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by Werner H. Kelber (Editor), Bruce D. Chilton (Editor)
As form criticism arose, the French anthropologist Marcel Jousse developed a hermeneutical paradigm, global in scope and prescient in its vision but opposed to the philological paradigm of biblical studies. While the philological methodology came to define modernity's biblical hermeneutics, Jousse's rhythmically energized paradigm was marginalized and largely forgotten. Although Jousse has left relatively few traces in writing, many of his more than one thousand lectures, delivered at four different academic institutions in Paris between 1931 and 1957, have been edited and translated into English by Edgard Sienaert. The Forgotten Compass surveys Jousse's views on biblical tradition and scholarship, documenting the relevance of his paradigm for current biblical studies. What distinguishes Jousse's paradigm is that it is firmly established within the orbit of ancient communications and deeply rooted in Jewish tradition. The Forgotten Compass challenges readers to come to appreciate the print Bible's lack of fluency in the very sensibilities privileged by Jousse's paradigm and to raise consciousness about the multivocal, multisensory culture in which the biblical traditions emerged and from which they drew their initial nourishment.
Author Biography
Werner H. Kelber is the Isla Carroll and Percy E. Turner Professor Emeritus of Biblical Studies at Rice University. He is the author or editor of many books, among them The Oral and the Written Gospel (1997), Imprints, Voiceprints, and Footprints (2013), and Oral-Scribal Dimensions of Scripture, Piety, and Practice (coeditor; Cascade Books, 2016).
Bruce D. Chilton is the Bernard Iddings Bell Professor of Philosophy and Religion at Bard College. His many books include The Way of Jesus (2010), A Galilean Rabbi and His Bible (Wipf & Stock, 2013), and The Herods (2021).
