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In the Beginning Was a Mistake…

Author(s): Monika Rudaś-Grodzka
Subject(s): History, Philosophy, Literary Texts, Jewish studies, Fiction, History of Philosophy, Epistemology, Ancient World, Theology and Religion, Jewish Thought and Philosophy, Ancient Philosphy
Published by: Instytut Badań Literackich Polskiej Akademii Nauk
Keywords: Timaeus; Odradek; Franz Kafka; demiurge; Gnosis; Platonism; Kabbalah; mistake; pleroma; kenoma (emptiness); Tzimtzum; anamorphosis

Summary/Abstract: Plato’s Timaeus, a dialogue on the creation of the world and the soul of the world, mentions a hidden mistake or defect inscribed into the structure of the cosmos. Gnostic philosophers examined this passage in the first and second centuries. In the Syrian-Egyptian writings of the Nag Hammadi Library, this mistake, on which matter is founded, becomes key to understanding the world as emptiness (kenoma). A similar perspective can be found in Isaac Luria’s Kabbalistic ideas as well as in the works of Franz Kafka. The latter’s short story ‘The Cares of a Family Man,’ a testimony to spiritual experience in which the author approaches the limits of what is human, has been variously interpreted by Theodor Adorno and other philosophers. Walter Benjamin and Gershom Scholem have made Odradek a reference point in their theological discussions. Rudaś-Grodzka’s anamorphic approach, meanwhile, presents a new reading of the story.

  • Issue Year: 2016
  • Issue No: 2
  • Page Range: 412-431
  • Page Count: 20
  • Language: Polish