Bridging between sister religions : studies of Jewish and Christian scriptures offered in honor of Prof. John T. Townsend /
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This volume is a collection of fresh essays in honor of Professor John T. Townsend. It focuses on the interpretation of the common Jewish and Christian Scripture (the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament) and on its two off-shoots (Rabbinic Judaism and the New Testament), as well as on Jewish-Christian relations. The contributors, who are prominent scholars in their fields, include James L. Crenshaw, Göran Eidevall, Anne E. Gardner, Lawrence M. Wills, Cecilia Wassen, Robert L. Brawley, Joseph B. Tyson, Eldon J. Epp, Yaakov Elman, Rivka Ulmer, Andreas Lehnardt, Reuven Kimelman, Bruce Chilton, and Michael W. Duggan.
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1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789004324541 :
1571-5000 ; :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
From Scrolls to Traditions : A Festschrift Honoring Lawrence H. Schiffman /
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This Festschrift in honor of Professor Lawrence H. Schiffman, a renowned authority on the Dead Sea Scrolls and Rabbinic Judaism, includes contributions by twenty of his former doctoral students, now colleagues. The volume is divided into two sections, the "Biblical and Second Temple Period" and "Rabbis, Other Jews, and Neighboring Cultures." The diverse topics covered and the wide range of interdisciplinary approaches employed reflect Professor Schiffman's success in cultivating a school of scholars who are making unique contributions to the study of the Jews and Judaism.
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1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789004443891
9789004443884
The mystery of God : early Jewish mysticism and the New Testament /
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This book brings together the perspectives of apocalypticism and early Jewish mysticism to illuminate aspects of New Testament theology. The first part begins with a consideration of the mystical character of apocalypticism and then uses the Book of Revelation and the development of views about the heavenly mediator figure of Enoch to explore the importance of apocalypticism in the Gospels and Acts, the Pauline Letters and finally the key theological themes in the later books of the New Testament. The second and third parts explore the character of early Jewish mysticism by taking important themes in the early Jewish mystical texts such as the Temple and the Divine Body to demonstrate the relevance of this material to New Testament interpretation.
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1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references (p. [611]-645) and indexes. :
9789047428763 :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
Challenges to conventional opinions on Qumran and Enoch issues /
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Some literary expressions in the Dead Sea Scrolls led scholars to allege that their authors professed a dualistic and deterministic worldview of Zoroastrian origin and that the omission of Moses and Sinai from the Enoch writings evinces that a segment in Jewish society marginalized the Torah, adopting Enoch's prophecies as its ethical guideline. This study challenges these allegations as utterly conflicting with essential biblical doctrines and the unequivocal beliefs and expectations of Qumran's Torah-centered society, arguing that scholars' allegations are erroneously based on interpreting ancient texts with a modern mindset and influenced by the interpreter's personal cultural background. The study interprets the relevant texts in a manner compatible with the presumed doctrines of ancient Jewish authors and readers.
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1 online resource (xii, 415 pages) :
Includes bibliographical references and indexes. :
9789004218826 :
0169-9962 ; :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
The Jerusalem Temple in diaspora : Jewish practice and thought during the Second Temple period
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In The Jerusalem Temple in Diaspora, Jonathan Trotter shows how different diaspora Jews' perspectives on the distant city of Jerusalem and the temple took shape while living in the diaspora, an experience which often is characterized by complicated senses of alienation from and belonging to an ancestral homeland and one's current home. This book investigates not only the perspectives of the individual diaspora Jews whose writings mention the Jerusalem temple (Letter of Aristeas, Philo of Alexandria, 2 Maccabees, and 3 Maccabees) but also the customs of diaspora Jewish communities linking them to the temple, such as their financial contributions and pilgrimages there.
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1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789004409859
Sacred tropes : Tanakh, New Testament, and Qur'an as literature and culture /
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Contemporary sacred text scholarship has been stimulated by a number of intersecting trends: a surging interest in religion, sacred texts, and inspirational issues; burgeoning developments in and applications of literary theories; intensifying academic focus on diverse cultures whether for education or scholarship. Although much has been written individually about Tanakh, New Testament, and Qur'an, no collection combines an examination of all three. Sacred Tropes interweaves Tanakh, New Testament, and Qur'an essays. Contributors collectively and also often individually use mixed literary approaches instead of the older single theory strategy. Appropriate for classroom or research, the essays utilize a variety of literary theoretical lenses including environmental, cultural studies, gender, psychoanalytic, ideological, economic, historicism, law, and rhetorical criticisms through which to examine these sacred works.
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1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references and indexes. :
9789047430964 :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
Nazirites in late Second Temple Judaism : a survey of ancient Jewish writings, the New Testament, archaeological evidence, and other writings from late antiquity /
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Nazirites appear in a number of sources relevant to Judaism of the late Second Temple period. This book surveys the pertinent evidence and assesses what it reveals regarding the role of the Nazirite within Judaism of the late Second Temple and early Christian era. The survey is arranged according to three primary sections: "Direct Evidence for Nazirites"; "Possible and Tangential Evidence for Nazirites"; and a final section, "Making Sense of the Evidence." It concludes by arguing that the role of the Nazirite portrayed in sources was that of a religious devotee, and concomitant with biblical law, Nazirite devotion typically involved flexibility, personal freedom of expression, and adaptation to outside cultural norms. Those interested in the Nazirite vow as portrayed in the New Testament and other relevant sources will find this study useful, as will those interested in Bible translation and interpretation in late Second Temple and early rabbinic literature.
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Revision of the author's thesis (doctoral)--University of Oxford, 2002. :
1 online resource (x, 196 pages) :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789047407874 :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
Expectations of the end : a comparative traditio-historical study of eschatological, apocalyptic, and messianic ideas in the Dead Sea scrolls and the New Testament /
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Since a fuller range of Qumran sectarian and not clearly sectarian texts and recensions has recently become available to us, its implications for the comparative study of eschatological, apocalyptic and messianic ideas in the Dead Sea Scrolls and in the New Testament need to be explored anew. This book situates eschatological ideas in Qumran literature between biblical tradition and developments in late Second Temple Judaism and examines how the Qumran evidence on eschatology, resurrection, apocalypticism, and messianism illuminates Palestinian Jewish settings of emerging Christianity. The present study challenges previous dichotomies between realized and futuristic eschatology, wisdom and apocalypticism and provides many new insights into intra-Jewish dimensions to eschatological ideas in Palestinian Judaism and in the early Jesus-movement.
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1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references (p. [473]-509) and index. :
9789047425090 :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
For out of Babylonia shall come Torah and the word of the Lord from Nehar Peqod : the quest for Babylonian tannaitic traditions /
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In For Out of Babylonia Shall Come Torah and the Word of the Lord from Nehar Peqod , Barak S. Cohen reevaluates the evidence in Tannaitic and Amoraic literature of an independent "Babylonian Mishnah" which originated in the proto-talmudic period. The book focuses on an analysis of the most notable halakhic corpora that have been identified by scholars as originating in the Tannaitic period or at the outset of the amoraic. If indeed such an early corpus did exist, what are its characteristics and what, if any, connection does it have with the parallel Palestinian collections? Was this Babylonian Mishnah created in order to harmonize the Palestinian Mishnah with a corpus of rabbinic teachings already existent in Babylonia? Was this corpus one of the main contributors to the forced interpretations and resolutions found so frequently in the Bavli?
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1 online resource (viii, 295 pages) :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789004347021 :
1571-5000 ; :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
Josephus' Contra Apionem : studies in its character and context with a Latin concordance to the portion missing in Greek /
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This volume offers a state-of-the-art collection of papers on one of the most significant works of Flavius Josephus, by many of the leading scholars in current Josephus research. The collection, which includes a concordance by H. Schreckenberg of the Latin section Contra Apionem 2.52-113, forms a standard, indispensable resource for the study of Josephus' writings, of apologetic literature in general, and particularly for the study of Contra Apionem , one of the most significant apologetic treatises in Antiquity.
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1 online resource (x, 517 pages) : illustrations. :
Includes bibliographical references and indexes. :
9789004332881 :
0169-734X ; :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
The Origins of the Canon of the Hebrew Bible, An Analysis of Josephus and 4 Ezra.
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In The Origins of the Canon of the Hebrew Bible: An Analysis of Josephus and 4 Ezra , Juan Carlos Ossandón Widow examines the thorny question of when, how, and why the collection of twenty-four books that today is known as the Hebrew Bible was formed. He carefully studies the two earliest testimonies in this regard-Josephus' Against Apion and 4 Ezra-and proposes that, along with the tendency to idealize the past, which leads to consider that divine revelation to Israel has ceased, an important reason to specify a collection of Scriptures at the end of the first century CE consisted in the need to defend the received tradition to counter those that accepted more books.
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1 online resource. :
9789004381612
Liturgical perspectives : prayer and poetry in light of the Dead Sea scrolls : proceedings of the Fifth International Symposium of the Orion Center for the Study of the Dead Sea Sc...
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The papers published in this volume were presented at the Fifth Orion International Symposium (Jerusalem, 2000), which focused on prayer and poetry in light of the Dead Sea Scrolls. The volume examines the recently published poetical and liturgical texts from Qumran against the background of Second Temple Judaism, its biblical antecedents, and later rabbinic developments. The essays treat a variety of prayers and religious practices, as well as major issues in the history of Jewish liturgy. Topics range from magic, mysticism and thanksgiving to lamentation, fast day rituals, communal worship, and the relationship between the prayers from Qumran and the traditional Jewish prayers. The application of new Scrolls material to this breadth of topics constitutes an important contribution to the study of religious poetry, religious practice, and liturgy.
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1 online resource (xi, 282 pages) :
Includes bibliographical references and indexes. :
9789004350465 :
0169-9962 ; :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
Legal fiction s studies of law and narrative in the discursive worlds of ancient Jewish sectarians and sages /
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Ancient Jewish writings combine interpretive narratives of Israel's sacred history with legal prescriptions for a divinely ordered way of life. Two ancient Jewish societies have left us extensive textual corpora preserving interpenetrating legal and narrative interpretive teachings: the sectarian community of the Dead Sea Scrolls and the sage-disciple circles of the early Rabbis. This book comprises studies that explore specific aspects of the interplay of interpretative, narrative, and legal rhetoric with an eye to pedagogic function and social formation for each of these communities and for both of them in comparison. It addresses questions of how best to approach these writings for purposes of historical retrieval and reconstruction by recognizing the inseparability of literary-rhetorical textual analysis and a non-reductive historiography.
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1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references and indexes. :
9789004201842 :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
The Targums : a critical introduction /
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The value and significance of the targums -translations of the Hebrew Bible into Aramaic, the language of Palestinian Jews for centuries following the Babylonian Exile-lie in their approach to translation: within a typically literal rendering of a text, they incorporate extensive exegetical material, additions, and paraphrases that reveal important information about Second Temple Judaism, its interpretation of its bible, and its beliefs. This remarkable survey introduces critical knowledge and insights that have emerged over the past forty years, including targum manuscripts discovered this century and targums known in Aramaic but only recently translated into English. Prolific scholars Flesher and Chilton guide readers in understanding the development of the targums; their relationship to the Hebrew Bible; their dates, language, and place in the history of Christianity and Judaism; and their theologies and methods of interpretation. "With clear presentation of current research and the issues involved, including the Targums and the New Testament, and a rich bibliography, this is the most complete-and up-to-date-introduction to the Targums. An outstanding, highly recommended achievement." Martin McNamara , Emeritus Professor of Scripture, Milltown Institute, Dublin, Ireland
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1 online resource (xvii, 557 pages) : illustrations. :
Includes bibliographical references (p. [511]-539), and index. :
9789004218178 :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
Sanctity of time and space in tradition and modernity /
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Time and space can take on a sacred nature in both Judaism and Christianity accompanied by a permanent critical attitude towards the sacred. Conceptions of sacredness imply a conception of community and of society at large. This study investigates the different attitudes toward sacred time and space from an interdisciplinary perspective, ranging from the Biblical period through Qumran, Patristics, Rabbinics, archaeology and theology to modern and even to post-modern rituals. This approach offers a fascinating insight into both the common heritage of Judaism and Christianity and their mutual differences.
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1 online resource :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789004421387
9789004112339
Jewish identity in early rabbinic writings /
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Jewish Identity in Early Rabbinic Writings is more than a question of legal status: it is the experience of being Jewish or of 'Jewishness' in all its social and cultural dimensions. This work describes this experience as it emerges in Talmudic and Midrashic sources. Besides the question of "who is a Jew?", topics include the contrast between Israel and the non-Jews, the physical embodiment of Jewish identity, the 'boundaries' of Israel and resistance to assimilation. Jewish identity, it is argued, hinges essentially on the Divine commandments ( mitzvot ) and on Israel's perceived proximity with the Divine. Drawing on a variety of disciplines, including the theories of William James and Merleau-Ponty, this study raises important issues in anthropology, as well as accounting for central aspects of early rabbinic Judaism.
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Rev. version of the author's thesis (D. Phil.)--Jews' College. :
1 online resource (xxxix, 269 pages) :
Includes bibliographical references (p. 260-266) and index. :
9789004332768 :
0169-734X ; :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
Justin Martyr and the Jews /
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Justin Martyr, a second-century Gentile Christian apologist, was active in the Christian-Jewish propaganda war to convert each other and the pagans. He radicalized the ideas of St. Paul on the divine Election, Abraham, the Pentateuch, and the Gentiles. Justin's background, sources, and thought, and his place in the inter-religious propaganda war, are discussed, as are the irreconcilable views of Jesus and Paul on the Pentateuch and the Gentiles. Justin Martyr and the Jews considers the place of Paul and Justin's teachings in today's Christian-Jewish dialogue about the roots of early Christian Antisemitism, showing that the presuppositions of Paul and Justin must be abandoned if Christians and Jews today are to reach true understanding. As part of the search for such understanding, recent scholarly literature has been concerned with pre- and post-Holocaust inter-religious relations, as well as with the roots of Christian Antisemitism. Some scholars have endeavoured to show that Pauline teachings were misunderstood, and thereby exonerate Paul from the responsibility for Christian persecutions of Jews through the ages. These scholars have also attempted to make Paul a bridge between Christians and Jews in their modern dialogue. The present writer argues that this interpretation of Pauline teaching, followed and even radicalized by Justin, is unfounded.
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1 online resource :
Includes bibliographical references and indexes. :
9789004421424
9789004123106
The experience of Jewish liturgy : studies dedicated to Menahem Schmelzer /
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Menahem Schmelzer, widely recognized for his expertise in Jewish manuscripts and piyyut, has also influenced Jewish liturgical research of the past half century. This collection of sixteen academic studies, by Israeli, European, and American scholars, honors Schmelzer's contribution. The contributors represent three generations, and their topics and methods testify to the vast subject area that Jewish liturgy has become. The articles explore a wide variety of texts and ritual occasions, the relationship between text and worship experience, and implications for related areas such as mysticism; most apply the methods of other subject areas such as liguistics to liturgical study and its implications for related fields. \'...this volume, as a whole, is as much a testimony to the enduring centrality of the librarian in scholarship as it is a collection of essays on \'the experience of Jewish liturgy.\' Wide ranging in scope, these essays are an accurate snapshot of the state of research, illustrating the wealth of material awaiting publication, the need for revisiting prior assumptions, and also the limits of our scholarship.\' Yoel Kahn, Congregation Beth El, Berkeley
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Includes index. :
1 online resource. :
9789004208032 :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
Households, Sects, and the Origins of Rabbinic Judaism /
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This book suggests a new approach to the social history of Jewish religious movements in the Second Temple and early Rabbinic periods. It argues that most of these movements and their traditions emerged within the context of complex interaction between traditional families and disciple circles. The first part of the book examines the development of Jewish religious movements during the Second Temple period. It culminates with the discussion of the Dead Sea Sect, which is analyzed as the first unambiguous example of a movement shifting from a social structure based on families to a social structure based on disciple circles. The second part of the book discusses the history of pharisaic and early rabbinic movements from a similar perspective. Topics covered in the book will be of interest to scholars of Judaism and Early Christianity.
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1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789047407768
9789004144477