In the Image

<p><i>In the Image </i>sets Jewish philosophy and contemporary aesthetics and art in conversation with Talmudic texts.<i> </i><br/><br/>Pulling contemporary Jewish thought from the Bible as a model of philosophical reflection, author Zachary J. Braiterman turns to the Babylonian Talmud as a nonrealist model of religious-philosophical discourse steeped in the virtual. This "philosophical Talmud" pushes past the conceptual traps of modern Jewish thought. In the Image conceptualizes Jewish philosophy as a nonsymbolic, nonrealist form of theoretical discourse that bends consciousness around unreal, virtual objects and imaginary worlds, simulation and surface appearance of bodies and objects. <i>In the Image</i> explores the human and human viscera, sacred place, anthropomorphism, iconophilia, and cosmopolitanism as elemental forms of religious thought.<br/><br/>A new way of conceptualizing Jewish philosophy and religion, <i>In the Image</i> probes into the aesthetic determination of religious thought and practice to see how the basic reality and "truth" of religion are constituted inside the image itself.</p>