על תרומתן של תיאוריות מודרניות להתפתחות חקר המיתוס במדעי היהדות

תקציר

This article reviews the development of Jewish Myth Study in the transition from the twentieth century to the twenty-first century, includes reference to the complicated relationship between both main research schools active in the second half of the twentieth century: Structuralism and Post-Structuralism. The analysis of ancient texts as the Hebrew Bible, the New Testament, Second Temple literature, and rabbinic literature by using Modern theories' methods, illuminate these texts in a new light, and in the same time gives opportunity to reexamine the contribution of Modern method in Jewish studies. Post-Structuralism comes out against its previous: the 'Structuralism', but not clean from criticism. For example the criticism against Deconstruction is that it does not define itself, it has no goal and it acts without intention, it just destroys concepts which are carrier the western rationality, runs radical skepticism, culminating in kind of relativism and paving the way to generalized nihilism. Although the criticism is mutual, because of the consolidation and the critical impact of the Post-Structuralist theories, it is necessary to examine the attitude of contemporary myth research in Jewish studies to the Structuralist theories from the perspective of fifty years late, and their relevance facing the theoretical development.