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Books > Humanities > Religion & beliefs > Non-Christian religions > Judaism > General
Employs the social-psychological study of social rejection, social
identity theory, and social memory theory, shedding new light on
the topic.
Nietzsche and Jewish Political Theology is the first book to
explore the impact of Friedrich Nietzsche's work on the formation
of Jewish political theology during the first half of the twentieth
century. It maps the many ways in which early Jewish thinkers
grappled with Nietzsche's powerful ideas about politics, morality,
and religion in the process of forging a new and modern Jewish
culture. The book explores the stories of some of the most
important Jewish thinkers who utilized Nietzsche's writings in
crafting the intellectual foundations of Jewish modern political
theology. These figures' political convictions ranged from orthodox
conservatism to pacifist anarchism, and their attitude towards
Nietzsche's ideas varied from enthusiastic embrace to ambivalence
and outright rejection. By bringing these diverse figures together,
the book makes a convincing argument about Nietzsche's importance
for key figures of early Zionism and modern Jewish political
thought. The present study offers a new interpretation of a
particular theological position which is called "heretical
religiosity." Only with modernity and, paradoxically, with rapid
secularization, did one find "heretical religiosity" at full
strength. Nietzsche enabled intellectual Jews to transform the
foundation of their political existence. It provides a new
perspective on the adaptation of Nietzsche's philosophy in the age
of Jewish national politics, and at the same time is a case study
in the intellectual history of the modern Jewry. This new reading
on Nietzsche's work is a valuable resource for students and
researchers interested in philosophy, Jewish history and political
theology.
This book focuses on the national conceptualization of Judaism and
Jews by German neo-Pietists from the early Restoration (1815) until
the New Era (neue AEra, 1858-1861), at which point Prussia and
other German states embarked on a liberal course. The book
demonstrates how a certain understanding of nationalism by Awakened
Christians, who were associated with political conservatism, was
applied to themselves as belonging to a German nation, and
correspondingly to Jews as members of a distinct Jewish nation. It
argues that this kind of nationalization by neo-Pietists-among them
theologians, intellectuals, and members of the agrarian
aristocracy-was interwoven with their religion of the heart, and
drew on a tradition of a community of kinship established by the
earlier German Pietism since the late seventeenth century. The book
sheds new light on the accommodation of nationalism by German
Pietist conservatives, who so far were considered as opponents of
the national idea. At the same time, it shows that their posture
towards Jews was not merely anti-Semitic. It emerged from a
specific religious-national synthesis, and aimed at an alternative
solution to the Jewish Question, other than emancipation, in the
form of Jewish national political independence.
In the public sphere, it is often assumed that acts of violence
carried out by Muslims are inspired by their religious commitment
and encouraged by the Qur'an. Some people express similar concerns
about the scriptures and actions of Christians and Jews. Might they
be right? What role do scriptural texts play in motivating and
justifying violence in these three traditions? Scripture and
Violence explores the complex relationship between scriptural texts
and real-world acts of violence. A variety of issues are addressed,
including the prevalent modern tendency to express more concern
about other people's texts and violence than one's own, to treat
interpretation and application of scriptural passages as
self-evident, and to assume that the actions of religious people
are directly motivated by what they read in scriptures.
Contributions come from a diverse group of scholars of Islam,
Judaism, and Christianity with varying perspectives on the issues.
Highlighting the complex relationship between texts and human
actions, this is an essential read for students and academics
studying religion and violence, Abrahamic religions, or scriptural
interpretation. Scripture and Violence will also be of interest to
researchers working on religion and politics, sociology and
anthropology of religion, socio-political approaches to scriptural
texts, and issues surrounding religion, secularity, and the public
sphere. This volume could also form a basis for discussions in
churches, synagogues, mosques, interfaith settings, and government
agencies. The editors of Scripture and Violence have also set up a
website including lesson plans/discussion guides for the different
chapters in the book, available here:
https://www.scriptureandviolence.org/scripture-and-violence-book-and-chapter-discussion-guides
This book focuses on the expressions used to describe Job's body in
pain and on the reactions of his friends to explore the moral and
social world reflected in the language and the values that their
speeches betray. A key contribution of this monograph is to
highlight how the perspective of illness as retribution is
powerfully refuted in Job's speeches and, in particular, to show
how this is achieved through comedy. Comedy in Job is a powerful
weapon used to expose and ridicule the idea of retribution.
Rejecting the approach of retrospective diagnosis, this monograph
carefully analyses the expression of pain in Job focusing
specifically on somatic language used in the deity attack
metaphors, in the deity surveillance metaphors and in the language
connected to the body and social status. These metaphors are
analysed in a comparative way using research from medical
anthropology and sociology which focuses on illness narratives and
expressions of pain. Job's Body and the Dramatised Comedy of
Moralising will be of interest to anyone working on the Book of
Job, as well as those with an interest in suffering and pain in the
Hebrew Bible more broadly.
'The Abrahamic Archetype' is a major scholarly achievement that
sheds light on what is similar and what is distinctive in the three
Abrahamic religions of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. It
examines the interplay between outward historical forces in
religious and esoteric domains and the inward worlds of
transcendent values and ideas. Intellectual archetypes, or
constellations of religious and esoteric ideas, are the principles
which determine the organic integration of outward historical
influences which the various religions encounter and share. Zinner
emphasizes the unity and diversity of faith which characterize
esoteric traditions of Jewish Kabbalah, Sunni Sufism, Shi'i Gnosis,
and Christian theology, especially accentuating the dogmas of the
Trinity, Christology, and crucifixion on the one hand, and on the
other, esoteric ideas regarding unio mystica (mystical union) in
the three Abrahamic faiths. The book contains a detailed
reconstruction of the esoteric traditions, theology, and history of
Jewish Christianity beginning in the era of Jesus' 'brother' and
successor James the Just and elucidates to what extent this
Jamesian Christianity might parallel Islamic history and ideas.
Volume 20 of The Jewish Law Annual features six detailed studies.
The first three articles consider questions which fall under the
rubric of halakhic methodology. The final three articles address
substantive questions regarding privacy, cohabitation and medical
triage. All three 'methodological' articles discuss creative
interpretation of legal sources. Two (Cohen and Gilat) consider the
positive and forward-thinking aspects of such halakhic creativity.
The third (Radzyner) examines tendentious invocation of new
halakhic arguments to advance an extraneous interest. Cohen
explores positive creativity and surveys the innovative midrashic
exegeses of R. Meir Simha Hakohen of Dvinsk, demonstrating his
willingness to base rulings intended for implementation on such
exegesis. Gilat examines exegetical creativity as to the laws of
capital offenses. Midrashic argumentation enables the rabbinical
authorities to set aside the literal sense of the harsh biblical
laws, and implement more suitable penological policies. On the
other hand, Radzyner's article on tendentious innovation focuses on
a situation where novel arguments were advanced in the context of a
power struggle, namely, Israeli rabbinical court efforts to
preserve jurisdiction. Two articles discuss contemporary dilemmas.
Spira & Wainberg consider the hypothetical scenario of triage
of an HIV vaccine, analyzing both the talmudic sources for
resolving issues related to allocating scarce resources, and recent
responsa. Warburg discusses the status of civil marriage and
cohabitation vis-a-vis payment of spousal maintenance: can
rabbinical courts order such payment? Schreiber's article addresses
the question of whether privacy is a core value in talmudic law:
does it indeed uphold a 'right to privacy,' as recent scholars have
claimed? The volume concludes with a review of Yuval Sinai's
Application of Jewish Law in the Israeli Courts (Hebrew).
In recent years scholars have re-evaluated the "parting of the
ways" between Judaism and Christianity, reaching new understandings
of the ways shared origins gave way to two distinct and sometimes
inimical religious traditions. But this has been a profoundly
textual task, relying on the writings of rabbis, bishops, and other
text-producing elites to map the terrain of the "parting." This
book takes up the question of the divergence of Judaism and
Christianity in terms of material--the stuff made, used, and left
behind by the persons that lived in and between these religions as
they were developing. Considering the glass, clay, stone, paint,
vellum, and papyrus of ancient Jews and Christians, this book maps
the "parting" in new ways, and argues for a greater role for
material and materialism in our reconstructions of the past.
E. P. Sanders is Arts and Sciences Professor of Religion Emeritus
at Duke University and has taught at McMaster University and
Queen's College, Oxford.
The Routledge Handbook of Muslim-Jewish Relations invites readers
to deepen their understanding of the historical, social, cultural,
and political themes that impact modern-day perceptions of
interfaith dialogue. The volume is designed to illuminate positive
encounters between Muslims and Jews, as well as points of conflict,
within a historical framework. Among other goals, the volume seeks
to correct common misperceptions about the history of Muslim-Jewish
relations by complicating familiar political narratives to include
dynamics such as the cross-influence of literary and intellectual
traditions. Reflecting unique and original collaborations between
internationally-renowned contributors, the book is intended to
spark further collaborative and constructive conversation and
scholarship in the academy and beyond.
This book provides a new reading of the biblical book of Numbers in
a commentary form. Mainstream readings have tended to see the book
as a haphazard junkyard of material that connects Genesis-Leviticus
with Deuteronomy (and Joshua), composed at a late stage in the
history of ancient Israel. By contrast, this book reads Numbers as
part of a wider work of Genesis-Joshua, a carefully crafted
programmatic settler colonial document for a new society in
Canaanite highlands in the late second millennium BCE that seeks to
replace pre-existing indigenous societies. In the context of the
tremendous influence that the biblical documents have had on the
world in the last 2,000-3,000 years, the book also offers pointers
towards reading these texts today. This volume is a fascinating
study of this text, and will be of interest not only to biblical
scholars, but to anyone with an interest in the history of the
ancient Levant, and colonisation and colonialism in the ancient
world more broadly.
Changing the Immutable focuses on how segments of Orthodox society
have taken upon themselves to rewrite the past, by covering up and
literally cutting out that which does not fit in with their
contemporary world-view. For reasons ranging from theological
considerations to internal religious politics to changing religious
standards, such Jewish self-censorship abounds, and Marc Shapiro
discusses examples from each category, In a number of cases the
original text is shown alongside how it looked after it was
censored, together with an explanation of what made the text
problematic and how the issue was resolved. The author considers
how some Orthodox historiography sees truth as entirely
instrumental. Drawing on the words of leading rabbis, particularly
from the haredi world, he shows that what is important is not
historical truth, but a 'truth' that leads to observance and faith
in the sages. He concludes with a discussion of the concept of
truth in the Jewish tradition, and when this truth can be altered.
Changing the Immutable also reflects on the paradox of a society
that regards itself as traditional, but at the same time is
uncomfortable with much of the inherited tradition and thus feels
the need to create an idealized view of the past. It considers this
practice in context, showing the precedents for this in Jewish
history dating back to talmudic times. Since the subjects of
censorship have included such figures as Maimonides, Bahya ibn
Pakuda, Rashi, Naphtali Herz Wessely, Moses Mendelssohn, the Hatam
Sofer, Samson Raphael Hirsch, the Lubavitcher Rebbe, A. I. Kook,
and J. B. Soloveitchik, as well as issues such as Zionism, biblical
interpretation, and attitudes to women and gentiles, Changing the
Immutable also serves as a study in Jewish intellectual history and
how the ideas of one era do not always find favour with future
generations.
Arguing about Judaism differs from other introductions to Judaism.
It is unique, not solely in its engaging dialogues between a Reform
rabbi and a humanist, atheist philosopher, but also in its
presentation of and challenges to the fundamental religious beliefs
of the Jewish heritage and their relevance to today's Jewish
community. The dialogues contain both Jewish narratives and
philosophical responses, with topics ranging from the nature of God
to controversies over sexual relations, animal welfare and the
environment - from antisemitism to the state of Israel and Zionism.
Although the rabbi and philosopher argue strongly, clearly enjoying
the cut and thrust of debate, they do so with sensitivity, charm
and respect, revealing the rich intricacies of the Jewish religion
and contemporary Jewish life. While essential reading for those
studying Judaism and Jewish history, the book aims to stimulate
debate more generally amongst Jews and non-Jews, the religious and
the atheist - all those with a general interest in religion and
philosophy.
This study presents the first comprehensive survey of the abundant
early Islamic sources that recognize the historical Jewish bond to
the Temple Mount (Masjid al-Aqsa) and Jerusalem. Analyzing these
sources in light of the views of contemporary Muslim religious
scholars, thinkers and writers, who - in the context of the
Arab-Israeli conflict - deny any Jewish ties to the Temple Mount
and promote the argument that no Jewish Temple ever stood on the
Temple Mount. The book describes how this process of denying Jewish
ties to the site has become the cultural rationale for UNESCO
decisions in recent years regarding holy sites in Jerusalem,
Bethlehem and Hebron, which use Muslim Arabic terminology and
overlook the Jewish (and Christian) history and sanctification of
these sites. Denying the Jewish ties to the Temple Mount for
political purposes inadvertently undermines the legitimacy of
Islam's sanctification of Al-Aqsa and the Dome of the Rock as well
as the credibility of the most important sources in Arabic, which
constitute the classics of Islam and provide the foundation for its
culture and identity. Identifying and presenting the Jewish sources
in the Bible, Babylonian Talmud and exegesis on which these Islamic
traditions are based, this volume is a key resource for readers
interested in Islam, Judaism, religion and political science and
history in the Middle East.
Imperialism and Biblical Prophecy is a radically new interpretation
of prophetic poetry. Using more than thirty new translations from
the Hebrew Bible, it shows that this poetry is inseparable from
imperialism, that each of the three major waves of biblical
prophecy which have survived in the Old Testament occurred in
response to simultaneous waves of imperialist conquest.
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