This book analyzes and describes the development and aspects of imagery techniques, a primary mode of mystical experience, in twentieth century Jewish mysticism. These techniques, in contrast to linguistic techniques in medieval Kabbalah and in contrast to early Hasidism, have all the characteristics of a full screenplay, a long and complicated plot woven together from many scenes, a kind of a feature film. Research on this development and nature of the imagery experience is carried out through comparison to similar developments in philosophy and psychology and is fruitfully contextualized within broader trends of western and eastern mysticism.

This collection presents innovative research by scholars from across the globe in celebration of Gabriele Boccaccini's sixtieth birthday and to honor his contribution to the study of early Judaism and Christianity. In harmony with Boccaccini's determination to promote the study of Second Temple Judaism in its own right, this volume includes studies on various issues raised in early Jewish apocalyptic literature (e.g., 1 Enoch, 2 Baruch, 4 Ezra), the Dead Sea Scrolls, and other early Jewish texts, from Tobit to Ben Sira to Philo and beyond. The volume also provides several investigations on early Christianity in intimate conversation with its Jewish sources, consistent with Boccaccini's efforts to transcend confessional and disciplinary divisions by situating the origins of Christianity firmly within Second Temple Judaism. Finally, the volume includes essays that look at Jewish-Christian relations in the centuries following the Second Temple period, a harvest of Boccaccini's labor to rethink the relationship between Judaism and Christianity in light of their shared yet contested heritage.

Although the ideas of ""tradition"" and ""modernity"" may seem to be directly opposed, David Ellenson, a leading contemporary scholar of modern Jewish thought, understood that these concepts can also enjoy a more fluid relationship. In honor of Ellenson, editors Michael A. Meyer and David N. Myers have gathered contributors for Between Jewish Tradition and Modernity: Rethinking an Old Opposition to examine the permutations and adaptations of these intertwined forms of Jewish expression. Contributions draw from a range of disciplines and scholarly interests and range in subject from the theological to the liturgical, sociological, and literary. The geographic and historical focus of the volume is on the United States and the State of Israel, both of which have been major sites of inquiry in Ellenson's work. In twenty-two essays, contributors demonstrate that modernity did not simply replace tradition in Judaism but rather entered into a variety of relationships with it: adopting or adapting certain elements, repossessing rituals that had once been abandoned, or struggling with its continuing influence. In four parts - Law, Ritual, Thought, and Culture - contributors explore a variety of subjects, including the role of reform in Israeli Orthodoxy, traditions of twentieth-century bar/bat mitzvah, end-of-life ethics, tensions between Zionism and American Jewry, and the rise of a 1960s New York Jewish countrerculture. An introductory essay also presents an appreciation of Ellenson's scholarly contribution. Bringing together leading Jewish historians, anthropologists, sociologists, philosophers and liturgists, Between Jewish Tradition and Modernity offers a collective view of a historically and culturally significant issue that will be of interest to Jewish scholars of many discplines. Contributors Include: Adam S. Ferziger, Jack Wertheimer, Jonathan D. Sarna, Deborah E. Lipstadt, Michael A. Meyer, Steven M. Lowenstein, William Cutter, Riv-Ellen Prell, Carole B. Balin, Arnold J. Band, Paula E. Hyman, Zvi Zohar, Elliot N. Dorff, Isa Aron, Dalia Marx, Arnold M. Eisen, Michael Marmur, Rachel Adler, Lewis M. Barth, Lawrence A. Hoffman, Wendy I. Zierler.

This is a study of two metaphors, 'an eternal planting' and 'a house of holiness', which were used extensively by the DSS Community in expression of their self-understanding. These two metaphors embrace a wide range of biblical themes which they appropriated for themselves. The sectarian writings and non-sectarian writings used by the community have been examined in order to bring out the theology behind these two metaphors. Each passage is compared and contrasted primarily with the Hebrew Bible to see how the text has been reworked or nuanced to suit its new context.

It is concluded that these two metaphors express the deep yearning of the DSS Community for a complete restoration of Israel, for a return to Edenic conditions as before the Fall, and for a temple which was pure. These metaphors contribute to the community's self-understanding of themselves as the 'eternal planting', or True Israel, the faithful remnant, who practised justice and righteousness and awaited the eschaton. They beleived that they were indeed a 'kingdom of priests and a holy nation'. They understood themselves to be a proleptic temple in advance of the eschatological temple to be built by God. They were also the true priests, functioning in God's heavenly temple carrying out the priestly ministry of atonement, teaching, intercession, and blessing. These two metaphors appear to be quite distinct at first sight, but on closer examination they are seen to convey many complementary theological ideas.

Today, more than 75 years after the Holocaust and World War II, antisemitism remains a poisonous force in European culture and politics, whether cloaked in the garb of reactionary nationalism or manifested in outright physical violence. Nothing New in Europe? provides a sobering look at the persistence of European antisemitism today through fifteen interviews with Jewish Israelis living in Germany, Poland, France, and other countries, supplemented with in-depth scholarly essays. The interviewees draw upon their lived experiences to reflect on anti-Jewish rhetoric, the role of Israel, and the relationship between antisemitism and the persecution of other minorities.

This is the first full-scale, verse-by-verse commentary on 4 Baruch. The pseudepigraphon, written in the second century, is in large measure an attempt to address the situation following the destruction of the temple in 70 CE by recounting legends about the first destruction of the temple, the Babylonian captivity, and the return from exile. 4 Bruch is notable for its tale about Jeremiah's companion, Abimelech, who sleeps through the entire exilic period. This tale lies behind the famous Christian legend of the Seven Sleepers of Ephesus and is part of the genealogy of Washington Irving's "Rip Van Winkle." Allison's commentary draws upon an exceptionally broad range of ancient sources in an attempt to clarify 4 Baruch's original setting, compositional history, and meaning.

Tamara Prosic gives a new explanation of the origins, development and symbolism of Passover. First, she examines Passover from the diachronic perspective, tracing its development from the period before the centralisation of the cult until the second destruction of the temple. Issues with previous scholarship are considered, while at the same time she places the study of Passover within the framework of the new paradigm of historical studies of ancient Israel that advocates the indigenous Canaanitic origin of Israelites. The second part of the book is synchronic in its approach to Passover and deals with its symbolism. Prosic discusses Passover in biblical legends arguing that the pre-Yahwistic Passover was essentially a rite of passage. From there the investigation moves to symbolic elements of Passover such as time symbolism, space symbolism and symbolism of the sacrifice. This is volume 414 in the Journal for the Study of the Old Testament Supplement series.

The fourth century is often referred to as the first Christian century, and for the Jews a period of decline and persecution. But was this change really so immediate and irreversible? What was the real impact of the Christianization of the Roman Empire on the Jews, especially in their own land?

Stemberger draws on all available sources, literary and archaeological, Christian as well as pagan and Jewish, to reconstruct the history of the different religious communities of Palestine in the fourth century.

This book demonstrates how lively, creative, and resourceful the Jewish communities remained.

Covenant and the Jewish Conversion Question reevaluates conversion and Jewish identity through the lens of Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik's dual conception of the Covenants of Fate and Destiny. By studying an array of key rabbinic texts through this lens, the book explores the boundaries and interplay between these biblical covenants through apostasy, holiness and the key elements relating to conversion law. This understanding provides a relevant framing device to deal with the conversion and Jewish identity crises faced in the State of Israel and beyond.

A child's wish melds the soul of a kind-hearted simpleton to a toy BEAR. Secret for three generations the GUARDIAN wakes in time of need. Surviving the sinking of the TITANIC the BEAR passes into the hands of the JEWISH community. Aboard the rescue ship CARPATHIA it travels on...to the gas chambers of AUSCHWITZ. The BEAR brings with it...A HISTORY OF FEAR.

In the sixteenth century, the famous kabbalist Isaac Luria transmitted a secret trove of highly complex mystical practices to a select groups of students. These meditations were designed to capitalize on sleep and death states in order to effectively split one's soul into multiple parts, and which, when properly performed, permitted the adept to free oneself from the cycle of rebirth. Through an in-depth analysis of these contemplative practices within the broader context of Lurianic literature, Zvi Ish-Shalom guides us on a penetrating scholarly journey into a realm of mystical teachings and practices never before available in English, illuminating a radically monistic vision of reality at the heart of Kabbalistic metaphysics and practice.

The contributions in this volume are focused on the historical origins, religious provenance, and social function of ancient Jewish and Christian apocalyptic literature, including so-called 'Gnostic' writings. Although it is disputed whether there was a genre of 'apocalyptic literature,' it is obvious that numerous texts from ancient Judaism, early Christianity, and other religious milieus share a specific view of history and the world to come. Many of these writings are presented in form of a heavenly (divine) revelation, mediated through an otherworldly figure (like an angel) to an elected human being who discloses this revelation to his recipients in written form. In different strands of early Judaism, ancient Christianity as well as in Gnosticism, Manichaeism, and Islam, apocalyptic writings played an important role from early on and were produced also in later centuries. One of the most characteristic features of these texts is their specific interpretation of history, based on the knowledge about the upper, divine realm and the world to come. Against this background the volume deals with a wide range of apocalyptic texts from different periods and various religious backgrounds.

This first verse-by-verse commentary on the Greek text of the Testament of Abraham places the work within the history of both Jewish and Christian literature. It emphasizes the literary artistry and comedic nature of the Testament, brings to the task of interpretation a mass of comparative material, and establishes that, although the Testament goes back to a Jewish tale of the first or second century CE, the Christian elements are much more extensive than has previously been realized. The commentary further highlights the dependence of the Testament upon both Greco-Roman mythology and the Jewish Bible. This should be the standard commentary for years to come.

Ingrid Hjelm examines the composition of the Books of Kings, using the Hezekiah narratives in 2 Kings 18GCo20 as a focus. She argues that this narrative is taken from that of the book of Isaiah, with which it shares linguistic and thematic elements. In Kings, it is used with the specific purpose of breaking the compositional pattern of curse, which threatens to place Jerusalem on a par with Samaria. Jerusalem traditions are examined against theories of a late Yahwist author and the PentateuchGCOs origin within a Jerusalem cult. While the Pentateuch in its final form became a common work, acceptable to all groups because of its implied ambiguity, the Deuteronomistic HistoryGCOs favoring of David and Jerusalem holds a rejection of competitive groups as its implied argument.

This volume remembers Geza Xeravits, a well known scholar of deuterocanonical and Qumran literature. The volume is divided into four sections according to his scholarly work and interest. Contributions in the first part deal with Old Testament and related issues (Thomas Hiecke, Stefan Beyerle, and Matthew Goff). The second section is about the Dead Sea Scrolls (John J, Collins, John Kampen, Peter Porzig, Eibert Tigchelaar, Balazs Tamasi and Reka Esztari). The largest part is the forth on deuterocanonica (Beate Ego, Lucas Brum Teixeira, Fancis Macatangay, Tobias Nicklas, Maria Brutti, Calduch-Benages Nuria, Pancratius Beentjes, Benjamin Wright, Otto Mulder, Angelo Passaro, Friedrich Reiterer, Severino Bussino, Jeremy Corley and JiSeong Kwong). The third section deals with cognate literature (Jozsef Zsengeller and Karin Schoepflin). The last section about the Ancient Synagogue has the paper of Anders Kloostergaard Petersen. Some hot topics are discussed, for example the Two spirits in Qumran, the cathegorization of the Dead Sea Scrolls, the authorship and antropology of Ben Sira, and the angelology of Vitae Prophetarum.