The Gospel of Mark presents Jesus' ministry and mission as a journey on "the way," a journey to Jerusalem that ultimately results in his suffering and crucifixion. On the journey to the cross, Jesus embodies that which is least, vulnerable, and destitute in society, and he invites his followers to journey with him on the way. Robert Ewusie Moses argues that this invitation to discipleship is a call for believers to reassess their relationship with material possessions and their desire for wealth and power. Like Jesus, believers are to travel light on the way, for holding on strongly to possessions can be a hindrance for the journey. To embrace those in society who are least, vulnerable, and destitute is to embrace Jesus himself and the God who sent him. Traveling light on the way requires believers to place their trust in God, to depend on God to provide their needs. Moses shows that the journey is by its very nature a rejection of the status quo; it demands followers of Jesus to shun greed and the amassing of superfluous possessions that the world encourages. The book demonstrates that to be on this journey is to commit to the creation of communities of care, where those like Jesus-poor, vulnerable, and marginalized-are welcomed and cared for.

This authoritative and comprehensive guide to key people and events in Anglo-Jewish history stretches from Cromwell's re-admittance of the Jews in 1656 to the present day and contains nearly 3000 entries, the vast majority of which are not featured in any other sources.

Margarete Susman was among the great Jewish women philosophers of the twentieth century, and largely unknown to many today. This book presents, for the first time in English, six of her important essays along with an introduction about her life and work. Carefully selected and edited by Elisa Klapheck, these essays give the English-speaking reader a taste of Susman's religious-political mode of thought, her originality, and her importance as Jewish thinker. Susman's writing on exile, return, and the revolutionary impact of Judaism on humanity, illuminate enhance our understanding of other Jewish philosophers of her time: Martin Buber, Franz Rosenzweig, and Ernst Bloch (all of them her friends). Her work is in particularly fitting company when read alongside Jewish religious-political and political thinkers such as Bertha Pappenheim, Hannah Arendt, Simone Weil, and Gertrud Stein. Initially a poet, Susman became a follower of the Jewish Renaissance movement, secular Messianism, and the German Revolution of 1918. This collection of essays shows how Susman's work speaks not only to her own time between the two World Wars but to the present day.

This important book poses the question of whether Christian proclamation can be made ethically safe for the Jewish neighbour. Boesel assesses two major approaches to a Christian theology of Judaism - those exemplified by Rosemary Radford Ruether and Karl Barth. This book makes a significant contribution to our understanding of systematics, ethics, and homiletics at the intersection of Jewish-Christian relations.

As the Soviet Union stood on the brink of collapse, thousands of Bukharian Jews left their homes from across the predominantly Muslim cities of Central Asia, to reestablish their lives in the United States, Israel and Europe. Today, about thirty thousand Bukharian Jews reside in New York City, settled into close-knit communities and existing as a quintessential American immigrant group. For Bukharian immigrants, music is an essential part of their communal self-definition, and musicians frequently act as cultural representatives for the group as a whole. Greeted with Smiles: Bukharian Jewish Music and Musicians in New York explores the circumstances facing new American immigrants, using the music of the Bukharian Jews to gain entrance into their community and their culture. Author Evan Rapport investigates the transformation of Bukharian identity through an examination of corresponding changes in its music, focusing on three of these distinct but overlapping repertoires - maquom (classical or "heavy" music), Jewish religious music and popular music. Drawing upon interviews, participant observation and music lessons, Rapport interprets the personal perspectives of musicians who serve as community leaders and representatives. By adapting strategies acquired as an ethno-religious minority among Central Asian Muslim neighbors, Bukharian musicians have adjusted their musical repertoire in their new American home. The result is the creation of a distinct Bukharian Jewish American identity-their musical activities are changing the city's cultural landscape while at the same time providing for an understanding of the cultural implications of Bukharian diaspora. Greeted with Smiles is sure to be an essential text for ethnomusicologists and scholars of Jewish and Central Asian music and culture, Jewish-Muslim interaction and diasporic communities.

What are the legal rights to ancient documents of editors, archaeologists, curators, or modern states? In the light of recent controversies, this collection emphasizes the status of the Dead Sea Scrolls. The Dead Sea Scrolls were found in Palestine, recovered in Jordan, and largely edited by an international Christian team who prevented public access to unpublished manuscripts. Subsquently, the state of Israel, which had already purchased many of the Scrolls, has assumed responsibility for all of them. Most recently, one scroll editor has claimed copyright on his reconstruction, instigating a lawsuit and introducing serious implications for future Scrolls scholarship. This volume looks at international copyright and property rights as they affect archaeologists, editors and curators, but focuses on the issue of 'authorship' of the Scrolls, both published and unpublished, and the contributors include legal experts as well as many of the major figures in recent controversies, such as Hershel Shanks, John Strugnell, Geza Vermes and Emanuel Tov.

The family tomb as a physical claim to the patrimony, the attributed powers of the dead and the prospect of post-mortem veneration made the cult of the dead an integral aspect of the Judahite and Israelite society. Over 850 burials from throughout the southern Levant are examined to illustrate the Judahite form of burial and its development. Vessels for foods and liquids were of paramount importance in the afterlife, followed by jewellery with its protective powers. The cult of the dead began to be an unacceptable feature of the Jerusalem Yahwistic cult in the late eighth to seventh century BCE. This change of attitude was precipitated by the fall of the northern kingdom of Israel and the consequent theological response.

This book untangles a web of ideas about politics, religion, exile, and community that emerged at a key moment in Jewish history and left a lasting mark on Jewish ideas. In the shadow of their former member Baruch Spinoza's notoriety, and amid the aftermath of the Sabbatian messianic movement, the Spanish and Portuguese Jews of seventeenth-century Amsterdam underwent a conceptual shift that led them to treat their self-governed diaspora community as a commonwealth. Preoccupied by the question of why and how Jews should rule themselves in the absence of a biblical or messianic sovereign state or king, they forged a creative synthesis of insights from early modern Christian politics and Jewish law and traditions to assess and argue over their formidable communal government. In so doing they shaped a proud new theopolitical self-understanding of their community as analogous to a Christian state. Through readings of rarely studied sermons, commentaries, polemics, administrative records, and architecture, Anne Albert shows that a concentrated period of public Jewish political discourse among the community's leaders and thinkers led to the formation of a strong image of itself as a totalizing, state-like entity-an image that eventually came to define its portrayal by twentieth-century historians. Her study presents a new perspective on a Jewish population that has long fascinated readers, as well as new evidence of Jewish reactions to Spinoza and Sabbatianism, and analyses the first Jewish reckoning with modern western political concepts.

Integrating patristics and early Jewish mysticism, this book examines Gregory of Nyssa's tabernacle imagery, as found in Life of Moses 2. 170-201. Previous scholarship has often focused on Gregory's interpretation of the darkness on Mount Sinai as divine incomprehensibility. However, true to Exodus, Gregory continues with Moses's vision of the tabernacle 'not made with hands' received within that darkness. This innovative methodology of heuristic comparison doesn't strive to prove influence, but to use heavenly ascent texts as a foil, in order to shed new light on Gregory's imagery. Ann Conway-Jones presents a well-rounded, nuanced understanding of Gregory's exegesis, in which mysticism, theology, and politics are intertwined. Heavenly ascent texts use descriptions of religious experience to claim authoritative knowledge. For Gregory, the high point of Moses's ascent into the darkness of Mount Sinai is the mystery of Christian doctrine. The heavenly tabernacle is a type of the heavenly Christ. This mystery is beyond intellectual comprehension, it can only be grasped by faith; and only the select few, destined for positions of responsibility, should even attempt to do so.

Gavin D'Costa breaks new ground in this authoritative study of the Second Vatican Council's doctrines on other religions, with particular attention to Judaism and Islam. The focus is exclusively on the doctrinal foundations found in Lumen Gentium 16 that will serve Catholicism in the twenty first century. D'Costa provides a map outlining different hermeneutical approaches to the Council, whilst synthesising their strengths and providing a critique of their weaknesses. Moreover, he classifies the different authority attributed to doctrines thereby clarifying debates regarding continuity, discontinuity, and reform in doctrinal teaching. Vatican II: Catholic Doctrines on Jews and Muslims expertly examines the Council's revolutionary teaching on Judaism which has been subject to conflicting readings, including the claim that the Council reversed doctrinal teachings in this area. Through a rigorous examination of the debates, the drafts, the official commentary, and with consideration of the previous Council and papal doctrinal teachings on the Jews, D'Costa lays bare the doctrinal achievements of the Council, and concludes with a similar detailed examination of Catholic doctrines on Islam. This innovative text makes essential interventions in the debate about Council hermeneutics and doctrinal teachings on the religions.

This book proposes a methodological framework for an ethical reading of Old Testament narrative and demonstrates its benefits and validity by providing an exemplary reading of the story of Josiah in Kings. Part One delineates the meaning of "ethical reading" practised in the work. The theoretical framework is critically adopted from Martha Nussbaum. This approach to ethics does not extract general rules out of story, rather it allows the reader to appreciate the world of the story itself, which is analogous with real life. Part Two expounds "synchronic literary criticism anchored in discourse analysis" and elucidates its use for ethical reading of Old Testament narrative. Part Three offers exemplary ethical readings and shows how discourse analysis can help the literary issues such as plot delimitation and characterisation. Through the ethical commentary of the story of Josiah, the theme of contingency in life can be noticed to prevail in the story. When contingency in life is accepted as a real part of the human moral life, understanding of ethics should be enlarged so that it may be coped with properly. Here ethics is understood in terms of practical wisdom that can be used for ethical improvisation for ever-changing situations. The particularities in Old Testament narrative are useful features that make the reader perceptive to the complexity of life and thus train practical wisdom; and the literary and discourse-analytical approach makes the most of the genre-characteristics of Old Testament narrative, which realistically reflects the complexity of moral life.

Karaite Judaism emerged in the ninth century in the Islamic Middle East as an alternative to the rabbinic Judaism of the Jewish majority. Karaites reject the underlying assumption of rabbinic Judaism, namely, that Jewish practice is to be based on two divinely revealed Torahs, a written one, embodied in the Five Books of Moses, and an oral one, eventually written down in rabbinic literature. Karaites accept as authoritative only the Written Torah, as they understand it, and their form of Judaism therefore differs greatly from that of most Jews. Despite its permanent minority status, Karaism has been an integral part of the Jewish people continuously for twelve centuries. It has contributed greatly to Jewish cultural achievements, while providing a powerful intellectual challenge to the majority form of Judaism. This book is the first to present a comprehensive overview of the entire story of Karaite Judaism: its unclear origins; a Golden Age of Karaism in the Land of Israel; migrations through the centuries; Karaites in the Holocaust; unique Jewish religious practices, beliefs, and philosophy; biblical exegesis and literary accomplishments; polemics and historiography; and the present-day revival of the Karaite community in the State of Israel.

Similarities between esoteric and mystical currents in different religious traditions have long interested scholars. This book takes a new look at the relationship between such currents. It advances a discussion that started with the search for religious essences, archetypes, and universals, from William James to Eranos. The universal categories that resulted from that search were later criticized as essentialist constructions, and questioned by deconstructionists. An alternative explanation was advanced by diffusionists: that there were transfers between different traditions. This book presents empirical case studies of such constructions, and of transfers between Judaism, Christianity, and Islam in the premodern period, and Judaism, Christianity, and Western esotericism in the modern period. It shows that there were indeed transfers that can be clearly documented, and that there were also indeed constructions, often very imaginative. It also shows that there were many cases that were neither transfers nor constructions, but a mixture of the two.

This is no ordinary reprint of common magical squares found in Agrippa's Three Books of Occult Philosophy. Not even close This Occult Encyclopedia contains hundreds of new magical squares based on secret esoteric techniques developed by master sages of the ancient Near East. Did you know that there are four forms of each magic square corresponding with each of the Elements? Did you know that from each square you can extract up to 8 Angels and 8 Genies that are specific to THAT square? Did you know there is a secret mathematical code embedded in all magic squares? There is much more to the art of magic squares than even the most seasoned modern-day ceremonial magician is aware of. The Occult Encyclopedia of Magical Squares contains information that will make a difference in how you approach talismanic magic. It also contains hundreds of ready and finished squares for: Archangels and Angels of the Zodiac Archangels and Angels of the Planets Planetary Intelligences and Spirits Olympic Spirits Lords of Zodiacal Triplicities by Day and Night Angels Ruling the 12 Houses Angels of Astrological Decanates and Quinances You will get hundreds of magic squares to facilitate the evocation and aid of over 200 spiritual beings. This book is a must-have for serious seekers, no matter which magical tradition you follow.

The Hebrew Bible is a philosophical testament. Abraham, the first biblical philosopher, calls out to the world in God's name exactly as Plato calls out in the name of the Forms. Abraham comes forward as a critic of pagan thought about, specifically, persons. Moses, to whom the baton is passed, spells out the practical implications of the Bible's core anthropological teachings. In Persons and Other Things Mark Glouberman explores the Bible's philosophy, roughing out in the course of a defence of it how men and women who see themselves in the biblical portrayal (as he argues that most of us do once the "religious" glare is reduced) are committed to conduct their personal affairs, arrange their social ties, and act in the natural world. Persons and Other Things is also the author's testament about the practice of philosophy. Glouberman sets out the lessons he has acquired as a lifelong learner about thinking philosophically, about writing philosophy, and about philosophers.

This work charts the political, sociological and demographic factors that have shaped the position of Christian and Jewish minorities under Islam in the past and today. Focusing on the Arab world and on Turkey, the authors show how Christianity and Judaism survived and, at times, even prospered in the region, thus modifying the view of Islam as an inevitably unbending and radical religion. They also demonstrate that the position of the minorities was badly affected in the wake of confrontations with the Christian West - at the time of the Crusades, after the first victories of the Spanish Reconquista, with the humiliations meted out to the Ottoman Empire in the Balkans and North Africa, and once again with the creation of the state of Israel.

This book introduces a new system for describing non-biblical ancient Jewish literature. It arises from a fresh empirical investigation into the literary structures of many anonymous and pseudepigraphic sources, including Pseudepigrapha and Apocrypha of the Old Testament, the larger Dead Sea Scrolls, Midrash, and the Talmuds. A comprehensive framework of several hundred literary features, based on modern literary studies and text linguistics, allows describing the variety of important text types which characterize ancient Judaism without recourse to vague and superficial genre terms. The features proposed cover all aspects of the ancient Jewish texts, including the self-presentation, perspective, and knowledge horizon assumed by the text; any poetic constitution, narration, thematic discourse, or commentary format; common small forms and small-scale relationships governing neighbouring parts; compilations; dominant subject matter; and similarities to the canonical books of the Hebrew Bible. By treating works of diverse genres and periods by the same conceptual grid, the new framework breaks down artificial barriers to interdisciplinary research and prepares the ground for new large-scale comparative studies. The book introduces and presents the new framework, explains and illustrates every descriptive category with reference to specific ancient Jewish texts, and provides sample profiles of Jubilees, the Temple Scroll, Mishnah, and Genesis Rabbah. The books publication is accompanied by a public online Database of hundreds of further Profiles (literarydatabase.humanities.manchester.ac.uk). This project was made possible through the support of the Arts and Humanities Research Council.

Christian Identity, Jews, and Israel in 17th-Century England is a cultural history of seventeenth-century England. It assesses the complexity and fluidity of Christian identity from the reign of Elizabeth I and the early Stuart kings through the English Revolution, and into the Restoration, when the English Church and monarchy were restored. Throughout this tumultuous period, which included debate about readmission of the Jews, England was preoccupied with Jews and Israel. As the Reformation sharpened national identity and prompted reconsideration of the relation of Christianity to Judaism, English people showed intense interest in Jewish history and Judaism and appropriated biblical Israel's history, looking to the narratives in the Hebrew Bible, even as reformed Christianity was thought to be purged of Jewish elements. There was an unstable, shifting mix of identification and opposition, affinity and distance, in English attitudes towards Jews - a mix that held positive possibilities for Jewish/Christian relations as well as negative. Grounded in archival research, this book analyzes writings ranging from those of Foxe and Hooker to Milton and Dryden, from sermons to lyrics, from church polemic to proposals for legal and economic reform. Literary texts discussed include Herrick's Hesperides, Vaughan's Silex Scintillans, Bunyan's Grace Abounding, Milton's major prose and poems, and Dryden's Annus Mirabilis and Absalom and Achitophel. Attention is also paid to publications associated with James I, Charles I, and Cromwell, and writings by and about such figures as William Prynne, Gerrard Winstanley, Margaret Fell, George Fox, Menasseh Ben Israel, and self-proclaimed prophets such as John Rogers, Abiezzer Coppe, and Anna Trapnel.

Benefits
- Provides a roadmap of tikkun olam
- Teaches students that being Jewish involves both learning and doing
- Provides practical, realistic ways for students to begin their lifelong connection to ethical living
- Highlights values embodied in text sources
- Focuses on the organizations, traditions, and rituals that help us carry out those values
- Enables teachers to make connections between text study and Jewish living
- User-friendly teacher's guide offers suggestions for classroom implementation, with specific suggestions for integrating this material into other curricular units

The sanctification of Israel, the people, endures 1] in the absence of the cult and 2] in alien, unclean territory and 3] whatever the source of the food that Israel eats. Israel s sanctity is eternal, un-contingent, absolute. The sanctification that inheres in Israel, the people, transcends the Land and outlives the Temple and its cult. Since the sanctity of Israel, the people, persists beyond the Temple and outside of the Land, that sanctity stands at a higher point in the hierarchy of domains of the holy that ascend from earth to heaven and from Man to God. That theological construction (Chapters One, Two and Three) gained support from a science and a philosophy (Chapters Four, Five, and Six) that accomplished the hierarchical classification of nature and of the social order. Nature and society arose from the complex to the simple, and conversely the many descended from the one. These represented the theological givens, sustained by the philosophical premises, of Judaism. The law constructed its propositions upon generalizations that pertained universally, so bringing the Israelite norms into accord with natural law. This emerges in the way in which the law sorted out mixtures by their types, fully in line with the Stoic theory of mixtures. The philosophical categorization and classification of the power of intentionality, shaded over into the consideration of classes of causation and responsibility in the Aristotelian manner from deliberate to inadvertent. But how does Judaism integrate into a coherent system its premises, the theological propositions, and its recurrent analytical protocols, the philosophical principles. The book sets forth the integrating conceptions in Chapters Seven and Eight. The philosophical and theological components are integrated in an encompassing composition.