In the long history of the monotheistic tradition, violence - often bloody with warfare - have not just been occasional but defining activities. Since 9/11, sociologists, religious historians, philosophers and anthropologists have examined the question of the roots of religious violence in new ways, and with surprising results. In November 2004, the Committee for the Scientific Examination of Religion brought together leading theorists at Cornell University to explore the question whether religions are viral forms of a general cultural tendency to violent action. Do religions, and especially the Abrahamic tradition, encourage violence in the imagery of their sacred writings, in their theology, and their tendency to see the world as a cosmos divided between powers of good and forces of evil? Is such violence a historical condition affecting all religious movements, or are some religions more prone to violence than others?;The papers collected in this volume represent the independent and considered thinking of internationally known scholars from a variety of disciplines concerning the relationship between religion and violence, with special reference to the theories of 'just war' and 'jihad', technical terms that arise in connection with the theology of early medieval Christianity and early Islam, respectively.

From the last decades of the nineteenth century through the late 1930s, the West Bohemian spa towns of Carlsbad, Franzensbad, and Marienbad were fashionable destinations for visitors wishing to "take a cure"-to drink the waters, bathe in the mud, be treated by the latest X-ray, light, or gas therapies, or simply enjoy the respite afforded by elegant parks and comfortable lodgings. These were sociable and urbane places, settings for celebrity sightings, match-making, and stylish promenading. Originally the haunt of aristocrats, the spa towns came to be the favored summer resorts for the emerging bourgeoisie. Among the many who traveled there, a very high proportion were Jewish. In Next Year in Marienbad, Mirjam Zadoff writes the social and cultural history of Carlsbad, Franzensbad, and Marienbad as Jewish spaces. Secular and religious Jews from diverse national, cultural, and social backgrounds mingled in idyllic and often apolitical-seeming surroundings. During the season, shops sold Yiddish and Hebrew newspapers, kosher kitchens were opened, and theatrical presentations, concerts, and public readings catered to the Jewish clientele. Yet these same resorts were situated in a region of growing hostile nationalisms, and they were towns that might turn virulently anti-Semitic in the off season. Next Year in Marienbad draws from memoirs and letters, newspapers and maps, novels and postcards to create a compelling and engaging portrait of Jewish presence and cultural production in the years between the fin de siecle and the Second World War.

This is the first book about the meals of Early Judaism. As such it breaks important new ground in establishing the basis for understanding the centrality of meals in this pivotal period of Judaism and providing a framework of historical patterns and influences.

The author discusses how religious groups, especially Jews, Mormons and Jesuits, were labeled as foreign and constructed as political, moral and national threats in Scandinavia in different periods between c. 1790 and 1960. Key questions are who articulated such opinions, how was the threat depicted, and to what extent did it influence state policies towards these groups. A special focus is given to Norway, because the Constitution of 1814 included a ban against Jews (repelled in 1851) and Jesuits (repelled in 1956), and because Mormons were denied the status of a legal religion until freedom of religion was codified in the Constitution in 1964. The author emphasizes how the construction of religious minorities as perils of society influenced the definition of national identities in all Scandinavia, from the late 18th Century until well after WWII. The argument is that Jews, Mormons and Jesuits all were constructed as "anti-citizens", as opposites of what it meant to be "good" citizens of the nation. The discourse that framed the need for national protection against foreign religious groups was transboundary. Consequently, transnational stereotypes contributed significantly in defining national identities.

Sin, often defined as a violation of divine will, remains a crucial idea in contemporary moral and religious discourse. The apparent familiarity of the concept, however, obscures its origins within the history of Western religious thought. This book examines a watershed moment in the development of sin as an idea-namely, within the language and culture of ancient Israel-by examining the primary metaphors used for sin in the Hebrew Bible. Drawing from contemporary theoretical insights coming out of linguistics and philosophy of language, this book offers a comprehensive look at four patterns of metaphor that pervade the biblical texts: sin as burden, sin as an account, sin as path or direction, and sin as stain or impurity. In exploring the permutations of these metaphors and their development within the biblical corpus, the book offers a compelling account of how a religious and theological concept emerges out of the everyday thought-world of ancient Israel. Key aspects of the approach to metaphor adopted in this book, such as the patterning of metaphor, the notion of metaphorical construal, and how metaphors become lexicalized over time, also have important ramifications for the study of biblical and ancient Near Eastern texts more broadly.

Series: Compendia Rerum Iudaicarum ad Novum Testamentum Section 1 - The Jewish people in the first century Historial geography, political history, social, cultural and religious life and institutions Edited by S. Safrai and M. Stern in cooperation with D. Flusser and W.C. van Unnik Section 2 - The Literature of the Jewish People in the Period of the Second Temple and the Talmud Section 3 - Jewish Traditions in Early Christian Literature

Who Rules the Synagogue? explores how American Jewry in the nineteenth century transformed from a lay dominated community to one whose leading religious authorities were rabbis. Previously, scholars have chartered the religious history of American Judaism during this era, but Zev Eleff reinterprets this history through the lens of religious authority. Early in the century, American Jews consciously excluded rabbinic forces from playing a role in their community's development. By the final decades of the 1800s, ordained rabbis were in full control of America's leading synagogues and large sectors of American Jewish life, most notably in the commotion caused by the Pittsburgh rabbinic conference of 1885. Eleff weaves together the significant episodes and debates that shaped American Judaism during this formative period, and places this story into the larger context of American religious history and modern Jewish history.

For Jews and Christians in Antiquity beliefs about demons were integral to their reflections on fundamental theological questions, but what kind of 'being' did they consider demons to be? To what extent were they thought to be embodied? Were demons thought of as physical entities or merely as metaphors for social and psychological realities? What is the relation between demons and the hypostatization of abstract concepts (fear, impurity, etc) and baleful phenomenon such as disease? These are some of the questions that this volume addresses by focussing on the nature and characteristics of demons - what one might call 'demonic ontology'.

From Renaissance to Risorgimento, the Hebrew tombstones of Padua express the cultural currents of their age, in text and art. The inscriptions are mainly rhymed and metered poems, about life, love and faith, while the design and ornamentation of the actual stones reflect prevailing architectural and artistic tastes. Additionally, the inscriptions illuminate the society of Padua's Jews, and the social and cultural changes they underwent during the 330 years covered by this study. Thus these tombstones capture the flow of Italian Jewish culture from Renaissance to Baroque, and from the early modern to the modern era.

Among the articles included in this Hebrew-English anthology are: . The Hebrew Manuscript as Source for the Study of History and Literature . A Fifteenth Century Hebrew Book List . Rashi's Commentary on the Pentateuch and on the Five Scrolls (Venice, 1538) . One Hundred Years of the Genizah Discovery and Research in the United States . Building a Great Judaica Library - At What Price? . The Liturgy of the Rothschild Mahzor . Two Philosophical Passages in the Liturgical Poetry of Rabbi Isaac Ibn Giat . The New Jewish Theological Seminary Library Prof. Menahem Schmelzer is Professor Emeritus of Medieval Hebrew Literature and Jewish Bibliography at The Jewish Theological Seminary. He has been a full-time member of the JTS faculty since 1961, and served as Librarian from 1964 to 1987. In addition to writing numerous articles and reviews for scholarly journals, Prof.. Schmelzer was Associate Division Editor of the "Modern Jewish Scholarship" section of Encyclopaedia Judaica. He has lectured at the Leo Baeck Institute, Yeshiva University and the Hungarian Academy of Sciences. In 1992, he received a Guggenheim Fellowship. In 1999, he was the recipient of an honorary degree from the Spertus Institute of Jewish Studies in Chicago. He was appointed as a Distinguished Visiting Senior Scholar at the Kluge Center in the Library of Congress for a four-month period in 2004.

Rosenberg looks to the Qumran scrolls for clues to the relationship of the Essenes or Sadoqites to the early Christians. He finds that many of their beliefs, including the expectation of a Moreh Sedeq or Correct Teacher, were taken on by the early Christians and shaped in the early days of the Church.

By comparing Qumran texts with New Testament materials, Rosenberg shows that, in Christian teaching, Jesus plays the part of the three separate persons who, according to the Sadoqites, were supposed to represent and embody sedeq or divine justice. This book will be of interest to all who are concerned with Judaism and the evolution of Christianity.

This monograph discusses the Zohar, the most important book of the Kabbalah, as a late strata of the Midrashic literature. The author concentrates on the 'expanded' biblical stories in the Zohar and on its relationship to the ancient Talmudic Aggadah. The analytical and critical examination of these biblical themes reveals aspects of continuity and change in the history of the old Aggadic story and its way into the Zoharic corpus. The detailed description of this literary process also reveals the world of the authors of the Zohar, their spiritual distress, mystical orientations, and self-consciousness.

This book analyses the data about Torah centers and rabbinic activity in Palestine during Mishnaic and Talmudic times, 70 400 CE the Roman and early Byzantine periods. The research is an interdisciplinary inquiry. It encompasses rabbinic literature as well as archeology, geography, and sociology, thus enriching the discussion of the history and scope of rabbinic activity in the different regions of Palestine. Arranged in chronological order, the book highlights the changes generated by historical events, in particular the relocation of rabbinic centers following the upheaval of the Bar Kokhba Revolt. In spite of this upheaval, Torah centers continued to develop in Palestine for several hundred years, until the end of the period under discussion.

During the past two generations, Jewish public thought and discourse has differed dramatically from that of the era between the Emancipation and the Second World War. The chasm of the Holocaust and the watershed establishment of a Jewish state has radically changed the Jewish intellectual landscape. With their two largest concentrations in Israel and the United States, the Jews are no longer a European nation. Above all, the Jews, for the first time since they went into exile, have become free individuals, with the right to choose between the land of their birth and their ancestral homeland in Israel.

Are the Jews then a religious community dispersed among other nations? A community of equal citizens of various countries with their own cultural and historical identity? Or are the Jewish people a nation with its own homeland? However one answers this question, the political, socio-economic and cultural ramifications are enormous. Moreover, since world Jewry is now crisscrossed by divisions between religious and secular Jews, between groups of different cultural backgrounds, and between those living in a sovereign Jewish state and those who are citizens of other countries, it is the link between Israel and the Diaspora which confers a collective identity on this multiform entity. Yosef Gorny's central theme is Jewish public thought concerning the identity and essence of the Jewish people from the Holocaust and the establishment of the State of Israel up to the present day. Chapters address such topics as The Zionist Movement in Search of a National Role, The Zionist Movement in Quest of its Ideological Essence, The Intellectuals in Search of a Jewish Identity, The Diminishing Status of Israel as a Jewish State, Revolutionary RadicalismThe Left-Wing Jewish Student Movement, 1967-1973, Neo-Conservative Radicalism, The Alternative Zionism of Gush-Emunim, The Conservative Liberalism, and In Defense of Perpetual Zionist Revolt. Reflecting the collective thinking of Jewish intellectuals, this is a volume of interest to anyone concerned with issues of Jewish identity.

In response to the grim realities of the present world Jewish thought has not tended to retreat into eschatological fantasy, but rather to project utopian visions precisely on to the present moment, envisioning redemptions that are concrete, immanent, and necessarily political in nature. In difficult times and through shifting historical contexts, the messianic hope in the Jewish tradition has functioned as a political vision: the dream of a peaceful kingdom, of a country to return to, or of a leader who will administer justice among the nations. Against this background, it is unsurprising that Jewish messianism in modern times has been transposed, and lives on in secular political movements and ideologies. The purpose of this book is to contribute to the deeper understanding of the relationship between Jewish thought, utopia, and revolution, by taking a fresh look at its historical and religious roots. We approach the issue from several perspectives, with differences of opinion presented both in regard to what Jewish tradition is, and how to regard utopia and revolution. These notions are multifaceted, comprising aspects such as political messianism, religious renewal, Zionism, and different forms of Marxist and Anarchistic movements.

Modern Israel and its relations with its Arab neighbors has been conspicuously in the daily news ever since World War II. Until that time, the concept of Israel and a continuing Jewish people had been hovering in the distant background of Christian thought and doctrine since the post-apostolic era. In this important work, Dr. Diprose demonstrates the uniqueness of Israel and its special place in the divine plan. By carefully reviewing relevant New Testament and post-apostolic writings, the author traces the origin and development of Replacement Theology--the concept that the Church has completely and permanently replaced ethnic Israel in the outworking of God's plan throughout history--challenging its origin and role in the development of Christian thought on the future of ethnic Israel.

Ancient texts, once written by hand on parchment and papyrus, are now increasingly discoverable online in newly digitized editions, and their readers now work online as well as in traditional libraries. So what does this mean for how scholars may now engage with these texts, and for how the disciplines of biblical, Jewish and Christian studies might develop? These are the questions that contributors to this volume address. Subjects discussed include textual criticism, palaeography, philology, the nature of ancient monotheism, and how new tools and resources such as blogs, wikis, databases and digital publications may transform the ways in which contemporary scholars engage with historical sources. Contributors attest to the emergence of a conscious recognition of something new in the way that we may now study ancient writings, and the possibilities that this new awareness raises.

The New Testament accounts of Jesus' crucifixion have stood at the bedrock of Christianity since it's birth in the 1st century, and they remain among the essential foundations of Western culture in the 21st. These Gospel narratives of the Passion - the arrest, trial, scourging, and execution of Jesus - cast the Jews as those responsible, directly and indirectly, for the death of their Messiah and the son of God. Cohen tracks the image of the Jew as the murderer of the Messiah and God from its origins to its most recent expressions. A great deal has been written about Christian anti-Semitism, its roots, and its horrific consequences in world history. This is the first book, however to focus on the powerful myth that has driven so much murderous hatred. An important addition to the literature on Jewish-Christian relations, it should appeal to a wide variety of readers in both communities.

Noting that the legacy of the prophets remains a powerful element in contemporary society, Jack R. Lundbom explores the contours of prophetic speech in ancient Israel. He surveys the elements of each prophets message, describes the characteristics of prophetic rhetoric and symbolic behavior, and discusses the problem of authenticity: how did individuals make the claim to speak as prophets, and how did their audiences recognize their claims? The Words of the Prophets offers an authoritative introduction to the phenomenon of ancient prophetic speech for the contemporary readerand hearer.

This volume: Combines the development of German philosophy from the Enlightenment to Idealism, and from Idealism to the revolutionary turning-point of the mid-nineteenth century with the Jewish question;Shows the close entwining of anti-Jewish prejudices with awareness of the importance of Judaism in the formation of modern thought;Points out the hopes, obstacles, compromises, and disappointments of Jewish emancipation right up to the appearance of racial anti-Semitism;Traces the changes in the debate over Judaism from the theological perspective to the philosophical and from the philosophical to that of the economic and naturalistic;Underlines the dangers to toleration that arise from seeing human history as directed towards a single aim."

This book challenges Voltaire's doctrine of toleration. Can a Jew be a philosopher? And if so, at what cost? It seeks to provide an organic interpretation of Voltaire's attitude towards Jews, problematising the issue against the background of his theory of toleration. To date, no monograph entirely dedicated to this theme has been written. This book attempts to provide an answer to the crucial questions that have emerged in the past fifty years through a process of reading and analysis that starts with the publication of Des Juifs (1756), and ends with the posthumous publication of the apocryphal article 'Juifs' in the Kehl edition of the Dictionnaire Philosophique (1784).