This collection of essays is an attempt to capture the drama of the encounter, of the 'facing' of Levinas and the biblical text. It seeks to link Jewish experience and Levinasian themes such as responsibility, substitution, hospitality, suffering and forgiveness, and at the same time make the biblical text accessible in a new way. The book offers new insights on the opening up of Levinas's thought and biblical stories to one another; it considers the ways in which Levinas can open up the biblical text to requestioning, and how the biblical text can inform our reading of Levinas. Setting up in dialogue the heteronomic texts - the narrative texts of the bible and Levinas's philosophical texts - allows an enforced and renewed understanding of both. The examination of these issues is pursued from diverse perspectives and disciplines, probing the role biblical figures play in Levinas's thought and the manner by which to approach them. Do the biblical allusions serve in Levinas's thought merely as a rhetorical and literary device, as illustrations of his ideas, or perhaps they have a deeper philosophical meaning, which contributes to his project in general? Do the references to biblical figures work in Levinas's philosophy in a way that other literary figures are incapable of, and how do these references comply with his conflicted attitude towards literature?

This book brings together an important collection of essays by Emmanuel Levinas, a leading philosopher of the 20th century, dating from between 1969 and 1980. The book considers specific Jewish problems: exegetic methodology, points of Jewish doctrine, Jewish religious philosophy, and contemporary political and cultural issues. It also includes five "Talmudic" readings. The book will be of interest to readers throughout the wider philosophical and religious communities. These books are seminal works of the finest minds in Western thought, including Adorno, Badiou, Derrida, Heidegger and Larkin. They are works of such power that they changed the cultural mind when they were written and continue to resonate today - landmark texts in the fields of philosophy, literature, popular culture, politics and theology - strikingly designed, accessibly priced.