The first two volumes of The Zohar, Pritzker edition, cover more than half of the Zohar's commentary on the Book of Genesis (through Genesis 32:3). This is the first translation ever made from a critical Aramaic text of the Zohar, which has been established by Professor Matt based on a wide range of original manuscripts. The extensive commentary, appearing at the bottom of each page, clarifies the kabbalistic symbolism and terminology, and cites sources and parallels from biblical, rabbinic, and kabbalistic texts. The translator's introduction is accompanied by a second introduction written by Arthur Green, discussing the origin and significance of the Zohar ever since it emerged mysteriously in mediaeval Spain toward the end of the 13th century. Written in a unique Aramaic, this masterpiece of Kabbalah exceeds the dimensions of a normal book; it is virtually a body of literature, comprising over 20 discrete sections. The bulk of the Zohar consists of a running commentary on the Torah, from Genesis through Deuteronomy. This translation begins and focuses here in what are projected to be ten volumes. Two subsequent volumes will cover other, shorter sections. The Zohar's commentary is composed in the form of a mystical novel. The hero is Rabbi Shim'on son of Yohai, a saintly disciple of Rabbi Akiva who lived in the 2nd century in the land of Israel. In the Zohar, Rabbi Shim'on and his companions wander through the hills of Galilee, discovering and sharing secrets of Torah. characters, and the mystical companions interpret their words, actions and personalities. On a deeper level, the text of the Bible is simply the starting point, a springboard for the imagination. For example, when God commands Abraham, Lekh lekha, go forth ... to the land that I will show you (Genesis 12:1), Rabbi El'azar ignores idiomatic usage and insists on reading the words more literally than they were intended, hyperliterally: Lekh lekha, go to yourself . Search deep within to discover your true self. about their dramatic mystical sessions with Rabbi Shim'on or their adventures on the road, for example, an encounter with a cantankerous old donkey driver who turns out to be a master of wisdom in disguise. stages of God's inner life, aspects of divine personality, both feminine and masculine. By penetrating the literal surface of the Torah, the mystical commentators transform the biblical narrative into a biography of God. The entire Torah is read as one continuous divine name, expressing divine being. Even a seemingly insignificant verse can reveal the inner dynamics of the sefirot - how God feels, responds and act, how She and He (the divine feminine and masculine) relate intimately with each other and with the world.

"Likely to be the standard work on this subject for years to come, and to contribute to one of the most important debates in the history of the Jewish people, on the very nature of Israel and the Covenant."
--James R. Russell, Harvard University

"The modern biblical interpreter...faces a daunting task in trying to unravel the intentions of the Torah's authors. S. does not retreat from the challenge."
--"Theological Studies"

"An excellent and provocative read . . . challenges the reader to rethink previously held suppositions concerning biblical texts."
--Carl S. Ehrlich, York University

Is the Torah true? Do the five books of Moses provide an accurate historical account of the people of ancient Israel's origins?

In The Original Torah, S. David Sperling argues that, while there is no archeological evidence to support much of the activity chronicled in the Torah, a historical reality exists there if we know how to seek it.

By noting the use of foreign words or mentions of technological innovations scholars can often pinpoint the date and place in which a text was written. Sperling examines the stories of the Torah against their historical and geographic backgrounds and arrives at a new conclusion: the tales of the Torah were originally composed as allegories whose purpose was distinctly and intentionally political.

The book illustrates how the authors of the Pentateuch advanced their political and religious agenda by attributing deeds of historical figures like Jeroboam and David to ancient allegorical characters like Abraham and Jacob. If "Abraham" had made peace with Philistines, for example, then David could rely on a precedent to do likewise. The OriginalTorah provides a new interpretive key to the foundational document of both Judaism and Christianity.

In this important new book, Paul T. Phillips argues that most professional historians - aside from a relatively small number devoted to theory and methodology - have concerned themselves with particular, specialized areas of research, thereby ignoring the fundamental questions of truth, morality, and meaning. This is less so in the thriving general community of history enthusiasts beyond academia, and may explain, in part at least, history's sharp decline as a subject of choice by students in recent years. Phillips sees great dangers resulting from the thinking of extreme relativists and postmodernists on the futility of attaining historical truth, especially in the age of "post-truth." He also believes that moral judgment and the search for meaning in history should be considered part of the discipline's mandate. In each section of this study, Phillips outlines the nature of individual issues and past efforts to address them, including approaches derived from other disciplines. This book is a call to action for all those engaged in the study of history to direct more attention to the fundamental questions of truth, morality, and meaning.

"Web of Life" weaves its suggestive interpretation of Jewish culture in the Palestine of late antiquity on the warp of a singular, breathtakingly tragic, and sublime rabbinic text, "Lamentations Rabbah." The textual analyses that form the core of the book are informed by a range of theoretical paradigms rarely brought to bear on rabbinic literature: structural analysis of mythologies and folktales, performative approaches to textual production, feminist theory, psychoanalytical analysis of culture, cultural criticism, and folk narrative genre analysis.
The concept of context as the hermeneutic basis for literary interpretation reactivates the written text and subverts the hierarchical structures with which it has been traditionally identified. This book reinterprets rabbinic culture as an arena of multiple dialogues that traverse traditional concepts of identity regarding gender, nation, religion, and territory. The author's approach is permeated by the idea that scholarly writing about ancient texts is invigorated by an existential hermeneutic rooted in the universality of human experience. She thus resorts to personal experience as an idiom of communication between author and reader and between human beings of our time and of the past. This research acknowledges the overlap of poetic and analytical language as well as the language of analysis and everyday life.
In eliciting folk narrative discourses inside the rabbinic text, the book challenges traditional views about the social basis that engendered these texts. It suggests the subversive potential of the constitutive texts of Jewish culture from late antiquity to the present by pointing out the inherent multi-vocality of the text, adding to the conventionally acknowledged synagogue and academy the home, the marketplace, and other private and public socializing institutions.

Now in paperback
Taking Hold of Torah
Jewish Commitment and Community in America
Arnold M. Eisen

A personal meditation on the meaning of Judaism today and a vision for revitalizing Jewish community and tradition in America.

"Arnold M. Eisen offers a personal plea for and a vision of the revitalizing of American Judaism through a renewed relationship to Jewish tradition and the strengthening of Jewish communities." Jewish Book News

..".required reading for Jewish communal professionals, Taking Hold of Torah] spells out the discontents and dreams of the baby boomers and their children who are reinventing Jewish communal life for the modern world." Jewish Exponent

"Melding autobiography with biblical exegesis, philosophical speculation and a program for Jewish educational reform, the book is an unbuttoned riff on what's ailing modern Jews." Forward

..".a personal story of a modern Jew trying to make sense of Judaism in a time when Jews can choose whether and how to be Jewish...." The Jewish Advocate

Jews, like other Americans, have both benefitted and suffered from the fraying of traditional loyalties that has come to characterize modern American culture. In each of the five chapters, Arnold M. Eisen examines a major issue or theme related to his vision for the renewal of Jewish communities in terms of one of the five books of the Torah. What is the meaning and purpose of Jewish tradition? What is the significance of faith and covenant? What are the contemporary uses of ritual? What should a new agenda for politics in American Jewish life include? What legacy is to be left to future generations? This encouraging work is essential reading for anyone concerned with questions of Jewish faith and the future of Judaism in America.

Arnold M. Eisen is Professor and Chair of Religious Studies at Stanford University, a frequent speaker on issues related to contemporary Jewish life before lay and scholarly audiences throughout North America, and an active participant in communal discussions concerning the future of American Judaism. His publications include The Chosen People in America (Indiana University Press) and Rethinking Modern Judaism: Ritual, Commandment, Community, winner of a Koret Jewish Book Award.

The Helen and Martin Schwartz Lectures in Jewish Studies

Contents:
Introduction
1. Genesis: Taking on Tradition
2. Exodus: History, Faith, and Covenant
3. Leviticus: Ritual and Community
4. Numbers: Politics in the Wilderness
5. Deuteronomy: Legacies"

"The editors have performed a great service in making widely available a documentary history of the interpretation of the Eve and Adam story." Publishers Weekly

"This fascinating volume examines Genesis 1-3 and the different ways that Jewish, Christian, and Muslim interpreters have used these passages to define and enforce gender roles.... a 'must'... " Choice

"Wonderful A marvelous introduction to the ways in which the three major Western religious traditions are both like, and unlike one another." Ellen Umansky, Fairfield University

No other text has affected women in the western world as much as the story of Eve and Adam. This remarkable anthology surveys more than 2,000 years of Jewish, Christian, and Muslim commentary and debate on the biblical story that continues to raise fundamental questions about what it means to be a man or to be a woman. The selections range widely from early postbiblical interpretations in the Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha to the Qur an, from Thomas Aquinas to medieval Jewish commentaries, from Christian texts to 19th-century antebellum slavery writings, and on to pieces written especially for this volume."

In this important new book, Paul T. Phillips argues that most professional historians - aside from a relatively small number devoted to theory and methodology - have concerned themselves with particular, specialized areas of research, thereby ignoring the fundamental questions of truth, morality, and meaning. This is less so in the thriving general community of history enthusiasts beyond academia, and may explain, in part at least, history's sharp decline as a subject of choice by students in recent years. Phillips sees great dangers resulting from the thinking of extreme relativists and postmodernists on the futility of attaining historical truth, especially in the age of "post-truth." He also believes that moral judgment and the search for meaning in history should be considered part of the discipline's mandate. In each section of this study, Phillips outlines the nature of individual issues and past efforts to address them, including approaches derived from other disciplines. This book is a call to action for all those engaged in the study of history to direct more attention to the fundamental questions of truth, morality, and meaning.

This fascinating book brings together a unique collection of commentaries, translated from the original Arabic, on some of the key passages of the Quran. Presenting the views of a broad range of commentators, both classical and modern, it focuses on such topics as God, Muhammad, revelation, and Muslim beliefs and duties, in addition to chapters exploring mystical, philosophical and Shiite quaranic exegesis. The Quran and its Exegesis offers an unparalleled overview of Muslim thinking through the ages and around the world, an essential addition to the libraries of all students of Islam and comparative religion.

"In this almost painfully beautiful book... Fishbane... explores thequestion of the kind of canon, privileged status, or Logos, the Torah actually hasfor the post-modern Western Jew. " -- Theology Today

"Abook well worth reading." -- The Jerusalem Post

"Thiswonderful volume documents the intellectual and spiritual odyssey of one of NorthAmerica's foremost Jewish biblical scholars." -- Shofar

Der Monotheismus in Israel entwickelte sich A"ber einen lAngeren Zeitraum hin. Was stand am Anfang dieser Entwicklung? Was fA"r ein Gott war Jhwh, bevor er zu adem einen" Gott wurde? Die Antworten auf diese Fragen variieren, je nachdem, wie man den Namen Jhwh etymologisch herleitet und wie man fA"r literarisches Urgestein gehaltene Texte literar- und traditionsgeschichtlich einordnet. In der Regel werden als Quellen dabei fast ausschlieAlich poetische Texte herangezogen (v.a. Ri 5, Hab 3, Dtn 33; Ps 68). Szabolcs-Ferencz KatA(3) geht dieser Frage auf eine andere Weise nach, indem er nAmlich mit Hosea ein relativ altes prophetisches Buch motivgeschichtlich untersucht und darin ein archaisches Gottesprofil herausarbeitet. Dementsprechend dominieren bei Jhwh die WettergottzA"ge des Baal-Hadad-Typs, was sich so interpretieren lAsst, dass Jhwh ursprA"nglich selbst ein Wettergott dieser Art war.

In the 19th century, many Christians throughout the western world expected the fulfilment of Jesus's promise to return. The widespread expectation culminated in "The Great Disappointment" of 1844. This is a verse-by-verse exploration of Jesus's greatest prophetic sermon, the Olivet Discourse, an examination of 19th century and current Christian interpretations and presents an analysis in the light of Baha'u'llah's teachings.

The books of the Hebrew Bible were created by anonymous writers during the first millennium before the Common Era (BCE). Their messages and concerns are the central theme of the book. The writings that make up the Hebrew Bible are expressions of their great creativity, their interpretation of life in their own time and their perception of its meaning. It is easy for readers to get lost in the minutiae of biblical criticism, which has concerned itself for so long with historical reconstruction. This book will encourage them to listen carefully to what the biblical writers are saying to allow the message of the Hebrew Bible to emerge once again.
In a sense, too, the intrinsic value of the Hebrew Bible is now re-emerging, after centuries of Christian interpretation, and its importance - as a literature from which three major religions, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam have developed - is beginning to be understood.
This book is not another history of Israel, nor an introduction to the books of the Hebrew Bible. It is an exploration, an invitation to the reader to set off on an expedition of discovery. It may perplex readers that scholars disagree, often fundamentally, on virtually every issue: Creating the Old Testament raises and discusses issues, so that the reader can observe how hypotheses are formed and how the apparently 'assured results' of scholarship are constantly tested. In following this path, readers are encouraged to develop their skill in evaluating historical data, recognizing textual problems, interpreting symbolic language and understanding the deep concerns of biblical writers. They will investigate different and varied exegetical traditions. They will be stirred to reflect on what the biblical books have to say for life today, whether viewed from a Jewish, Christian, Muslim or secular perspective.

Biblical interpretation and theological speculation are inseparable: each has constantly influenced the other for good or for ill. But which of the two is the final criterion? Though universally the church has given lip-service to the Scriptures as the source and norm of its theology, it has nonetheless allowed its theological commitment to shape and at times distort its principles of biblical interpretation. It has used the Bible more as a support for its dogmas than as a basis for testing and correcting them. This has proven to have been truce in liberal as well as in orthodox circles, and nowhere so clearly as in the Dutch modernist controversy of the late nineteenth century. The present study attempts: (1) to outline the major theological movements in The Netherlands previous to and following the crucial year 1850, bringing this forward to the early years of the present century; (2) to enter into a description and analysis of Dutch biblical criticism during this same period, paying special attention to the interpretation of the Old Testament, where the problems have been the greatest and the influence of Dutch scholars has been the most lasting; (3) to draw from this analysis conclusions regarding the relationship between theology and biblical exegesis that are valid not only for theological scholarship in one land and in one particular period but for the entire ongoing theological endeavor throughout the world. The greatest lesson that emerges from this study is that respect for the integrity of the biblical text is an indispensable prerequisite to genuine and lasting theological progress.

An exploration in the Baha'i Writings of the dual nature of human relationships. (World Religions)

With contributions by: Barns, J. W. B.; Unknown function: Carswell, J.

The author presents a new approach to the study of manna, which does not concentrate only on one particular representation of the bread from heaven (especially Ex 16). Additionally, he investigates the interconnections between Ps 78:23-25, Wis 16:20-13; 19:21 and Jn 6:22-59 and he explores the new ideas of each of these texts. He also strongly asserts that Hellenistic Judaism, represented by the Book of Wisdom, is not "a second-class Judaism". This fact is proved with the example of manna as the food of immortality, an idea not introduced by Christians in the Fourth Gospel, but already present in Wis 19:21.

Terumah (Exodus 25:1-27:19) and Haftarah (1 Kings 5:26-6:13): The JPS B'nai Mitzvah Torah Commentary shows teens in their own language how Torah addresses the issues in their world. The conversational tone is inviting and dignified, concise and substantial, direct and informative. Each pamphlet includes a general introduction, two model divrei Torah on the weekly Torah portion, and one model davar Torah on the weekly Haftarah portion. Jewish learning-for young people and adults-will never be the same. The complete set of weekly portions is available in Rabbi Jeffrey K. Salkin's book The JPS B'nai Mitzvah Torah Commentary (JPS, 2017).