Fighting over the Bible : Jewish interpretation, sectarianism and polemic from Temple to Talmud and beyond /
:
Fighting over the Bible explores the bitter conflicts between main stream Jews and their internal and external opponents, especially between particular Jewish groups such as Pharisees, Sadducees, Qumranites, Samaritans, Rabbanites and Karaites, as well as with Christians and Muslims regarding their interpretations of Jewish Scripture. The Hebrew Bible/Old Testament is an important sacred text for all branches of the Abrahamic faiths, but it has more often divided than unified them. This volume explores and exemplifies the roots of these interpretive conflicts and controversies and traces the rich exegetical and theological approaches that grew out of them. Focusing on the Jewish sources from the late Second Temple period through the high Middle-Ages, it illustrates how the study of the Bible filled the vacuum left by the Temple's destruction, and became the foundation of Jewish life throughout its long conflicted history.
:
1 online resource (xi, 341 pages) :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789004339118 :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
The Catechumenate in Late Antique Africa (4th -6th centuries) : Augustine of Hippo, his Contemporaries and Early Reception /
:
In The Catechumenate in Late Antique Africa (4th-6th centuries) Matthieu Pignot explores how individuals became Christian in ancient North Africa. Before baptism, converts first became catechumens and spent a significant time of gradual integration into the community through rituals and teaching. This book provides the first historical study of this process in African sources, from Augustine of Hippo, to canon of councils, anonymous sermons and 6th-century letters. Pignot shows that practices varied more than is generally assumed and that catechumens, because of their liminal position, were a disputed and essential group in the development of Christian communities until the 6th century at least. This book demonstrates that the catechumenate is key to understanding the processes of Christianisation and conversion in the West.
:
Revised and expanded version of the author's thesis (doctoral)--University of Oxford, 2016. :
1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789004431904
9789004431898
Synagogues in the works of Flavius Josephus : rhetoric, spatiality, and first-century Jewish institutions /
:
In Synagogues in the Works of Flavius Josephus , Andrew Krause analyses the place of the synagogue within the cultural and spatial rhetoric of Flavius Josephus. Engaging with both rhetorical critical methods and critical spatial theories, Krause argues that in his later writings Josephus portrays the Jewish institutions as an important aspect of the post-Temple, pan-diasporic Judaism that he creates. Specifically, Josephus consistently treats the synagogue as a supra-local rallying point for the Jews throughout the world, in which the Jewish customs and Law may be practiced and disseminated following the loss of the Temple and the Land. Conversely, in his earliest extant work, Bellum judaicum , Josephus portrays synagogues as local temples in order to condemn the Jewish insurgents who violated them.
:
1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789004342040 :
1871-6636 ; :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
Jewish love magic : from late antiquity to the Middle Ages /
:
Jewish Love Magic: From Late Antiquity to the Middle Ages is the first monograph dedicated to the supernatural methods employed by Jews in order to generate love, grace or hate. Examining hundreds of manuscripts, often unpublished, Ortal-Paz Saar skillfully illuminates a major aspect of the Jewish magical tradition. The book explores rituals, spells and important motifs of Jewish love magic, repeatedly comparing them to the Graeco-Roman and Christian traditions. In addition to recipes and amulets in Hebrew, Aramaic and Judaeo-Arabic, primarily originating in the Cairo Genizah, also rabbinic sources and responsa are analysed, resulting in a comprehensive and fascinating picture.
:
Based on the author's thesis (doctoral) -- Universiṭat Tel-Aviv, 2009. :
1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789004347892 :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
Households, Sects, and the Origins of Rabbinic Judaism /
:
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.
:
1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789047407768
9789004144477
Intolerance, polemics, and debate in antiquity : politico-cultural, philosophical, and religious forms of critical conversation /
:
In Intolerance, Polemics, and Debate in Antiquity scholars reflect on politico-cultural, philosophical, and religious forms of critical conversation in the ancient Near Eastern, Biblical, Graeco-Roman, and early-Islamic world. They enquire into the boundaries between debate, polemics, and intolerance, and address their manifestations in both philosophy and religion. This cross-cultural and inclusive approach shows that debate and polemics are not so different as often assumed, since polemics may also indicate that ultimate values are at stake. Polemics can also have a positive effect, stimulating further cultural development. Intolerance is more straightforwardly negative. Religious intolerance is often a justification for politics, but also elite rationalism can become totalitarian. The volume also highlights the importance of the fluency of minorities in the dominant discourses and of their ability to develop contrapuntal lines of thought within a common cultural discourse.
:
Includes index. :
1 online resource. :
9789004411500
Forced conversion in Christianity, Judaism and Islam : coercion and faith in premodern Iberia and beyond /
:
Focusing on the Iberian Peninsula but examining related European and Mediterranean contexts as well, Forced Conversion in Christianity, Judaism and Islam traces how Christians, Jews, and Muslims grappled with the contradictory phenomenon of faith brought about by constraint and compulsion. Forced conversion brought into sharp relief the tensions among the accepted notion of faith as a voluntary act, the desire to maintain "pure" communities, and the universal truth claims of radical monotheism. Offering a comparative view of an important yet insufficiently studied phenomenon in the history of religions, this collection of essays explores the ways in which religion and violence reshaped these three religions and the ways we understand them today.
:
Includes index. :
1 online resource. :
9789004416826
Rachels Klage im antiken Judentum und frühen Christentum : eine auslegungsgeschichtliche Studie /
:
Study of the exegesis of the Old Testament tradition on the matriarch Rachel. The centre of the study is Rachel's complaint in Jeremiah 31.15-17. After an analysis of the Old Testament texts, the reception of these traditions in ancient translations in the Pseudepigrapha, in Philo of Alexandria, in Flavius Josephus as well as in the New Testament is investigated. The main part of the study is represented by source material in the Rabbinic literature. The study is concluded by an overview of the interpretation of the Rachel figure in patristic literature. The sources containing the Rachel traditions are, in part, hard to access. The source material on Rachel is presented and analyzed, in order to make the plethora of interpretations accessible to a wider audience, especially the Rabbinic interpretations.
:
Originally presented as the author's thesis--Universität Basel, 2001. :
1 online resource (xi, 323 pages) :
Includes bibliographical references (p. 276-303) and index. :
9789004331112 :
0169-734X ; :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
Le Devin historien en Mésopotamie
:
Le devin historien en Mesopotamie is a combined study of divination and historiography. More than mere custodians of historical memory, diviners approached omens as written signs and developed a sophisticated semiology to recognize and order them. Diviners perceived omens as potentially rich in various meanings and cultivated an elaborate hermeneutic for working these out using hypothetical and inductive reasoning. Even if omens were removed from the recorded facts, diviners endowed them with a wide range of possibilities. Divination sought to establish links among historical, cosmic, and natural events because it investigated at once the past, present, and future. The first study of its kind since 1946, when only about 60 historical omens were known, this work presents 385 in a comprehensive edition.
:
1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789004390065 :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
Legal fiction s studies of law and narrative in the discursive worlds of ancient Jewish sectarians and sages /
:
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.
:
1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references and indexes. :
9789004201842 :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
Reading and re-reading Scripture at Qumran /
:
In Reading and Re-reading Scripture at Qumran , Moshe J. Bernstein gathers more than three decades of his work on diverse aspects of biblical interpretation in the Dead Sea Scrolls. The essays range from broad surveys of the genres of biblical interpretation in these texts to more narrowly focused studies and close readings of specific documents. Volume I focuses on the book of Genesis, with a substantial portion being dedicated to studies of the Genesis Apocryphon and Commentary on Genesis A. Volume II contains several historical and programmatic essays, with specific studies focusing on legal material in the DSS and the pesharim. Under the former rubric, the documents known as 4QReworked Pentateuch, 4QOrdinancesa, 4QMMT, and the Temple Scroll are discussed.
:
"These volumes contain thirty essays, written over the last thirty-three years (with the very large majority over the last two decades), focusing on or touching upon a variety of the ways that Scripture (what became what we have come to call the Hebrew Bible or TeNaKh) was read, interpreted, and employed at Qumran. All have been published before, including one essay that appeared in Hebrew originally and makes its first appearance here in English ... They have been edited only lightly"--Volume 1, page xii. :
1 online resource (2 volumes (xx, 744 pages)) :
Includes bibliographical references and indexes. :
9789004248076 :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
Christian identity amid Islam in medieval Spain /
:
In Christian Identity amid Islam in Medieval Spain Charles L. Tieszen explores a small corpus of texts from medieval Spain in an effort to deduce how their authors defined their religious identity in light of Islam, and in turn, how they hoped their readers would distinguish themselves from the Muslims in their midst. It is argued that the use of reflected self-image as a tool for interpreting Christian anti-Muslim polemic allows such texts to be read for the self-image of their authors instead of the image of just those they attacked. As such, polemic becomes a set of borders authors offered to their communities, helping them to successfully navigate inter-religious living.
:
1 online resource (x, 296 pages) :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789004192294 :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
Through the eyes of the beholder : the Holy Land, 1517-1713 /
:
The collection examines the view of holiness in the "Holy Land" through the writings of pilgrims, travelers, and missionaries. The period extends from 1517, the Ottoman conquest of Syria and Palestine, to the Franco-British treaty of Utrecht in 1713 and the consolidation of European hegemony over the Mediterranean. The writers in the collection include Christians (Orthodox, Protestant, and Catholic), Muslims, and Jews, who originate from countries such as Sweden, England, France, Holland, Russia, the Ottoman Empire, and Syria. This book is the first to juxtapose writers of different backgrounds and languages, to emphasize the holiness of the land in a number of traditions, and to ask whether holiness was inherent in geography or a product of the piety of the writers. Contributors are: Mohammad Asfour, Hasan Baktir, Richard Coyle, Judy A. Hayden, Nabil I. Matar, Joachim Östlund, Michael Rotenberg-Schwartz, Julia Schleck, Mazin Tadros and Galina Yermolenko.
:
1 online resource (xvii, 237 pages) : illustrations. :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789004236240 :
0929-2403 ; :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
Islam, the ancient near east and varieties of godlessness. collected studies in three volumes /
:
Patricia Crone's Collected Studies in Three Volumes brings together a number of her published, unpublished, and revised writings on Near Eastern and Islamic history, arranged around three distinct but interconnected themes. Volume 3, Islam, the Ancient Near East and Varieties of Godlessness , places the rise of Islam in the context of the ancient Near East and investigates sceptical and subversive ideas in the Islamic world. Volume 1, The Qurʾānic Pagans and Related Matters , pursues the reconstruction of the religious environment in which Islam arose and develops an intertextual approach to studying the Qurʾānic religious milieu. Volume 2, The Iranian Reception of Islam: The Non-Traditionalist Strands , examines the reception of pre-Islamic legacies in Islam, above all that of the Iranians. The Qurʾānic Pagans and Related Matters The Iranian Reception of Islam: The Non-Traditionalist Strands
:
1 online resource (xvii, 261 pages) : illustrations. :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789004319318 :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
Logic and Aristotle's Rhetoric and Poetics in Medieval Arabic Philosophy /
:
This book examines a widespread, and often misunderstood, doctrine within the medieval Aristotelian tradition, namely the inclusion of Aristotle's Rhetoric and Poetics within the scope of the Organon. It studies this doctrine, as presented by the Islamic philosophers Al- Fārābī, Avicenna, and Averroes, from a purely philosophical perspective, and argues that the logical construal of the arts of rhetoric and poetics is both interesting and illuminating. The book begins by examining some prevalent misconceptions regarding the logical interpretation of the Rhetoric and Poetics. Chapter two considers the Greek background of the doctrine, first through an examination of the Aristotelian divisions of the sciences, and then through an examination of the beginnings of the logical classification of the Rhetoric and Poetics among the Greek commentators from the school of Alexandria. The remainder of the work is devoted to a detailed consideration of the Arabic philosophers' development of the doctrine, both their understanding of its general epistemological and logical underpinnings, and their elaboration of the specific logical structures upon which poetical and rhetorical discourse is based. Consideration is also given to the relationship between contemporary philosophical views of rhetoric and poetics, and the views of these medieval authors.
:
1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789004452398
9789004092860
Thinking being : introduction to metaphysics in the classical tradition /
:
In Thinking Being , Eric Perl articulates central ideas and arguments regarding the nature of reality in Parmenides, Plato, Aristotle, Plotinus, and Aquinas. He shows that, throughout this tradition, these ideas proceed from and return to the indissoluble togetherness of thought and being, first clearly expressed by Parmenides. The emphasis throughout is on continuity rather than opposition: Aristotle appears as a follower of Plato in identifying being as intelligible form, and Aquinas as a follower of Plotinus in locating the first principle "beyond being". Hence Neoplatonism, itself a coherent development of Platonic thought, comes to be seen as the mainstream of classical philosophy. Perl's book thus contributes to a revisionist understanding of the fundamental outlines of the western tradition in metaphysics.
:
1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789004265769 :
1871-188X ;
Alexandria and Qumran : back to the beginning /
:
The Dead Sea Scrolls are one of the most well-known archaeological discoveries of the 20th century. This book addresses the proto-history and the roots of the Qumran community and of the Dead Sea Scrolls in the light of contemporary scholarship in Alexandria, Egypt.
:
Previously issued in print: 2017. :
1 online resource (xxvi, 586 pages) : illustrations (black and white, and colour), maps :
Specialized. :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9781784917296 (ebook) :
Popular religion and ritual in prehistoric and ancient Greece and the eastern Mediterranean /
:
This volume features a group of select peer-reviewed papers by an international group of authors, both younger and senior academics and researchers, on the frequently neglected popular cult and other ritual practices in prehistoric and ancient Greece and the eastern Mediterranean.
:
Previously issued in print: 2018. :
1 online resource (x, 170 pages) : illustrations (black and white, and colour). :
Specialized. :
9781789690460 (ebook) :