by analyzing the biblical patterns of feminine characterization and the corresponding
postbiblical framework of heresy.
Fraade, Enosh and His Generation: Pre-Israelite Hero and History in
Postbiblical Interpretation (Chico, Calif.: Scholars Press, 1984); J.
Cunningham also appreciates various strategies employed to limit the application of Nostra aetate, among which are: subordination of it to other conciliar documents; lack of interest in both
postbiblical Judaism and contemporary Jewish self-understanding; using the "Letter to the Hebrews" as a way of relativizing the Letter to the Romans; embracing the conversion of others as part of interreligious dialogue (2:30-31).
While the enmity between Ishmael and Isaac is often considered proverbial, Bakhos is at pains to explain "neither the Qur'an nor the Bible portrays them as rivals." Rather this opposition stems from the
postbiblical period, in which speculation concerning reasons for the repudiation of Ishmael becomes commonplace.
The first two chapters of the book are historiographical, utilizing the concept of "La Longue Duree" (9) to frame biblical and
postbiblical history, both sacred and secular.
one of creation, provided we do not restrict our understanding of the term to the traditional, but
postbiblical, doctrine of creatio ex nihilo.