Dust of the ground and breath of life (Gen 2:7) : the problem of a dualistic anthropology in early Judaism and Christianity /
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Issues such as the immortality of the soul, the debate about matter versus life, and whether one was capable of knowing the outside world were all being extensively discussed in many religions and cultures in both East and West. The present volume addresses the concept of an immortal soul in a mortal body, and focuses on early Judaism and Christianity, where this issue is often related to the initial chapters of the book of Genesis. The papers are devoted to the interpretation of Gen 2:7 in relation to the broader issue of dualistic anthropology. They show that the dualism was questioned in different ways within the context of early Judaism and Christianity.
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This volume contains the revised papers of a Themes in Biblical Narrative colloquium which took place at the Faculty of Theology and Religious Studies of the University of Groningen on September 9-10, 2010. :
1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789004334762 :
1388-3909 ; :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
Die apokryph gewordenen Evangelien : Studien zu neuen Texten und zu neuen Fragen /
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Known for his studies on the canonical gospels and on Paul, Dieter Lührmann has also done pioneering work on the apocryphal gospels. This volume presents his essays on new fragments of the gospels of Peter and Mary Magdalene, of the Egerton gospel and of the gospel according to the Hebrews. All essays have been revised and updated, and a new one on the gospel of Thomas in Greek has been added. The work is framed by new studies on the problematic claim for a canon, and on following in the footsteps of Jerome in modern scholarship, showing how deeply it has been inspired by his picture of the apocrypha.
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1 online resource (xii, 292 pages) : 3 illustrations. :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789047412533 :
0167-9732 ; :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
The Mishnah : religious perspectives /
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Condensing research concerning questions of religion which encompass the social history of ideas and the religious uses of language, this book deals with three questions: the relationship of the Mishnah to Scripture, the relationship of the religious ideas people hold to the world in which they live, and the religious meaning of the formalization of language that characterizes the Mishnah in particular. In discussing how the Mishnah relates to Scripture - in the (later) mythic language of Rabbinic Judaism: \'the oral Torah\' to \'the written Torah\' - a complete analysis is presented, based on a systematic application of a single taxonomic program. Then an examination is made of how the stages in the unfolding of the Halakhah of the Mishnah relate to the principal events of the times, which delineate those stages. Here focus is given to those pre-70 C.E. components of the Halakhah that later come to the surface in the Mishnah, but discussion extends to the periods from the destruction of the Temple in 70 C.E. to the Bar Kokhba War, concluded in circa 135 C.E., then from the reconstruction, 135 C.E., to the closure of the Mishnah, 200 C.E. Finally attention is given to methods of interpreting the rhetorical forms of the Mishnah in the context of the social culture laid bare by the socio-linguistics of the documents concerned. This publication has also been published in paperback, please click here for details.
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" ... this book completes the condensation and recapitulation of large-scale research of mine"--Preface. :
1 online resource (xii, 249 pages) :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789004294110 :
0169-9423 ; :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
The Mishnah in contemporary perspective.
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The authors of the studies on the Mishnah collected in the present volumes represent the best of contemporary scholarship on that document. In the past thirty years, the Mishnah seen as a document on its own terms has taken its place as a principal focus in the academic study of religion and of Judaism. Many university scholars have participated in the contemporary revolution in the description, analysis, and interpretation of the Mishnah. Nearly all the publishing scholars of the academy (as distinct from the yeshiva or rabbinical seminary) who are now at work are represented in this project, ultimately planned for three volumes. In this and the companion volumes, the editors place on display a broad selection of approaches to the study of the Mishnah in the contemporary academy. What they prove in diverse ways is that the Mishnah defines the critical focus of the study of Judaism. It is a document that rewards study in the academic humanities. Because many viewpoints register here, this is the most representative selection of contemporary Mishnah-study available in any state-of-the-question-collection in a Western language.
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Includes index. :
1 online resource (1 volumes (XV-270 pages)) :
9789004294226 :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
Between Fear and Freedom : Essays on the Interpretation of Jeremiah 30-31 /
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Jeremiah's "Little Book of Consolation" is an intruiging text that provokes a series of interpretative difficulties. Is the text originally from Jeremiah? Can it be construed as a literary coherence or is a complex literary process of emergence to be accepted? What is meant by the 'New Covenant'? In this monograph Jer. 30-31 is read applying a variety of methods. The text-critical chapter argues for the reinforcement of the editorial theory according to which MT and LXXJer. are to be construed as two different versions. Much attention is paid to the delimitation criticism of these two chapters leading to the assumption that they are composed of ten Sub-Cantos. Five of these Sub-Cantos are interpreted taking into account Ancient Near Eastern textual material in order to understand the mental framework of the ancient reader. The final chapter pleads for the conceptual coherence of Jer. 30-31 which is seen as based on the idea of divine changeability.
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1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789047406433
9789004141186
Cantos and Strophes in Biblical Hebrew Poetry : with Special Reference to the First Book of the Psalter /
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This volume deals with the poetic framework and material content of the book of Psalms. The rhetorical analyses of Psalms 1-41 are preceded by a broad survey of the history of strophic investigation into Hebrew poetry, starting from the beginning of the nineteenth century. Formal and thematic devices demonstrate that the psalms are composed of a consistent pattern of cantos (stanzas) and strophes. The formal devices include quantitative balance on the level of cantos in terms of the number of verselines, verbal repetitions and transition markers. A quantitative structural approach also helps to identify the focal message of the poems. An introduction to the design of biblical poetry, describing the fundamentals that determine the macrostructure of individual compositions, concludes this massive study.
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1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789047417101
9789004148390
Analysing Muslim traditions : studies in legal, exegetical and Maghazi hadith /
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Since its inception, the study of Ḥadīth conducted by scholars trained in the Western academic tradition has been marked by sharp methodological debates. A focal issue is the origin and development of traditions on the advent of Islam. Scholars' verdicts on these traditions have ranged from "late fabrications without any historical value for the time concerning which the narrations purport to give information" to "early, accurately transmitted texts that allow one to reconstruct Islamic origins". Starting from previous contributions to the debate, the studies collected in this volume show that, by careful analysis of their texts and chains of transmission, the history of Muslim traditions can be reconstructed with a high degree of probability and their historicity assessed afresh.
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1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references (p. [467]-477) and index. :
9789004193314 :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
Sunnitischer Tafsir in der modernen islamischen Welt : akademische Traditionen, Popularisierung und nationalstaatliche Interessen /
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Previous scholarship on recent Muslim Qurʾanic exegesis has mostly focussed on modernising trends, usually remaining within the confines of a single language area. Transcending this hitherto dominating narrow focus, this book offers a comparative analysis of a body of contemporary Sunnite Qurʾanic commentaries from the Arab World, Indonesia and Turkey. It takes into account both the influence of specific local conditions and the common intellectual heritage they rely on. By paying special attention not only to new developments, but also to the embeddedness of contemporary Qurʾanic exegesis into a more than thousand-year-old intellectual tradition, it provides new insights into the religious, academic, political and social context of exegetical practice in the modern Islamic World. Die Forschung zur neueren muslimischen Koranexegese hat sich bislang weitgehend auf modernisierende Trends konzentriert und sich dabei zumeist innerhalb der Grenzen eines Sprachraums bewegt. Das vorliegende Buch bricht diesen verengenden Fokus auf, indem es einen Korpus von zeitgenössischen sunnitischen Korankommentaren aus der arabischen Welt, Indonesien und der Türkei vergleichend untersucht und der Frage nach ihrer Prägung durch spezifische lokale Bedingungen ebenso nachgeht wie der Analyse des gemeinsamen geistigen Erbes, auf das sie sich stützen. Indem es neben neueren exegetischen Entwicklungen der Einbettung zeitgenössischer Koranexegese in eine mehr als tausend Jahre alte ideengeschichtliche Tradition besondere Aufmerksamkeit widmet, liefert es neue Erkenntnisse über den religiösen, akademischen, politischen und gesellschaftlichen Kontext exegetischer Tätigkeit in der modernen islamischen Welt.
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1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789004187238 :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
The Development of Early Sunnite ḥadīth Criticism : The Taqdima of Ibn Abī ḥātim al-Rāzī (240/854-327/938) /
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ḥadīth are the documents recording the words and actions of the Prophet Muḥammad. Originally an enormous and amorphous corpus, Muslim scholars of the third/ninth century separated the ḥadīth they regarded as true from those they held to be forgeries, producing collection of ḥadīth which still command the respect of Muslims today. Ibn Abī ḥātim al-Rāzī (240/854-327/938) was one of the most prominent exponents and practitioners of ḥadīth criticism. He left a copious written legacy, including his famous Taqdima , a biographical dictionary of the early ḥadīth critics. The Taqdima reveals Ibn Abī ḥātims's vision of the critic and gives insight into the mechanism of ḥadīth criticism. It also provides a platform for the examination of the basic intellectual orientation of the ḥadīth critics and their conflicts with their opponents.
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1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789004453241
9789004118058
The Provenance of the Pseudepigrapha : Jewish, Christian, or Other? /
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The Old Testament pseudepigrapha are ancient quasi-biblical texts inspired by the Hebrew Bible. Although frequently mined as Jewish background by New Testament specialists, they were transmitted almost entirely in Christian circles, often only in translation. Christian authors wrote some pseudepigrapha and did not necessarily always mention explicitly Christian topics. This book challenges the assumption that pseudepigrapha are Jewish compositions until proven otherwise. It proposes a methodology for understanding them first in the social context of their earliest manuscripts, inferring still earlier origins only as required by positive evidence while considering the full range of possible authors (Jews, Christians, "God-fearers," Samaritans, etc.). It analyzes a substantial corpus of pseudepigrapha, distinguishing those that are probably Jewish from those of more doubtful origins.
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1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789047416609
9789004137523
The Revelation of the Name YHWH to Moses : Perspectives from Judaism, the Pagan Graeco-Roman World, and Early Christianity /
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The revelation of YHWH's name to Moses is a momentous event according to the Old Testament. The name 'Yahweh' is of central importance in Judaism, and 'Yahwism' became tantamount to Jewish monotheism. As such, this designation of God also attracted the attention of pagan writers in the Graeco-Roman period. And early Christians had to deal with this divine name as well. These three perspectives on YHWH constitute the framework for this volume. It appears that the Name of God and its revelation to Moses constitute a major theme which runs from the book of Exodus through the Old Testament, early Judaism, and early Christianity. It also attracted pagan philosophical interest, both positive and negative. The Name of God was not only perceived from an insider's perspective, but also provoked a reaction from outsiders. The combined perspectives show the fundamental importance of the divine Name for the formation of Jewish and Christian identities.
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1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789047411031
9789004153981
The Life of Adam and Eve in Greek : A Critical Edition /
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This volume contains the first critical edition of the Life of Adam and Eve in Greek, based on all available manuscripts. In the introduction the history of previous research is summarized, and the extant manuscripts are presented. Next comes a description of the grammatical characteristics of the manuscripts' texts, followed by a detailed study of the genealogical relationships between them, resulting in a reconstruction of the writing's history of transmission in Greek. On the basis of all this information, the Greek text of the Life of Adam and Eve in its earliest attainable stage, is established. The text edition is accompanied by a full critical apparatus, in which all relevant evidence from the manuscripts is recorded. Several indices complete this volume.
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1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789047414735
9789004143173
The Book of Tobit: Text, Tradition, Theology : Papers of the First International Conference on the Deuterocanonical Books, Pápa, Hungary, 20-21 May, 2004 /
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This volume contains the proceedings of the first of an international series of conferences on the deuterocanonical literature organised by the Shime'on Centre in Pápa, Hungary. Renowned international scholars of the field treat questions of text in the Book of Tobit, the underlying traditions and theological questions. The importance of the deuterocanonical corpus is widely recognised in contemporary scholarship. This is marked by the growing number of related publications. Yet it remains important to create an opportunity to work through the entire deuterocanonical material as such. These conferences aim to provide a yearly forum for discussion of this literature. The next conferences planned are on Maccabees (2005), Sirach (2006), Wisdom (2007), Additions (2008) and Judith (2009), and as a result, the organisers plan to publish five more volumes. Together with the present volume these will cover the entire deuterocanonical corpus.
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1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789047415329
9789004143760
Written for Us: Paul's Interpretation of Scripture and the History of Midrash /
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This volume re-introduces Paul into the study of midrash. Though Paul writes and interprets scripture in Greek and the Tannaim in Hebrew, and despite grave methodological difficulties in claiming direct and substantial cultural contact between these literary traditions, this book argues that Paul is a crucial source for the study of rabbinic midrash and vice versa. Fisch offers fresh perspectives on reading practices that Paul and the Tannaim uniquely share; on Paul's concept of nomos , and its implications on the reconstructed history of the Tannaitic twofold-Torah, Oral and Written; on the relationship between allegory and midrash as hermeneutical systems; and on competing conceptualizations of ideal readers.
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1 online resource :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789004505629
9789004511590
All Citizens of Christ: A Cosmopolitan Reading of Unity and Diversity in Paul's Letters /
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In this work, Jeehei Park proposes Greek and Roman cosmopolitanism as a constructive category through which to navigate a reading of human diversity and communal unity in Paul's letters. Park takes a thorough look at the cosmopolitan ideas of Diogenes of Sinope, Philo, Plutarch, Epictetus, and Marcus Aurelius to establish Paul as an interlocutor who critically participated in the discourse of cosmopolitanism. Park characterizes Paul's understanding of unity with the distinctive phrase "heterogeneous unity," in which human differences are respected and embraced rather than being universalized or homogenized. This book offers a novel analysis of Paul's rhetoric about citizenship in Philippians and its adoption of Greek and Roman cosmopolitanism as an interpretive contour.
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1 online resource :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789004522008
9789004522084
The Story of Tobit : A Comparative Literary Analysis /
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This volume charts Tobit's narrative sources in myth, legend and folktale through comparative literary analysis, firmly placing the story in the genre of the didactic and edifying religious novel.
The story of Tobit builds on various themes derived from myth, legend and folktale. Tobiah's journey recalls Homer's Odyssey, the suffering of the righteous brings to mind the legend of Job, and the narrative around a disgraced and then rehabilitated official evokes the story of Ahiqar. The author of Tobit seeks to exploit his readers' knowledge of these stories in order to convey his message more effectively: he encourages them to trust in divine providence that intervenes on behalf of the faithful. This volume, based on essays previously published in Italian, charts Tobit's narrative sources through comparative literary analysis, firmly placing the story in the genre of the didactic and edifying religious novel.
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1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789004519459
9789004519442
Characterizing Old Greek Deuteronomy as an Ancient Translation /
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Much can be learned about a translation's linguistic and cultural context by studying it as a text, a literary artifact of the culture that produced it. However, its nature as a translation warrants a careful approach, one that pays attention to the process by which its various features came about. In Characterizing Old Greek Deuteronomy as an Ancient Translation, Jean Maurais develops a framework derived from Descriptive Translation Studies to bring both these aspects in conversation. He then outlines how the Deuteronomy translator went about his task and provides a characterization of the work as a literary product.
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In this monograph, Jean Maurais applies recent developments in Translation Studies to the study of Septuagint translations in order to develop a framework appropriate to the characterization of Old Greek Deuteronomy as a translation and as a literary artifact. :
1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789004516588
9789004516571
The Theological Profile of the Peshitta of Isaiah /
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In The Theological Profile of the Peshitta of Isaiah , Attila Bodor explores theological elements in the book of Isaiah as represented in the Peshitta. Through a close study of its interpretative renderings, the author shows that this lesser-known ancient version is not only an important witness to textual history and a repository of early exegetical traditions but also testifies to the beliefs of the early Syriac-speaking community from which the Peshitta emerged. In the monograph, sixty-three Peshitta divergences from the Hebrew version of Isaiah are collected and analyzed in order to illustrate the theological implications and the impact of these divergent renderings on the interpretation and reception of the major Isaianic themes that treat God, the Messiah, and the people of God.
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Revision of author's thesis (doctoral)--Pontificio Istituto biblico, 2020, titled The theological profile of the Peshitta of Isaiah : a study of the interpretative readings. :
1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789004469129
9789004469037
Material and Digital Reconstruction of Fragmentary Dead Sea Scrolls : The Case of 4Q418a /
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This book presents an innovative and comprehensive method for reconstructing fragmentary scrolls in a digital environment. The method enables extracting maximum information from the fragments. It is exemplified on the scroll 4Q418a, a fragmentary copy of Instruction.
Scholars working with ancient scrolls seek ways to extract maximum information from the multitude of fragments. Various methods were applied to that end on the Dead Sea Scrolls as well as on other ancient texts. The present book augments these methods to a full-scale protocol, while adapting them to a new computerized environment. Fundamental methodological issues are illuminated as part of the discussion, and the potential margin of error is provided on an empirical basis, as practiced in the sciences. The method is then exemplified with regard to the scroll 4Q418a, a copy of a wisdom composition from Qumran.
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1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789004473058
9789004473041
Genesis 37 and 39 in the Early Syriac Tradition /
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The Syriac reception of the story of Joseph offers an unprecedented glimpse into late antique Syriac literary culture. The story inspired a diverse body of texts, written in prose, narrative poetry, dialogue poetry, and metrical homilies, including the greatest narrative poem written in Syriac. These texts explore and retell the story of Joseph with a combination of exegetical imagination, playful creativity, and a relentless focus on the exemplary virtues of the patriarch. Read through a typological lens, this study shows how the story also became an important locus of Christian-Jewish polemic.
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1 online resource :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789004526952
9789004526969