Sabbath and synagogue : the question of Sabbbath worship in ancient Judaism /
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Sabbath worship as a communal event does not feature in the Hebrew Bible. In the context of the first century CE, according to Philo and Josephus, the sabbath gatherings took place only for the purpose of studying the law, and not for the liturgical recital of psalms or prayer. Classical authors depict Jews spending the sabbath at home. Jewish inscriptions provide no evidence of sabbath-worship in prayer-houses ( proseuchai ), while the Mishnah prescribes no special communal sabbath activities. The usual picture of Jews going on the sabbath to the synagogue to worship thus appears to be without foundation. It is even doubtful that there were synagogue buildings, for 'synagogue' normally meant 'community'. The conclusion of this study, that there is no evidence that the sabbath was a day of communal Jewish worship before 200 CE, has far-reaching consequences for our understanding of early Jewish-Christian relationships. This publication has also been published in paperback, please click here for details.
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Includes index. :
1 online resource (xi, 279 pages) :
9789004295834 :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
The spirit in first century Judaism /
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Conceptions of the divine spirit underwent complex metamorphoses in Jewish biblical interpretation during the Greco-Roman era. This monograph explores those permutations in the writings of Philo Judaeus, Josephus, and Pseudo-Philo ( Liber Antiquitatum Biblicarum ). The first section, 'An Anomalous Prophet', unfolds surprisingly divergent transformations of the inspiration of Balaam. The second section, 'An Eclectic Era', unearths both faint and conspicuous traces of Greco-Roman conceptions in early Jewish interpretations. The third section, 'An Extraordinary Mind', undermines the view that the spirit was associated primarily with ecstasy rather than with intellectual insight. By analyzing these interpretations in light of other contemporary Greco-Roman and Jewish writings, this volume offers original and essential data for further study of inspiration in Antiquity, including early Judaism, early Christianity, and the Greco-Roman world. This publication has also been published in paperback, please click here for details.
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1 online resource (xiv, 302 pages) :
Includes bibliographical references (p. 276-279) and indexes. :
9789004332829 :
0169-734X ; :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.