Rachels Klage im antiken Judentum und frühen Christentum : eine auslegungsgeschichtliche Studie /
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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.
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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.
A legacy of learning : essays in honor of Jacob Neusner /
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In a career spanning over fifty years, the questions Jacob Neusner has asked and the critical methodologies he has developed have shaped the way scholars have come to approach the rabbinic literature as well as the diverse manifestations of Judaism from rabbinic times until the present. The essays collected here honor that legacy, illustrating an influence that is so pervasive that scholars today who engage in the critical study of Judaism and the history of religions more generally work in a laboratory that Professor Neusner created. Addressing topics in ancient and Rabbinic Judaism, the Judaic context of early Christianity, American Judaism, World Religions, and the academic study of the humanities, these essays demarcate the current state of Judaic and religious studies in the academy today.
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1 online resource (xiii, 430 pages) : illustrations (color) :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789004284289 :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
Mine and yours are hers : retrieving women's history from rabbinic literature /
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This book discusses the interaction between history, rabbinic literature and feminist studies. Recent approaches to rabbinic literature have overturned the traditional view of these writings and new literary methods were suggested, mostly denying them all historical value. But rabbinic literature constitutes the main source for the lives of Jews in Palestine and Babylonia during the late Roman period, and thus should not be totally rejected. This study suggests a new post-literary approach, id est it discusses the residue of the texts after these have been analyzed and dissected by literary critics. But mainly this is a book about women's history, adopting many assumptions of feminist criticism about the androcentric nature of all ancient texts, and approaches them with due suspicion. The Rabbis treated women differently from the way they treated men. This resulted in the former's marginalization and manipulation by the texts. On the other hand, however, it created an ironic situation whereby principles useful for the recovery of historical information on women, are useless when applied to men. This study describes such principles and demonstrates them with the help of many examples.
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1 online resource (xiii, 346 pages) :
Includes bibliographical references (p. 319-331) and indexes. :
9789004332454 :
0169-734X ; :
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.
The figure of Joseph in post-Biblical Jewish literature /
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This book is a comparative study in the hermeneutics of the ancient interpretations of the biblical Joseph story. Assuming that every interpretation results from a creative encounter between the ultimately open text of Scripture and the specific thought world of the interpreter, it examines the particular way in which each exegete construes the biblical outline of Joseph's character. Paying special attention to the literary nature of the sources, the study begins with an analysis of the narrative methods and the hermeneutic potential of the biblical story, and then proceeds to the inter-testamental evidence. The central concern of this study is to compare the different interpretations of the philosopher Philo, the historian Josephus and the Midrash Genesis Rabbah. These sources do not only range over a considerable amount of time but significantly derive respectively from the Greek and Hebrew cultural realm. Consequently, their figures of Joseph fulfil distinctly different purposes, ranging from an idealisation of Joseph as a Hellenistic politician to autobiographical apologetics and religious instruction.
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1 online resource (178 pages) :
Includes bibliographical references (p. 165-173) and indexes. :
9789004332690 :
0169-734X ; :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
Poetry and exegesis in premodern Latin Christianity : the encounter between classical and Christian strategies of interpretation /
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This volume investigates various exegetical possibilities in Christian Latin poetry during Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages. In the Latin West poetry was mainly associated with the powerful pagan tradition of writers like Vergil and Ovid, and by many poetry was considered to tell lies and provide mere entertainment potentially corrupting the soul. Therefore, Christians initially had reservations about this genre and believed it to be incompatible with Christian worship, literacy and intellectual activity. In practice, however, forms of specifically Christian poetry developed from the end of the third century onwards; theoretical reconciliations were developed around 400 A.D. This collection examines specimens of Christian poetry from Juvencus (the first biblical epicist shortly after 300) up to the thirteenth century. Its particular usefulness lies in the combination of literary theory and hermeneutics, close readings of the texts and new readings on a sound philological basis.
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1 online resource (xi, 360 pages) :
Includes bibliographical references and indexes. :
9789047421320 :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
Talmudic transgressions : engaging the work of Daniel Boyarin /
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Talmudic Transgressions is a collection of essays on rabbinic literature and related fields in response to the boundary-pushing scholarship of Daniel Boyarin. This work is an attempt to transgress boundaries in various ways, since boundaries differentiate social identities, literary genres, legal practices, or diasporas and homelands. These essays locate the transgressive not outside the classical traditions but in these traditions themselves, having learned from Boyarin that it is often within the tradition and in its terms that we can find challenges to accepted notions of knowledge, text, and ethnic or gender identity. The sections of this volume attempt to mirror this diverse set of topics. Contributors include Julia Watts Belser, Jonathan Boyarin, Shamma Boyarin, Virginia Burrus, Sergey Dolgopolski, Charlotte E. Fonrobert, Simon Goldhill, Erich S. Gruen, Galit Hasan-Rokem, Christine Hayes, Adi Ophir, James Redfield, Elchanan Reiner, Ishay Rosen-Zvi, Lena Salaymeh, Zvi Septimus, Aharon Shemesh, Dina Stein, Eliyahu Stern, Moulie Vidas, Barry Scott Wimpfheimer, Elliot R. Wolfson, Azzan Yadin-Israel, Israel Yuval, and Froma Zeitlin.
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"Originated in a conference held at the University of California, Berkeley, in April 2014"--From the editors. :
1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789004345331 :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.