About faces and distances: Displacements in the biblical narratives of Sarah and Rebekah/Sobre rostos e distancias: deslocamentos nas narrativas biblicas de Sara e Rebeca

This paper examines the biblical narratives about Sarah and Rebekah. These characters, who are present in the Book of Genesis, are symbolic for thinking of spatial displacement as an indication of internal transformations, that is, psychological issues that will accompany these women throughout their experiences in foreign lands. The Genesis writes the first pages of a classic: the Bible. It is such an emblematic work which has much influenced western thinking, as have Erich Auerbach, Northrop Frye, Robert Alter, and Harold Bloom, among others. The stories of these two women are references for reading a founding text of the ancient hebrews, since, in them, Israel will recognize its origin, its origins and the sense of its existence as a people. This proposed investigation will let itself be guided mainly by the literary, cultural, and philosophical studies from the works of Stuart Hall and Jean-Luc Nancy. Therefore, it can be anticipated that the study of the behavior of these two characters, as well as their strategies of survival, allows us understanding the displacement of human beings in all times and in different parts of the world. The suffering, astuteness, and identities of Sarah and Rebekah enable us to reread the history of old Israel in a vivid, aesthetically and exciting way.