The Heart of Self Formation

What is it about?

This article discusses the “heart” as part of the terminology for selfhood in ancient Jewish literature. After discussing a couple criticisms of studies of the self and showing how these criticisms fail to persuade, the paper examines a range of texts in the Hebrew Bible, the Dead Sea Scrolls, and beyond for conceptions of the moral self. Special attention is given to the legal S tradition in the Scrolls as a fruitful illustration of how the self and law are recurring conceptual companions.

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