« I am the Messiah »: Reflections on Emmanuel Levinas’ messianism
Keywords:
Messianism, subjectivity, responsibility, historyAbstract
This text aims to present Levinas’ interpretation of the Jewish Messianism, particularly its rabbinic version, in contrast with the popular or apocalyptic version which the author considers closer to the primitive experience of the sacred. We turned to Textes messianiques in order to lay the grounds of Levinas’ Messianism on the identification of the Messiah with the ethical subjectivity as subjection to alterity and infinite responsibility, present in the figures of the hostage and of substitution to other. Meanwhile we tried to show how introducing a messianic time in the historical becoming allows to overcome the split between time and eternity as well as to give history an ethical
meaning.
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References
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