Authoritative texts and reception history : aspects and approaches /
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Reception history has emerged over the last decades as a rapidly growing domain of research, entertaining a notable methodological diversity. Authoritative Texts and Reception History samples that diversity, offering a collection of essay that discuss various reception-historical issues, from a plurality of perspectives, across several fields: Hebrew Bible/Old Testament, Pseudepigrapha and the Dead Sea Scrolls, New Testament, early and late-antique Christianity. While furthering specific discussions in their specific fields, the contributions included here-authored by both established and emerging scholars-illustrate just how wide the umbrella of 'reception history' can be, and the varied range of topics, concerns and approaches it can accommodate.
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1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789004334960 :
0928-0731 ; :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
The significance of Sinai : traditions about Sinai and divine revelation in Judaism and Christianity /
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This volume of essays is concerned with ancient and modern Jewish and Christian views of the revelation at Sinai. The theme is highlighted in studies on the Dead Sea Scrolls, Paul, Josephus, rabbinic literature, art and philosophy. The contributions demonstrate that Sinai, as the location of the revelation, soon became less significant than the narratives that developed about what happened there. Those narratives were themselves transformed, not least to explain problems regarding the text's plain sense. Miraculous theophany, anthropomorphisms, the role of Moses, and the response of Israel were all handled with exegetical skills mustered by each new generation of readers. Furthermore, the content of the revelation, especially the covenant, was rethought in philosophical, political, and theological ways. This collection of studies is especially useful in showing something of the complexity of how scriptural traditions remain authoritative and lively for those who appeal to them from very different contexts.
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1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references and indexes. :
9789047443476 :
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.
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.
The organization of the pyramid texts : typology and disposition /
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The ancient Egyptian Pyramid Texts form the oldest sizable body of religious texts in the world. Discovered in the late nineteenth century, they had been inscribed on the interior stone walls of the pyramid tombs of third-millennium kings and queens. From their content it is clear that they were concerned with the afterlife state of the tomb owner, but the historical meaning of their emergence has been poorly understood. This book weds traditional philological approaches to linguistic anthropology in order to associate them with two spheres of human action: mortuary cult and personal preparation for the afterlife. Monumentalized as hieroglyphs in the tomb, their function was now one step removed from the human events that had motivated their original production.
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1 online resource (2 volumes in 1 (xxxiv, 712 pages)) : illustrations. :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789004227491 :
0169-9601 ; :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
Sustain me with raisin-cakes : Pesikta deRav Kahana and the popularization of rabbinic Judaism /
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History and literature come together in a new way in this study of the midrashic collection Pesikta deRav Kahana. The book combines the findings of rabbinic historians and early Christianity scholars with a close reading of this midrashic text on its own and in relation to the tannaitic midrashim which preceded it. The rich picture that emerges suggests that PRK, in its new homiletical and aggadic stance, develops a religious language more appealing and accessible to the masses, an outreach language meant to win rabbinic popularity. Exploring issues of power and rhetoric, the book also places PRK's outreach language into the cultural context of the imperialism of Roman Christian homily.
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Revision of author's thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Pennsylvania, 2004 under title: Rabbinic preachers and their audiences in the Amoraic midrashim Pesikta derav Kahana and Leviticus rabbah. :
1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references (p. [209]-214) and indexes. :
9789047442288 :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
Wisdom in transition : act and consequence in Second Temple instructions /
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This volume considers a major shift among Jewish sages during the Second Temple period, as certain authors moved from an earthly focus to a belief in individual immortality. Egyptian instructions and the book of Proverbs are examined for necessary background. The colorful responses of Qoheleth and Ben Sira to an emergent belief in the afterlife are also discussed. 4QInstruction, the largest Wisdom text from the Dead Sea Scrolls corpus, demonstrates this shift to an eschatological understanding. This book considers the diverse reasons for the changes that one finds in 4QInstruction, especially the issue of social context. It will prove useful to those interested in Wisdom literature, the Dead Sea Scrolls, apocalypticism, and the development of beliefs in the afterlife.
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1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references (p. [279]-293) and indexes. :
9789047433149 :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
The Arabic life of Antony attributed to Serapion of Thmuis : cultural memory reinterpreted /
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In The Arabic Life of Antony Attributed to Serapion of Thmuis , Elizabeth Agaiby demonstrates how the redacted Life of Antony , the "Father of all monks and star of the wilderness", gained widespread acceptance within Egypt shortly after its composition in the 13th century and dominated Coptic liturgical texts on Antony for over 600 years - the influence of which is still felt up to the present day. By providing a first edition and translation, Agaiby demonstrates how the Arabic Life bears witness to the reinterpretation of the religious memory of Antony in the Coptic Orthodox Church.
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"This book is a revision of my doctoral thesis, 'Whoever Writes Your Life-story I will Write His Name in the Book of Life.' The Arabic Life of Antony Attributed to Serapion of Thmuis in Manuscripts of the Red Sea Monasteries"-- Author's acknowledgments. :
1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789004383272 :
2213-0039 ;
Moses und der Mytho s die Auseinandersetzung mit der griechischen Mythologie bei jüdisch-hellenistischen Autoren /
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In the Hellenistic period Jews regularly encountered Greek mythology in one form or another: in literature, in art, or through language. This book is the first comprehensive study of the different strategies pursued by Jewish-Hellenistic authors as they engaged with Greek myth. The principal focus of this study is on the Jewish historian Flavius Josephus, but a large range of other authors from the Third century BCE to the 1st century CE are also discussed. Far from limiting themselves to outright rejection, these authors often show a striking familiarity with Greek myth, which they sometimes even incorporated into Jewish myth. Ancient Jewish discourse on Greek myth was not primarily driven by apologetics, but constituted an important aspect of Jewish Hellenism. Juden trafen in der hellenistischen Zeit regelmässig auf griechische Mythen: in der Literatur, in der Kunst oder im allgemeinen Sprachgebrauch. Dieses Buch ist die erste weitgespannte Untersuchung der unterschiedlichen Strategien, die jüdisch-hellenistische Autoren in ihrem Umgang mit griechischen Mythen anwandten. Das Hauptgewicht der Untersuchung liegt auf dem jüdischen Historiker Flavius Josephus, aber eine grosse Zahl weiterer Autoren vom 3. Jh. volumeChr. bis zum 1. Jh. n.Chr. wird auch einbezogen. Diese Autoren haben griechische Mythen nicht einfach nur verworfen. Häufig zeigen sie eine bemerkenswerte Vertrautheit mit ihnen und gelegentlich gar die Bereitschaft, sie mit jüdischen Mythen zu verbinden. Der antike jüdische Diskurs über die griechischen Mythen war nicht in erster Linie von Apologetik bestimmt, sondern bildete einen wichtigen Aspekt des jüdischen Hellenismus.
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1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references and indexes. :
9789004191136 :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
Exploring the scripturesque : Jewish texts and their Christian contexts /
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These essays span about a third of a century and include both previously published and some unpublished studies by Robert A. Kraft which focus on interfaces between Jewish materials and the worlds in which they were transmitted and/or perceived, especially Christian contexts. The initial section on general context and methodology is followed by several detailed studies by way of example. The final section touches on some related issues involving Philonic and other texts. The primary concern is with \'scripturesque\' materials and traditions, whether they later became canonical or not, that seem to have been respected as "scriptural" by some individuals or communities in the period prior to (or apart from) the development of an exclusivistic canonical consciousness in some Jewish and Christian circles.
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1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789004190726 :
1384-2161 ; :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
The Mishnaic Sotah ritual : temple, gender and Midrash.
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This study analyzes the specific textual formation of Mishna Sotah. Diverging significantly from its origins in the book of Numbers, the Mishnaic ritual was traditionally read by scholars as an \'ancient Mishna\', narrating an actual ritual practiced in the second temple. In contrast to this generally accepted view, this book claims that while Sotah does contain some traditions, its overall composition has a clear ideological and academic form. Furthermore, comparisons with parallel Tannaitic sources reveal the ideological redaction, which carefully selected only those opinions which support its rewriting of the ritual as a public punitive ritual, while rejecting all reservations and opposition to its specific punitive character - even ignoring the possibility of innocence of the suspected adulteress. The author's groundbreaking conclusion is that, regardless of the form the real ritual did or did not take at the temple, the specific Mishnaic ritual was (re)invented by the rabbis in the second century C.E. From its very inception, it was purely textual, reflecting rabbinic imagination rather than memory.
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1 online resource (302 pages) :
9789004227989 :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
Revelations of Ideology: Apocalyptic Class Politics in Early Roman Palestine.
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In Revelations of Ideology , G. Anthony Keddie proposes a new theory of the social function of Judaean apocalyptic texts produced in Early Roman Palestine (63 BCE-70 CE). In contrast to evaluations of Jewish and early Christian apocalyptic texts as "literature of the oppressed" or literature of resistance against empire, Keddie demonstrates that scribes produced apocalyptic texts to advance ideologies aimed at self-legitimation. By revealing that their opponents constituted an exploitative class, scribes generated apocalyptic ideologies that situated them in the same exploited class as their constituents. Through careful historical and ideological criticism of the Psalms of Solomon, Parables of Enoch, Testament of Moses, and Q source, Keddie identifies an internally diverse tradition of apocalyptic class rhetoric in late Second Temple Judaism.
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1 online resource. :
9789004383647
Establishing boundaries : Christian-Jewish relations in early council texts and the writings of Church Fathers /
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This book addresses the ongoing close relations between ordinary Christians and Jews on a daily basis at a time when church leaders were increasingly trying to establish boundaries between Christians and other religious groupings, especially Jews. Until recently, most historical studies of late antique Christian-Jewish relations had been primarily based on the writings of the church fathers.This new study makes use of a new type of source material: fourth to late sixth century council documents in which clear indications are given of the daily relationships between Christians and Jews. The texts from the eastern and western Mediterranean describe contacts between Christianity and Judaism at the level of ordinary people. These contacts remained close for a much longer period than the church leaders would have liked.
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1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references (p. [177]-198) and index. :
9789004190658 :
1388-2074 ; :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
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.
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.
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.
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
Primeval histor y Babylonian, biblical, and Enochic : an intertextual reading /
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Most cultures have myths of origin. The Babylonians were the first to combine blocks of traditions about primeval time into primeval histories where humans had a central role. In the first millennium there were different versions that influenced the concepts of primeval history within Jewish religion, both in the Bible and in the parallel Enochic tradition. Atrahasis and the traditions of primeval dynasties had crucial impact on Genesis; the traditions of the primeval apkallus as cosmic guardians were lying behind the Enochic Watcher Story. The book offers a comprehensive analytic comparison between the images of primeval time in these three traditions. It presents new interpretations of each of these traditions and how they relate to each other.
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1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references and indexes. :
9789004196124 :
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
Apocalyptic thinking in early Judaism : engaging with John Collins' The Apocalyptic imagination /
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It has been over 30 years since John Collins' seminal study The Apocalyptic Imagination first came out. In this timely volume, Apocalyptic Thinking in Early Judaism: Engaging with John Collins' The Apocalyptic Imagination , leading international experts of Jewish apocalyptic critically engage with Collins' work and add to the ongoing debate with articles on current topics in the field of apocalyptic studies. The subjects include the genre and sub categories of apocalypses, demonology, the character of dream visions, the books of Enoch, the significance of Aramaic texts, and apocalyptic traditions in the Dead Sea Scrolls as well as in Paul's writings. The volume ends with Collins' response to the articles.
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1 online resource. :
9789004358386 :
1384-2161 ; :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.