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Books > Humanities > Religion & beliefs > Non-Christian religions > Judaism > General
Explores the influence of Kabbalah in shaping America's religious
identity In 1688, a leading Quaker thinker and activist in what is
now New Jersey penned a letter to one of his closest disciples
concerning Kabbalah, or what he called the mystical theology of the
Jews. Around that same time, one of the leading Puritan ministers
developed a messianic theology based in part on the mystical
conversion of the Jews. This led to the actual conversion of a Jew
in Boston a few decades later, an event that directly produced the
first kabbalistic book conceived of and published in America. That
book was read by an eventual president of Yale College, who went on
to engage in a deep study of Kabbalah that would prod him to
involve the likes of Benjamin Franklin, and to give a public
oration at Yale in 1781 calling for an infusion of Kabbalah and
Jewish thought into the Protestant colleges of America. Kabbalah
and the Founding of America traces the influence of Kabbalah on
early Christian Americans. It offers a new picture of
Jewish-Christian intellectual exchange in pre-Revolutionary
America, and illuminates how Kabbalah helped to shape early
American religious sensibilities. The volume demonstrates that key
figures, including the well-known Puritan ministers Cotton Mather
and Increase Mather and Yale University President Ezra Stiles,
developed theological ideas that were deeply influenced by
Kabbalah. Some of them set out to create a more universal Kabbalah,
developing their ideas during a crucial time of national myth
building, laying down precedents for developing notions of American
exceptionalism. This book illustrates how, through fascinating and
often surprising events, this unlikely inter-religious influence
helped shape the United States and American identity.
Moving away from focusing on wisdom as a literary genre, this book
delves into the lived, embodied and formative dimensions of wisdom
as they are delineated in Jewish sources from the Persian,
Hellenistic and early Roman eras. Considering a diverse body of
texts beyond later canonical boundaries, the book demonstrates that
wisdom features not as an abstract quality, but as something to be
performed and exercised at both the individual and community level.
The analysis specifically concentrates on notions of a 'wise'
person, including the rise of the sage as an exemplary figure. It
also looks at how ancestral figures and contemporary teachers are
imagined to manifest and practice wisdom, and considers communal
portraits of a wise and virtuous life. In so doing, the author
demonstrates that the previous focus on wisdom as a category of
literature has overshadowed significant questions related to
wisdom, behaviour and social life. Jewish wisdom is also
contextualized in relation to its wider ancient Mediterranean
milieu, making the book valuable for biblical scholars,
classicists, scholars of religion and the ancient Near East and
theologians.
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The Pharisees
(Hardcover)
Kent L. Yinger; Foreword by Craig A Evans
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R1,110
R939
Discovery Miles 9 390
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A completely new, expanded edition of this classic college text
book about two key kinds of writing in the Old Testament: wisdom
and law. Completely revised and updated, the book also includes
much more on literary interpretation. This book is intended for
primarily aimed at college students studying the Old Testament, on
religious studies courses.
Thoroughly updated and revised for 2024, JERUSALEM: THE BIOGRAPHY is the history of the Middle East through the lens of the Holy City and the Holy Land, from King David to the wars and chaos of today.
The history of Jerusalem is the story of the world: Jerusalem is the universal city, the capital of two peoples, the shrine of three faiths. The Holy City and Holy Land are the battlefields for today's multifaceted conflicts and, for believers, the setting for Judgement Day and the Apocalypse.
How did this small, remote town become the Holy City, the 'centre of the world' and now the key to peace in the Middle East? Why is the Holy Land so important not just to the region and its many new players, but to the wider world too? Drawing on new archives and a lifetime's study, Montefiore reveals this ever-changing city and turbulent region through the wars, love affairs and revelations of the kings, empresses, amirs, sultans, caliphs, presidents, autocrats, imperialists and warlords, poets, prophets, saints and rabbis, conquerors and whores who created, destroyed, chronicled, and believed in Jerusalem and the Holy Land.
A classic of modern literature, this is not only the epic story of 3,000 years of faith, slaughter, fanaticism, co-existence, power and myth, but also a freshly updated, carefully balanced history of the Middle East, from King David to the new players and powers of the twenty-first century, from the birth of Judaism, Christianity and Islam to the Israel-Palestine conflict and the mayhem of today.
This is how today's Middle East was forged, how the Holy Land became sacred and how Jerusalem became Jerusalem - the only city that exists twice - in heaven and on earth.
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