What is good, and what God demands : normative structures in Tannaitic literature /
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The normative rhetoric of tannaitic literature (the earliest extant corpus of rabbinic Judaism) is predominantly deontological. Prior scholarship on rabbinic supererogation, and on points of contact with Greco-Roman virtue discourse, has identified non-deontological aspects of tannaitic normativity. However, these two frameworks overlook precisely the productive intersection of deontological with non-deontological, the first because supererogation defines itself against obligation, and the second because the Greco-Roman comparate discourages serious treatment of law-like elements. This book addresses ways in which alternative normative forms entwine with the core deontological rhetoric of tannaitic literature. This perspective exposes, inter alia, echoes of the post-biblical wisdom tradition in tannaitic law, the rich polyvalence of the category mitzvah, and telling differences between the schools of Akiva and Ishmael.
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1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references and an indexes. :
9789004188297 :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
Between biblical criticism and poetic rewriting : interpretative struggles over Genesis 32:22-32 /
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In Between Biblical Criticism and Poetic Rewriting , Samuel Tongue offers an account of the aesthetic and critical tensions inherent in the development of the Higher Criticism of the Bible. Different 'types' of Bible are created through the intellectual and literary pressures of Enlightenment and Romanticism and, as Tongue suggests, it is this legacy that continues to orientate the approaches deemed legitimate in biblical scholarship. Using a number of ancient and contemporary critical and poetic rewritings of Jacob's struggle with the 'angel' (Gen 32:22-32), Tongue makes use of postmodern theories of textual production to argue that it is the 'paragesis', a parasitical form of writing between disciplines, that best foregrounds the complex performativity of biblical interpretation.
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1 online resource (pages) :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789004271159 :
0928-0731 ; :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
Sibyls, scriptures, and scrolls : John Collins at seventy /
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This volume, a tribute to John J. Collins by his friends, colleagues, and students, includes essays on the wide range of interests that have occupied John Collins's distinguished career. Topics range from the ancient Near East and the Hebrew Bible to the Dead Sea Scrolls and Second Temple Judaism and beyond into early Christianity and rabbinic Judaism. The contributions deal with issues of text and interpretation, history and historiography, philology and archaeology, and more. The breadth of the volume is matched only by the breadth of John Collins's own work.
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1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789004324749 :
1384-2161 ; :
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.
Targums and the transmission of scripture into Judaism and Christianity /
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This collection of seventeen previously published essays and two hitherto unpublished articles examines strategies adopted by ancient Aramaic translators of the Hebrew Bible in their attempts to transmit the meaning of Scripture to their own generations. The intricate interpretations of Targum Pseudo-Jonathan feature prominently: analysis of them suggests a date for the substance of this Targum rather earlier than is commonly assumed. The biblical exegesis of Jerome (ca. 342-420 CE) often reflects Targumic interpretation of Scripture: as well as helping to date items of Jewish interpretation, Jerome's writings also witness to continuing close contacts between Christians and Jews at a crucial stage in the history of both communities. The essays also demonstrate the relationship of the Targums both to other Rabbinic texts and to early translations of the Bible like Septuagint; the versions of Aquila, Symmachus, and Theodotion; and the Peshitta.
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1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references and indexes. :
9789047443865 :
1570-1336 ; :
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.
A New Reading of the Animal Apocalypse of 1 Enoch : "All Nations Shall be Blessed" /
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A New Reading of the Animal Apocalypse of 1 Enoch is the most comprehensive theological commentary on this important second-century BCE Jewish apocalypse to date, laying out the purpose and methodology of this Enochic allegory and using this as the basis for a new commentary on the whole text, presented here in a fresh translation. Against other interpretations that focus on Israel and its institutions, Daniel Olson argues that the promise of universal blessing in the Abrahamic covenant is presented in the Animal Apocalypse as the governing dynamic in a sacred history that begins and ends with humanity in general. The authentic Jacob/Israel will appear in the end times and be the catalyst of universal salvation
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1 online resource (xi, 297 pages) :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789004247789 :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
The book of Proverbs and Arabic proverbial works /
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This is the first detailed study that critically compares and contrasts the wisdom sentences of the Book of Proverbs with classical and post-classical Arabic proverbs; reference is also made to current Arabic proverbs. The wisdom tradition of Solomon is examined and is compared to that of the Arab sage Luqmân. The book deals with three main themes that are of special significance both in the Book of Proverbs and in Arabic proverbial works: royalty, speech and silence, wealth and poverty. The book concludes with a study of some form-critical and traditio-historical aspects of the treated proverbs. Hundreds of classical Arabic proverbs and wisdom sayings of Prophet Muḥammad appear for the first time in English.
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Revision of the author's thesis (Ph. D.--University of Nottingham, 1997), originally presented under title: A critical and comparative study of the book of Proverbs and Arabic proverbial wisdom, with special reference to social background and transmission-history. :
1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references (p. [277]-303) and indexes. :
9789004275997 :
0083-5889 ; :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
Babylonian disputation poems : with editions of the series of the poplar, palm and vine, the series. of the spider, and the story of the poor, forlorn.
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In The Babylonian Disputation Poems Enrique Jiménez studies a group of ancient Babylonian poems that feature discussions between animals and trees. Using intertextual parallels and comparison with similar works in other literatures, he espouses a new classification of the Babylonian disputation poems as parodies. After examining neighboring traditions of literary disputation, he argues that the Babylonian poems influenced them, and that some may have been translated from Akkadian to Aramaic, from Aramaic and Syriac to Arabic. In addition, The Babylonian Disputation Poems provides editions of several previously unpublished Babylonian disputations, such as Palm and Vine and the Series of the Spider . It also offers the first edition of the latest known Babylonian fable, The Story of the Poor, Forlorn Wren .
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1 online resource. :
9789004336261 :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
Scripture and Knowledge, An Essay on Religious Epistemology.
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At the core of Scripture and Knowledge lies the problem of the nature of religious knowledge. The author argues that religion is a particular framework rather than a particular content or defined set of performances. He sees this framework as epistemological, that is, as one that furnishes believers with a conception of knowledge alternative to that of philosophical reasoning. The thesis on the epistemological nature of religion will be developed by the examination of the concept of scripture as a body of authoritative and even infallible texts. The concept of scripture is presented as one of the constitutive concepts of the epistemological framework of religion. The author argues that the various scriptures and their commentaries should be understood as the arena within which the epistemological process of religion takes place and the central epistemological means by which religious knowledge is made possible.
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1 online resource. :
9789004378919
Departure and consolation : the Johannine farewell discourses in light of Greco-Roman literature /
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In contrast to the common opinion that the Johannine Farewell Discourses represent solely the Jewish genre of the Testament, George Parsenios argues that features of the discourses are misread or missed completely apart from Greco-Roman literature. Evidence from classical drama, for instance, assists in reading Jesus' return to the Father as a dramatic exit and, further, accounts for the puzzling delay of Jesus at 14:31 without recourse to redaction theories. Consolation literature and the literary symposium emphasize Jesus' continuing and consoling presence, with particular attention to the Paraclete's role as doppelgänger. The thread that binds the various chapters into a coherent whole, therefore, is the utility of classical literature in clarifying Jesus' consoling presence even after his departure to the Father.
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Revision of the author's thesis (doctoral)--Yale University, 2002. :
1 online resource (x, 174 pages) :
Includes bibliographical references (p. [155]-164) and indexes. :
9789047407010 :
0167-9732 ; :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
Apocalyptic Representations of Jerusalem.
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Jerusalem as a symbolic expression of hope attracts attention and religious adherence in relation to its physical presence. The study identifies, traces and examines apocalyptic representations of Jerusalem, and illustrates what happens when these become experienced reality. The empirical part of the book shows how these representations become living images in two contemporary groups' activity in Jerusalem. Private and public endtime representations of Jerusalem provide meaningful models for interpreting the religious past, present and future. The interplay of these representations also shapes our present images of Jerusalem.
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1 online resource. :
9789047408789
Dionysius Bar Ṣalībī's Treatise Against the Jews : Edited and Translated with Notes and Commentary /
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"Dionysius Bar Ṣalībī's Treatise against the Jews offers rare and illuminating insight into Christian-Jewish-Muslim relations during the Crusader era, not from the perspective of western Crusaders, but from the frequently neglected viewpoint of the Oriental Orthodox tradition. Bar Ṣalībī, a distinguished hierarch of the Syrian Orthodox Church, lived in a turbulent time of heightened tensions in the Levant. The Treatise against the Jews, which forms part of the corpus of Syriac polemical works, investigates the prejudices of Christians and Jews towards each other during the 12 century AD.This edition and translation is based on all the available manuscripts of the text, accompanied by extensive introductions, notes and commentary as well as studies of its place in the field of Syriac Patristic polemics"--
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1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789004391475
9789004391468
The buried foundation of the Gilgamesh epic : the Akkadian Huwawa narrative /
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The Akkadian Gilgamesh Epic, perhaps the most famous of Mesopotamian literature, has been considered the artistry of one author inspired by Sumerian tales. Specialists have assumed that all the earliest evidence (ca. 1800-1700 BCE) reflects this creative unity. Deep contrasts in characterization and narrative logic, however, distinguish the central adventure to defeat the monster Huwawa from what precedes and follows it. The Huwawa narrative stands on its own, so that the epic must have been composed from this prior Akkadian composition. Recognition of the tale embedded in the epic allows each block of material to be understood on its own terms. Such literary-historical investigation from contemporary texts is new to Assyriology and may produce important results when applied to other Mesopotamian writing. \'The book is well written and tightly argued...This makes it a first point of reference for anyone interested in the OB evidence for the Gilgamesh Epic.\' Scott C. Jones, Covenant College
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1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references and indexes. :
9789047440833 :
0929-0052 ; :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
Ancient manuscripts in digital culture : visualisation, data mining, communication /
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Ancient Manuscripts in Digital Culture presents an overview of the digital turn in Ancient Jewish and Christian manuscripts visualisation, data mining and communication. Edited by David Hamidović, Claire Clivaz and Sarah Bowen Savant, it gathers together the contributions of seventeen scholars involved in Biblical, Early Jewish and Christian studies. The volume attests to the spreading of digital humanities in these fields and presents fundamental analysis of the rise of visual culture as well as specific test-cases concerning ancient manuscripts. Sophisticated visualisation tools, stylometric analysis, teaching and visual data, epigraphy and visualisation belong notably to the varied overview presented in the volume.
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1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789004399297 :
2452-0586 ;
Gregory of Nyssa, Homilies on the Beatitudes : an English version with commentary and supporting studies : proceedings of the Eighth International Colloquium on Gregory of Nyssa, P...
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These proceedings present the first English translation of Gregory's Homilies on the Beatitudes by Stuart Hall, accompanied by a thorough commentary by Anthony Meredith, Andreas Spira, Françoise Vinel, Lucas Mateo-Seco, Thomas Böhm, Karl-Heinz Uthemann, Claudio Moreschini, and Robert Wilken. Eight more contributions by Monique Alexandre, Peter Bruns, Judith Kovacs, Salvatore Lilla, Friedhelm Mann, Alden Mosshammer, Elias Moutsoulas, and Lucian Turcescu focus on further general and particular topics of the homilies as their eschatology, the meaning of the word makarios in all of Gregory's works, the notion of justice, and Gregory's Theology of Adoption, as well as their relationship to Syriac theology, Clement of Alexandria, Neoplatonism, and Gregory's Homilies on the Song of Songs . The third and fourth part add ten studies reflecting the present overall state of Gregorian research.
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1 online resource (xxviii, 680 pages) :
Includes bibliographical references and indexes. :
9789004313187 :
0920-623X ; :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
Aramaica Qumranica : proceedings of the conference on the Aramaic texts from Qumran at Aix-en-Provence (June 30-July 2, 2008) /
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The Aramaic Dead Sea Scrolls represent roughly 13% of the Qumran library and correspond to a wide range of genres and topics. This book consists of the proceedings of a conference on the Aramaic scrolls from Qumran which took place in Aix-en-Provence in 2008. It includes both the papers themselves and a transcription of the discussions. The 22 papers tackle linguistic, exegetical and historical questions, focusing in particular on: the relation of the Aramaic texts to what we know as the Hebrew Bible; their literary genres; the question of their sectarian or non-sectarian provenance; the character of the corpus, and specifically its relevance to the development of apocalypticism and messianism in the Jewish tradition.
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1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789004194328 :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
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