Alfred Edersheim's well-researched account of everyday Jewish life at the time the New Testament Gospels took place remains one of the best texts on the subject ever authored. This edition includes the author's appendixes. The reader is taken back to Israel and the surrounding areas more than 2,000 years ago. How the society would appear to the casual traveler, what customs the people practiced, how everyday life proceeded in the Jewish homestead and towns, and how women were treated are topics which Edersheim examines. The author goes into much detail, presenting an evocative picture of a sophisticated ancient society. We also hear of the political landscape of the era, particularly concerning the Pharisees - the leading social and political movement of the time - and its interactions with rival movements such as the Sadducees and Essenes. Religious rites, the layout and ceremonies of ancient Jewish synagogues and temples, and the creation of the ancient religious Talmudic literature, are related.

Despite the attention that has already been paid to the theme of creation in the book of Sirach, scholarship has yet to provide a comprehensive analysis of Ben Sira's instruction regarding the cosmic order and its role in the divine bestowal of wisdom upon human beings. This book, which consists of two parts, fills a lacuna in scholarship by offering such an analysis. The first part of this study examines Ben Sira's three main treatments of the created world, thus providing a comprehensive description and synthesis of Ben Sira's doctrine concerning the created order of the cosmos. The second part of this work analyzes the place of human beings in general, and the Jewish people in particular, within the cosmic order. This second part includes an analysis of the role of the created order in Ben Sira's wisdom instruction in 1:1-10 and 24:1-34 as well as an elucidation of the way in which his treatments of various kinds of people-civic leaders, wives, doctors, manual laborers, scribes, and cultic personnel-are integral to Ben Sira's doctrine of creation. This study demonstrates that the created order is a fundamental category that Ben Sira relies upon in articulating his instructions about wisdom and wise behavior.

After World War II, Ernst Ludwig Ehrlich (1921-2007) published works in English and German by eminent Israeli scholars, in this way introducing them to a wider audience in Europe and North America. The series he founded for that purpose, Studia Judaica, continues to offer a platform for scholarly studies and editions that cover all eras in the history of the Jewish religion.

In the course of the last two decades, both the historical reconstruction of the Iron I-Iron IIA period in Israel and Judah and the literary-historical reconstruction of the Books of Samuel have undergone major changes. With respect to the quest for the "historical David", terms like "empire" or "Grossreich" have been set aside in favor of designations like "mercenary" or "hapiru leader", corresponding to the image of the son of Jesse presented in I Sam. At the same time, the literary-historical classification of these chapters has itself become a matter of considerable discussion. As Leonhard Rost's theory of a source containing a "History of David's Rise" continues to lose support, it becomes necessary to pose the question once again: Are we dealing with a once independent 'story of David' embracing both the HDR and the "succession narrative" are there several independent versions of an HDR to be detected, or do I Sam 16-II Sam 5* constitute a redactional bridge between older traditions about Saul on the one hand and David on the other? In either case, what parts of the material in I Sam 16-II Sam 5 are based on ancient traditions, and may therefore serve as a source for any tentative historical reconstruction? The participants in the 2018 symposium at Jena whose essays are collected in this volume engage these questions from different redaction-critical and archaeological perspectives. Together, they provide an overview of contemporary historical research on the book of First Samuel.

The essays deal with developments during the period from the liquidation of the Judean state to the conquests of Alexander the Great. This was a critical time in the Near East and the Mediterranean world in general. It marked the end of the great Semitic empires until the rise of Islam in the seventh century A.D.,decisive changes in religion, with appeal to a creator-deity in Deutero-Isaiah, Babylonian Marduk cult, and Zoroastrianism.For the survivors of the Babylonian conquest in a post-collapse society the issue of continuity, with different groups claiming continuity with the past and possession of the traditions, there developed a situation favourable to the emergence of sects. The most pressing question, however, was what to do faced with the overwhelming power of empire, first Babylonian, then Persian. Finally, with the extinction of the native dynasty and the entire apparatus of a nation-state, the temple became the focus and emblem of group identity.

The Jews of the former Soviet Union have always been the subject of intense controversy. In the past 25 years, however, they have become more puzzling. How many of them are there? How strongly so they identify themselves as Jews? How do they perceive antisemetism in their countries? Will they leave, where will they go? Theses ate among the questions that have enlivened the discussions of Jews in republics known as the Commonwealth of Independent States. they have sparked debate because they have deep policy implications for Russia, Israel, the United States, and other countries. They are the questions which this book seeks to examine. Too little fact has informed this debate, and even less theory. Until very recently, surveys of the actual intentions, perceptions, motivations, and fears of Jews in the region were out of the question. This is now beginning to change. Here is the first book based on an on site survey of a representative sample of Jews in the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS). In addition to providing data in the Jews of Moscow, Kiev, and Minsk- who collectively account for 28% of all Jews residing in the three Slavic republics of the CIS- the author places the survey results in their social and historical context. He explains why ethnic distinctiveness persisted and even became accentuated in the Soviet era and also describes the position of Jews in Soviet and post-Soviet society and some of the dilemmas they face. This book will be crucial reading for anyone interested not only in the general situation of the Jews of the former Soviet Union but also in their perceptions, worldviews, and plans for the future.

This book is an analysis of the affinities and interactions between Indic and Judaic civilizations from ancient through contemporary times. The contributors to this volume come together to propose new and global understanding of patterns of commerce and culture, to reconfigure how we understand the way great cultures interact, and to present a new constellation of diplomacy, literature, and geopolitics.

This book is not just for Jewish people.It is for all people who would gain strength to heal and insightfrom the Jewish tradition.

Using a one-day-at-a-time monthly format, a spiritual leader who continues to reach out to addicted people, and all those seeking spiritual renewal, reflects on the rhythm of the Jewish calendar with recovering people and other teachers. Together they bring insight to recovery from addictions and compulsive behaviors of all kinds. This sensitive volume soars with the spirit of the Jewish soul and year. Its "exercises" help us move from thinking to doing.

British Chief Rabbis tells how they achieved what, in retrospect, seems almost the impossible. The survival of the Jewish Community in Britain in the last 350 years as an Orthodox body has been an extraordinary story of success against all odds. Most of the credit goes to 22 men who acted as the spiritual leaders of this community.

In the traditional Talmudic methodologies, the subjects of Talmudic logic and methodology are generally treated together. With a few notable exceptions, there has been little attempt at a systematic presentation of such matters as the structure of the Talmudic arguments, the division of the sugya into its component parts, the methods of Talmudic reasoning, and the literary style and character of the Amoraic debates. This book notes some of the problems in this field and suggests some tentative solutions. The first part sheds light on Talmudic logic, in particular suggesting the ancients were aware of the process of Induction. The second part examines the literary analysis of the Amoraic literature, and argues that the Gemara in its present form is a 'contrived' literary product of great skill in which the older material used has been reshaped by methods similar to literary artists throughout the ages. Although the book is presented for the considerations of students of the Talmud, it m

This book deals with the life and thought of an original but neglected religious thinker who, perhaps more than any other in the history of Jewish thought, grappled with the problems inherent in the idea of God's unity. Rabbi Aaron Horowitz is generally acknowledged to be the most outstanding, systematic exponent of the profound Habad theory of Hasidism. With the renewed interest in Jewish mysticism in general and Hasidism in particular, this work can serve as an excellent introduction to the more intricate and stimulating ideas of the Movement, normally to be found only in recondite tomes written in difficult Rabbinic Hebrew and therefore beyond the scope of even serious students of the subject. One of the most striking features of the book is the way it demonstrates that there is a close affinity between Habad thought and Far Eastern spirituality. Dr Jacobs has succeeded in bringing a vanished world to life for the modern reader.

We find that the story of Abraham and Isaac rises almost spontaneously in the mind of one generation after another.... Constantly past and present react to and upon each other, and life is given an order, a coherence, by the themes which govern the Holy Scriptures and the reinterpretations of those themes. from the Introduction by Judah Goldin

Shalom Spiegel s classic examines the total body of texts, legends, and traditions referring to the Binding of Isaac and weaves them together into a definitive study of the Akedah as one of the central events in all of human history.

Spiegel here provides the model for showing how legend and history interact, how the past may be made comprehensible by present events, and how the present may be understood as a renewal of revelation.

The Studia Philonica Annual is a scholarly journal devoted to furthuring the study of Hellenistic Judaism, and in particular of the writings and thought of the great Hellenistic-Jewish writer Philo of Alexandria (circa 15 B.C.E. to circa 50 C.E.). The Journal appears annually in November and is available at the annual meeting of the Society of Biblical Literature held in that month .

The classic statement of the ideas which form the religious consciousness of the Jewish people at large, by one of the great minds of Jewish scholarship of our century. His creative scholarship, compelling English style, and warm personality have given this book lasting influence on Jew and non-Jew alike. Includes the original preface of 1909 and the introduction by Louis Finkelstein.

Why does religion inspire hatred? Why do people in one religion sometimes hate people of another religion, and also why do some religions inspire hatred from others? This book shows how scholarly studies of prejudice, identity formation, and genocide studies can shed light on global examples of religious hatred. The book is divided into four parts, focusing respectively on: theories of prejudice and violence; historical developments of antisemitism, Islamophobia, and race; contemporary Western antisemitism and Islamophobia; and, prejudices beyond the West in the Islamic, Buddhist, and Hindu traditions. Each part ends with a special focus section. Key features include: - A compelling synthesis of theories of prejudice, identity, and hatred to explain Islamophobia and antisemitism. - An innovative theory of human violence and genocide which explains the link to prejudice. - Case studies of both Western antisemitism and Islamophobia in history and today, alongside global studies of Islamic antisemitism and Hindu and Buddhist Islamophobia - Integrates discussion of race and racialisation as aspects of Islamophobic and antisemitic prejudice in relation to their framing in religious discourses. - Accessible for general readers and students, it can be employed as a textbook for students or read with benefit by scholars for its novel synthesis and theories. The book focuses on antisemitism and Islamophobia, both in the West and beyond, including examples of prejudices and hatred in the Islamic, Hindu, and Buddhist traditions. Drawing on examples from Europe, North America, MENA, South and Southeast Asia, and Africa, Paul Hedges points to common patterns, while identifying the specifics of local context. Religious Hatred is an essential guide for understanding the historical origins of religious hatred, the manifestations of this hatred across diverse religious and cultural contexts, and the strategies employed by activists and peacemakers to overcome this hatred.

The death penalty in classical Judaism has been a highly politicized subject in modern scholarship. Enlightenment attacks on the Talmud's legitimacy led scholars to use the Talmud's criminal law as evidence for its elevated morals. But even more pressing was the need to prove Jews' innocence of the charge of killing Christ. The reconstruction of a just Jewish death penalty was a defense against the accusation that a corrupt Jewish court was responsible for the death of Christ.
In Execution and Invention, Beth A. Berkowitz tells the story of modern scholarship on the ancient rabbinic death penalty and offers a fresh perspective using the approaches of ritual studies, cultural criticism, and talmudic source criticism. Against the scholarly consensus, Berkowitz argues that the early Rabbis used the rabbinic laws of the death penalty to establish their power in the wake of the destruction of the Temple. Following recent currents in historiography, Berkowitz sees the Rabbis as an embattled, almost invisible sect within second-century Judaism. The function of their death penalty laws, Berkowitz contends, was to create a complex ritual of execution under rabbinic control, thus bolstering rabbinic claims to authority in the context of Roman political and cultural domination.
Understanding rabbinic literature to be in dialogue with the Bible, with the variety of ancient Jews, and with Roman imperialism, Berkowitz shows how the Rabbis tried to create an appealing alternative to the Roman, paganized culture of Palestine's Jews. In their death penalty, the Rabbis substituted Rome's power with their own. Early Christians, on the other hand, used death penalty discourse to critique judicialpower. But Berkowitz argues that the Christian critique of execution produced new claims to authority as much as the rabbinic embrace. By comparing rabbinic conversations about the death penalty with Christian ones, Berkowitz reveals death penalty discourse as a significant means of creating authority in second-century western religious cultures. Advancing the death penalty discourse as a discourse of power, Berkowitz sheds light on the central relationship between religious and political authority and the severest form of punishment.

The book sheds light on various chapters in the long history of Protestant-Jewish relations, from the Reformation to the present. Going beyond questions of antisemitism and religious animosity, it aims to disentangle some of the intricate perceptions, interpretations, and emotions that have characterized contacts between Protestantism and Judaism, and between Jews and Protestants. While some papers in the book address Luther's antisemitism and the NS-Zeit, most papers broaden the scope of the investigation: Protestant-Jewish theological encounters shaped not only antisemitism but also the Jewish Reform movement and Protestant philosemitic post-Holocaust theology; interactions between Jews and Protestants took place not only in the German lands but also in the wider Protestant universe; theology was crucial for the articulation of attitudes toward Jews, but music and philosophy were additional spheres of creativity that enabled the process of thinking through the relations between Judaism and Protestantism. By bringing together various contributions on these and other aspects, the book opens up directions for future research on this intricate topic, which bears both historical significance and evident relevance to our own time.

Using a seven-day/weekly guide format, a recovering person and a spiritual leader who is reaching out to addicted people reflect on the traditional weekly Bible reading. They bring strong spiritual support for daily living and recovery from addictions of all kinds: alcohol, drugs, eating, gambling and sex. A profound sense of the spirit soars through their words and brings all people in Twelve Step recovery programs home to a rich and spiritually enlightening tradition.

This book is not just for Jewish people. It s for all people who would gain strength to heal and insight from the Bible and the teachings of Jewish tradition.

In this ground-breaking study, David Brauner explores the representation of Jewishness in key works by post-war British and American Jewish writers, identifying a transatlantic sensibility characterized by an insistent compulsion to explain themselves and their Jewishness in ambivalent terms. Through detailed readings of novels by American authors such as Saul Bellow, Philip Roth, Bernard Malamud, and Arthur Miller, alongside those by lesser-known British writers such as Frederic Raphael, Jonathan Wilson, Howard Jacobson, and Clive Sinclair, certain common preoccupations emerge: gentiles who mistake themselves for Jews; Jewish hostility towards Nature; writing (and not writing) about the Holocaust, and the relationship between fact and fiction.

A major contribution to the understanding of Hasidic Wisdom and thought; it brings the reader closer to Hasidism s greatest teller of tales. Elie Wiesel

The search for spiritual meaning drives great leaders in all religions. This classic work explores the personality and religious quest of Nahman of Bratslav (1772 1810), one of Hasidism s major figures. It unlocks the great themes of spiritual searching that make him a figure of universal religious importance.

In this major biography, Dr. Arthur Green teacher, scholar, and spiritual seeker explores the great personal conflicts and inner torments that lay at the source of Nahman s teachings. He reveals Nahman to have been marked at an early age by an exaggerated sense of sin and morbidity that later characterized his life and thought. While subject to rapid mood swings and even paranoia, Nahman is a model of spiritual and personal struggle who speaks to all generations. Green s analysis of this troubled personality provides an important key to Nahman s famous tales, making his teachings accessible for people of all faiths, all backgrounds.

If there is any single feature about Nahman s tales, and indeed about Nahman s life as well, that makes them unique in the history of Judaism, it is just this: their essential motif is one of quest. Nahman, both as teller and as hero of these tales, is Nahman the seeker. He has already told us, outside the tales, of his refusal ever to stand on any one rung, of his call for constant growth, of his need to open himself up to ever-new and more demanding challenges to his faith. The tales now affirm this endless quest from Excursus II. The Tales

This book examines the literary genre(s) to which the book of Qoheleth belongs and on which it is modelled. It suggests that Qoheleth is best described as a royal autobiography based on the arguments of specific literary features of style and content, resemblance to various kinds of royal autobiographical narrative from the ancient Near East, and the existence, despite first impressions, of a coherent worldview. The analyses in this book cover various aspects from textual criticism, through aspects of vocabulary and style, to the interpretation of particular passages and the problem of making sense of the book as a whole.

Translated by Allan W. MahnkeA pioneering history of Old Testament law from its scarcely discernable origins in the pre-monarchical period to the canonisation of the Pentateuch.Praise for THE TORAH'Crusemann and Houtman has enormously enriched the field; it will attract the serious attention of scholars for many years to come.' B. S. Jackson, University of Manchester, Journal of Semitic Studies>