Abstract
This article focuses on two newspaper advertisements written by Holocaust survivor and author Elie Wiesel, which were published shortly before his death in 2016. These controversial advertisements, appearing in the US and the UK, addressed recent tensions in the Middle East, referencing the books of 2Kings and Esther. The article explores Wiesel’s relationship to contemporary politics, traditions of biblical interpretation, and ideas of sacred temporality. I argue that these advertisements present a vivid case study of the potential difficulties posed by framing contemporary conflicts via biblical archetypes. Specifically, I suggest that they challenge us to develop an awareness of instances in which biblical reception can mythologize suffering by subsuming novel and complex events into premeditated narratives.
Acknowledgments
I am grateful for comments from listeners to early versions of this material at the Bible, Critical Theory, and Reception seminar held in Birmingham, UK, in September 2015 and the Centre for Reception History of the Bible at the University of Oxford in October 2015. I also extend my thanks to Jo Carruthers and the reviewers of this article for their feedback and suggestions.
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