Das Selbstverständnis der jüdischen Diaspora in der hellenistisch-römischen Zeit /
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Fifteen years after his death the last book by Willem Cornelis van Unnik (1910-1978) is now published. This great scholar presents here the results of his thorough investigation of self-definition in the Jewish diaspora of late antiquity. After an introductory chapter which includes a brief history of research, Van Unnik investigates the semantic field of the Greek term diaspora , the use of this word in the Septuagint and the New Testament, the history of the term in post-biblical Jewish and Christian writings, and the theological understanding of the term. Van Unnik concludes that in Jewish circles living in the diaspora has always been regarded as an essentially negative and frightening phenomenon, much more so than many modern investigations would have us believe. The main text of this book. The main text of this book is completely from the pen of Van Unnik; only the footnotes were missing. The editor has added footnotes and an extensive biographical-bibliographical introduction and appendices.
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1 online resource (200 pages) :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789004332706 :
0169-734X ; :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
Roots and routes : identity construction and the Jewish-Christian-Muslim dialogue /
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Dialogue participants demonstrate strong motivations for contributing to interreligious dialogue, based on a firm belief that encountering the other generates understanding - the contact thesis. Interreligious dialogue meets with both suspicion and cynicism: the former because it may result in loss of identity, and the latter because important issues may be ignored. The hitherto unanswered question is how Jewish-Christian-Muslim dialogue affects the identities of its participants. In this study Rachel Reedijk analyses identity construction in an interreligious context against the backdrop of the dominant either/or discourse regarding religious diversity - and, for that matter, multiculturalism - in Western society. The conceptual framework of this study is constituted by the debate on essentialism and constructivism in the social sciences. She argues that, under the right circumstances, interreligious dialogue can move beyond polemics and apologetics and prepare the ground for understanding in the dual sense of prejudice reduction and interreligious hermeneutics.
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1 online resource (xv, 358) : illustrations. :
Includes bibliographical references ([325]-344) and indexes. :
9789042028401 :
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Philo in early Christian literature : a survey /
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It is a remarkable fact that the writings of Philo, the Jew from Alexandria, were preserved because they were taken up in the Christian tradition. But the story of how this process of reception and appropriation took place has never been systematically research. In this book the author first examines how Philo's works are related to the New Testament and the earliest Chritian writing, and then how they were used by Greek and Latin church fathers up to 400 c.e., with special attention to the contributions of Clement, Origen, Didymus, Eusebius, Gregory of Nyssa, Ambrose, and Augustine. Philo in Early Christian Literature is a valuable guide to the state of scholarly research on a subject that has thus far been investigated in a rather piecemeal fashion.
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1 online resource (xv, 418 pages) :
Includes bibliographical references (p. 357-392) and indexes. :
9789004275164 :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
Jubilee in the Bible : using the theology of Jürgen Moltmann to find a new hermeneutic /
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The biblical message of Jubilee is becoming more credible in our days in dealing with the socio-economic and moral-spiritual issues of today's world. It continues to exercise a powerful influence on the religious thoughts and actions of God's people. In addition to that, this book reveals a new hermeneutical code of reading and interpreting the message of Jubilee. The synthesis of the exegetical analysis of the biblical texts regarding the Jubilee and Sabbath/Sabbath year and Moltmann's understanding of this subject reveals the meaning and significance of the topic, how it is recognized, as well as its implications in today's world. This synthesis reveals a new vision and starting point for socio-economic and moral-spiritual reform in our time. "The biblical Sabbat / Jubilee-traditions are much richer than we thought. This book shows it. Theologically often neglected they are a source of new ideas to solve problems of human community and the ecology of the earth. That my theological works can be used to apply them today, is a surprise to me, a happy surprise." Jürgen Moltmann
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1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789004343474 :
0928-0731 ; :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
Studies in Hellenistic Judaism /
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This volume consists of 23 essays that have appeared in 19 different journals and other publications during a period of over 40 years, together with an introduction. The essays deal primarily with the relations between Jews and non-Jews during the period from Alexander the Great to the end of the Roman Empire, in five areas: Josephus; Judaism and Christianity; Latin literature and the Jews; the Romans in Rabbinic literature; and other studies in Hellenistic Judaism. The topics include a programmatic essay comparing Hebraism and Hellenism, pro-Jewish intimations in Apion and in Tacitus, the influence of Josephus on Cotton Mather, Philo's view on music, the relationship between pagan and Christian anti-Semitism, observations on rabbinic reaction to Roman rule, and new light from inscriptions and papyri on Diaspora synagogues.
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1 online resource (x, 677 pages) :
Includes bibliographical references (p. 603-605) and indexes. :
9789004332836 :
0169-734X ; :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
Abraham Bar Hiyya on time, history, exile and redemption : an analysis of Megillat ha-Megalleh /
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An analysis of Megillat ha-Megalleh by Abraham Bar Hiyya (12th c.) as a complete text in its historical and cultural context, showing that the work - written at a time when Jews increasingly came under Christian influence and dominance - presents a coherent argument for the continuing validity of the Jewish hope for redemption. In his argument, Bar Hiyya presents a view of history, the course of which was planted by God in creation, which runs inevitably towards the future redemption of the Jews. Bar Hiyya uses philosophical, scientific, biblical and astrological material to support his argument, and several times makes use of originally Christian ideas, which he inverts to suit his argument.
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1 online resource (pages) :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789004276895 :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
Moshe Idel : representing God /
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Moshe Idel, the Max Cooper Professor Emeritus at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and Senior Researcher at the Shalom Hartman Institute, is a world-renowned scholar of the Jewish mystical tradition. His historical and phenomenological studies of rabbinic, philosophic, kabbalistic, and Hasidic texts have transformed modern understanding of Jewish intellectual history and highlighted the close relationship between magic, mysticism, and liturgy. A recipient of two of the most prestigious awards in Israel, the Israel Prize for Jewish Thought (1999) and the Emmet Prize for Jewish Thought (2002), Idel's numerous studies have uncovered persistent patterns of Jewish religious thought that challenge conventional interpretations of Jewish monotheism, while offering a pluralistic understanding of Judaism. His explorations of the mythical, theurgical, mystical, and messianic dimensions of Judaism have been attentive to history, sociology, and anthropology, while rejecting a naïve historicist approach to Judaism.
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1 online resource (xv, 205 pages) :
Includes bibliographical references (p. 197-205). :
9789004280786 :
2213-6010 ; :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
Ritual purity and the Dead Sea scrolls /
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This book represents the first comprehensive study on the concept of ritual purity in the Dead Sea Scrolls since the full publication of the legal material from Qumran. Utilizing an independent approach to the relevant documents from Qumran, this study discusses the primary and secondary literature on the five major categories of impurity in the scrolls (i.e., diseases, clean/unclean animals, corpses, bodily discharges, and sexual misdeeds). This examination is supported by a comparison between the scrolls' purity legislations and their biblical counterparts. The book culminates with a comparison between the purity rulings in the scrolls and a diachronic reading of the explicit agreements and disagreements found therein. The result is a far more comprehensive and nuanced interpretation than has been previously offered.
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1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references (p. [311]-326) and indexes. :
9789047423010 :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
Tamar Ross : constructing faith /
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Tamar Ross is Professor of Jewish Philosophy (Emerita) at Bar-Ilan University. She has written extensively on the Musar movement, the thought of Rabbi Abraham Isaac Kook, the ideology of Mitnagedism, and the relationship of Orthodoxy and feminism. Conversant with classical rabbinic sources and analytic philosophy, she champions the notion of cumulative revelation in pursuit of a non-foundationalist notion of truth, both religious and scientific. Responding to the feminist critique, she articulates an original and constructive Jewish theology sympathetic to the later stages of Wittgenstein's philosophy of language and to complementary motifs in Jewish mysticism. Her philosophy of halakha similarly builds on post-positivist legal theory, demonstrating the transformative influence of women's direct input on a legal system previously managed exclusively by men.
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1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789004317376 :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
Knowledge of God and the development of early Kabbalah /
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In Knowledge of God and the Development of Early Kabbalah , Jonathan Dauber offers a fresh consideration of the emergence and early development of Kabbalah against the backdrop of a re-evaluation of the relationship between early Kabbalistic and philosophic discourse. He argues that the first Kabbalists adopted a philosophic ethos that was foreign to traditional Rabbinic Judaism but had taken root in Languedoc and Catalonia under the influence of newly available philosophical materials. In this ethos, the act of investigating God was accorded great religious significance, and it was its adoption by the first Kabbalists that helped spur them to engage in their investigations of God and, in so doing, develop Kabbalah.
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1 online resource (x, 275 pages) :
Includes bibliographical references (p.[253]-268 ) and index. :
9789004234277 :
1873-9008 ; :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
Apocalyptic and Merkavah mysticism /
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This is a new and revised edition of the book first published 1980. It contains new introductory and concluding chapters as well as a Bibliography and updated Index. Furthermore, substantial corrections, updates, and changes have been made in the original text. The changes concern matters of language and style, they nuance the line of argumentation, and they update the discussion of major issues. The new chapters fill several scholarly gaps that have opened since the initial publication of this book in 1980. The new Introductory Chapter explores new venues and issues in the study and assessment of the Hekhalot literature and relevant passages in apocalyptic literature, and this in light of epistemological and ontological considerations. The Concluding Chapter discusses the ritual praxis of the experience of the Hekhalot mystics and its affitnity to magic, and this in terms of new approaches to ritual theory.
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1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789004279209 :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
Die griechische Bibel in Alexandrien : Ihre Legende und die exegetische Praxis im hellenistischen Judentum /
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Offering a fresh look on the legendary tradition of the Septuagint and on the exegetical practice of the Greek Torah (Philo) this book pleads for a consistent Jewish exegetical tradition in Alexandria that is based on both biblical idioms - the Greek and the Hebrew. Wie hängen die Legende über die Entstehung der Septuaginta und die exegetische Praxis des alexandrinischen Judentums (vor allem Philons) zusammen? Das Buch plädiert für eine einheitliche exegetische Tradition in Alexandrien, welche beide Gestalten der Tora - die griechische und die hebräische - berücksichtigt.
The translation of the Torah into Greek in Alexandria is an intriguing puzzle. Why was it undertaken at all? Was it a need of the Alexandrian Jews? Or did the Jewish wisdom intrigue the Egyptian ruler? Is the legend of the miraculous creation of the Septuagint a manifesto of cultural assimilation into the Hellenic culture? Does the Alexandrian Greek biblical exegesis, especially that of Philo, aim to break with the Hebrew tradition? According to this book, Philo, although not fluent in Hebrew himself, moves in the same shared Hebrew-Greek Torah universe that a closer look on the Septuagint legend reveals as well. Die Übersetzung der Tora ins Griechische in Alexandrien ist ein intrigierendes Rätsel. Warum wurde sie überhaupt unternommen? War sie ein Bedürfnis der alexandrinischen Juden? Oder machte die jüdische Weisheit den ägyptischen Herrscher neugierig? Ist die Legende über die wundersame Entstehung der Septuaginta ein Manifest der kulturellen Assimilation an die hellenische Kultur? Bezweckt die alexandrinische griechische Bibelexegese, vor allem diejenige Philons, den Bruch mit der hebräischen Tradition und die Anpassung an die hellenistische Philosophie? Nach Ansicht dieses Buches bewegt sich Philon, obwohl selbst des Hebräischen nicht mächtig, in demselben gemeinsamen hebräisch-griechischen Tora-Universum, welches die Septuaginta-Legende bei näherer Betrachtung beschreibt.
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1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789004523166
9789004523173
Tradition vs. traditionalism : contemporary perspectives in Jewish thought.
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This book is a first attempt to examine the thought of key contemporary Jewish thinkers on the meaning of tradition in the context of two models. The classic model assumes that tradition reflects lack of dynamism and reflectiveness, and the present's unqualified submission to the past. This view, however, is an image that the modernist ethos has ascribed to the tradition so as to remove it from modern existence. In the alternative model, a living tradition emerges as open and dynamic, developing through an ongoing dialogue between present and past. The Jewish philosophers discussed in this work-Joseph B. Soloveitchik, Yeshayahu Leibowitz, David Hartman, and Eliezer Goldman-ascribe compelling canonic status to the tradition, and the analysis of their thought discloses the tension between these two models. The book carefully traces the course they have plotted along the various interpretations of tradition through their approach to Scripture and to Halakhah.
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1 online resource (235 pages) :
9789401206426 :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
Myths, martyrs, and modernity : studies in the history of religions in honour of Jan N. Bremmer /
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This volume in honour of Jan N. Bremmer contains the contributions of numerous students, colleagues, and friends offered to him on the occasion of his 65th birthday. Throughout his career, Bremmer has distinguished himself as an internationally renowned scholar of religion both past and present, including first and foremost Greek and Roman religion, but also early Christianity and post-classical developments in religion and spirituality. In line with these three main areas of Bremmer's research, the volume is divided into three parts, bringing together contributions from distinguished scholars in many fields. The result is a diverse book which provides a broad spectrum of original ideas and innovative approaches in the history of religions, thus reflecting the nature of the scholarship of Bremmer himself.
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1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789004193659 :
0169-8834 ; :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.