Themistius' (4th century CE) paraphrase of Aristotle's Metaphysics 12 is the earliest surviving complete account of this seminal work. Despite leaving no identifiable mark in Late Antiquity, Themistius' paraphrase played a dramatic role in shaping the metaphysical landscape of Medieval Arabic and Hebrew philosophy and theology. Lost in Greek, and only partially surviving in Arabic, its earliest full version is in the form of a 13th century Hebrew translation. In this volume, Yoav Meyrav offers a new critical edition of the Hebrew translation and the Arabic fragments of Themistius' paraphrase, accompanied by detailed philological and philosophical analyses. In doing so, he provides a solid foundation for the study of one of the most important texts in the history of Aristotelian metaphysics.

Jewish Philosophy for the Twenty-First Century encourages contemporary Jewish thinkers to reflect on the meaning of Judaism in the modern world by connecting these reflections to their own personal biographies. In so doing, it reveals the complexity of Jewish thought in the present moment. The contributors reflect on a range of political, social, ethical, and educational challenges that face Jews and Judaism today and chart a path for the future. The results showcase how Jewish philosophy encompasses the methodologies and concerns of other fields such as political theory, intellectual history, theology, religious studies, anthropology, education, comparative literature, and cultural studies. By presenting how Jewish thinkers address contemporary challenges of Jewish existence, the volume makes a valuable contribution to the humanities as a whole, especially at a time when the humanities are increasingly under duress for being irrelevant.

The collection of Aramaic magic bowls and related objects in the Vorderasiatisches Museum in Berlin is one of the most important in the world. This book presents a description of each object and its contents, including details of users and other names, biblical quotations, parallel texts, and linguistic features. Combined with the detailed indices, the present volume makes the Berlin collection accessible for further research. Furthermore, sixteen texts, which are representative of the whole collection, are edited. This book results from an impressive collaboration between Siam Bhayro, James Nathan Ford, Dan Levene, and Ortal-Paz Saar, with further contributions by Matthew Morgenstern, Marco Moriggi, and Naama Vilozny, and will be of interest for all those engaged in the study of these fascinating objects. "The presentation, transcriptions, translations, and commentaries are excellent examples of the finest scholarship from some of the leading scholars in the study of ancient Aramaic and its dialects.... The manuscript and the bowls it introduces should be eagerly received and examined by graduate students and scholars of the Hebrew Bible, esoteric traditions of later antiquity (like the seals of Solomon, demonology, etc.), and the historical development of Aramaic." - Peter T. Lanfer, Occidental College, in: Review of Biblical Literature 8 (2019)

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.

A compelling investigation of the Jewish communitys reaction or nonreaction to domestic violence. In a congregation of devoted worshippers gathered for Shabbat services at the local synagogue, it may be difficult to accept how many wives go home with their husbands to ongoing physical and emotional abuse. In Sins of Omission, author Carol Goodman Kaufman offers a compelling investigation of the Jewish communitys reaction or nonreaction to domestic violence. Concerned with the sins of the community more than the sins of the abuser, Goodman Kaufman finds that the Orthodox, Conservative, and Reform rabbis and community leaders are not doing enough and are not informed enough to help the abused women in their congregations get the support, protection, and guidance they need. Through her many insightful interviews with survivors of abuse, rabbis, and lay community leaders, the author takes a hard look at the Jewish community, its rules, regulations, and followers, and discovers the ways in which it helps and hinders victims of abuse.

The first part of this book is an extensive verse-by-verse commentary on the Book of Jubilees. Kugel's stated aim is "to understand what the text is saying and why it is saying it," and in particular to explore the numerous bits of biblical interpretation found in Jubilees and their connection to other exegetical writings of the Second Temple period. Subsequent chapters focus on the possibility that Jubilees had more than one author, as well as on the book s specific relationship to four other Second Temple texts: the Genesis Apocryphon, the Aramaic Levi Document, 4Q225 Pseudo-Jubilees, and the writings of Philo of Alexandria.

Die Frage der Beziehung zwischen dem Jesajabuch und dem Buch der Zwoelf Propheten ist angesichts vielfaltiger Beruhrungen sprachlicher und motivischer Art zentral, jedoch hinsichtlich der damit verbundenen moeglichen Implikationen bislang nur ungenugend bearbeitet. Im Rahmen eines internationalen Kongresses, der vom 31.Mai bis 3.Juni 2018 an der Katholischen Universitat Eichstatt-Ingolstadt stattfand, suchten Fachleute des Zwoelfprophetenbuches bzw. des Jesajabuches mit unterschiedlichen methodischen Ansatzen ein umfassenderes Bild der verschiedenen Arten von Beziehungen oder thematischen Beruhrungen zu erarbeiten, die entweder fur die beiden Corpora als ganze oder fur spezifische Teile beider charakteristisch sind, um daraus entsprechende Schlussfolgerungen zu ziehen. Das Ergebnis ist ein UEberblick zur Vielfalt der semantischen, intertextuellen, literarischen, redaktionellen, historischen und theologischen Aspekte der Beziehungen zwischen dem Jesajabuch und dem Zwoelfprophetenbuch, die einlinigen Loesungsvorschlagen zur Erklarung des Zustandekommens dieser Bezuge widerstreiten.

Reimagining the Bible collects a dozen essays by Howard Schwartz. Together the essays present a coherent theory of the way in which each successive phase of Jewish literature has drawn upon and reimagined the previous ones. The book is organized into four sections: The Ancient Models; The Folk Tradition; Mythic Echoes; Modern Jewish Literature and the Ancient Models. Within these divisions, each of the essays focuses on a specific genre, ranging from Torah and Aggadah to Kabbalah, fairy tales, and the modern Yiddish stories of S.Y. Agnon and Isaac Bashevis Singer.
Arguing the important thesis that there is a continuity in Jewish literature which extends from the Biblical era to our own times, over a period of more than 3,000 years, this collection also serves as a guide to the history of that literature, and to the genres it comprises.

Modern English and Hebrew names with an analysis of their meanings and origins.

According to narratives in the Bible the threats of the people's end come from various sources, but the most significant threat comes, as learned from the Pentateuch, from God himself. What is the theological meaning of this tradition? In what circumstances did it evolve? How did it stand alongside other theological and socio-political concepts known to the ancient authors and their diverse audience? The book employs a diachronic method that explores the stages of the tradition's formation and development, revealing the authors' exegetical purposes and ploys, and tracing the historical realities of their time. The book proposes that the motif of the threat of destruction existed in various forms prior to the creation of the stories recorded in the final text of the Pentateuch. The inclusion of the motif within specific literary contexts attenuated the concept of destruction by presenting it as a phenomenon of specific moments in the past. Nevertheless, the threat was resurrected repeatedly by various authors, for use as a precedent or a justification for present affliction.

View the Table of Contents. Read Chapter 1.

ait is essential reading for advanced students and scholars who perhaps think that they possess anything near an understanding of the impact of athe tremenduma that is Holocaust.a
--Choice: Recommended

"An invaluable text. The individual essays are gems, written by recognized authorities in their respective disciplines, and they work as a seamless whole to address the fundamental issues raised by the Holocaust. The volume offers both as a challenge and a stimulus for future thought. . . . Erudite and pathbreaking."
--Alan L. Berger, Raddock Eminent Scholar Chair of Holocaust Studies, Florida Atlantic University

"This is a serious book...The scholars represented here wrestle with substantial issues."
--"Jewish Book World"

The theological problems facing those trying to respond to the Holocaust remain monumental. Both Jewish and Christian post-Auschwitz religious thought must grapple with profound questions, from how God allowed it to happen to the nature of evil.

The Impact of the Holocaust on Jewish Theology brings together a distinguished international array of senior scholars--many of whose work is available here in English for the first time--to consider key topics from the meaning of divine providence to questions of redemption to the link between the Holocaust and the creation of the State of Israel. Together, they push our thinking further about how our belief in God has changed in the wake of the Holocaust.

Contributors: Yosef Achituv, Yehoyada Amir, Ester Farbstein, Gershon Greenberg, Warren Zev Harvey, Tova Ilan, Shmuel Jakobovits, Dan Michman, David Novak, Shalom Ratzabi, Michael Rosenak, Shalom Rosenberg, Eliezer Schweid, and Joseph A. Turner.

This volume is a collection of fresh essays in honor of Professor John T. Townsend. It focuses on the interpretation of the common Jewish and Christian Scripture (the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament) and on its two off-shoots (Rabbinic Judaism and the New Testament), as well as on Jewish-Christian relations. The contributors, who are prominent scholars in their fields, include James L. Crenshaw, Goeran Eidevall, Anne E. Gardner, Lawrence M. Wills, Cecilia Wassen, Robert L. Brawley, Joseph B. Tyson, Eldon J. Epp, Yaakov Elman, Rivka Ulmer, Andreas Lehnardt, Reuven Kimelman, Bruce Chilton, and Michael W. Duggan. "an engaging and impressive scholarly work." - Zev Garber, Los Angeles Valley College, The Catholic Biblical Quarterly 81.3 (2019)

This work presents to the scholarly world the hitherto unpublished trove of over 500 catchwords that were attached to Masoretic doublet notes in the Leningrad Codex. All the doublets with their catchwords are listed both in the chronological order of their first appearance in the Bible and again on their second appearance. The nature of the catchwords, their purpose, and their relation to other Masoretic notes are described in detail, and suggestions are made how they can be of value to biblical scholars.

In 1980, Sholom Groesberg changed his life's course. He resigned as dean of engineering at Widener University in order to pursue a career in the rabbinate. Accepted at the Academy for Jewish Religion, he was ordained in 1984. Ten years later Rabbi Groesberg encountered the Jewish Renewal movement Its approach to creating an authentic identity within the context of living as a Jew resonated strongly within him. He became an ardent adherent of the movement.

"Jewish Renewed: A Journey" is a combination academic study and personal memoir written for the educated lay reader. It traces the movement's history, explicates its ideology and practices, and examines the future challenges facing the movement Among others, this book will interest:

History buffs*****Educators*****Spiritual seekers*****Environmentalists Alienated Jews seeking a "home"*****Practitioners in the helping professions

This book will also appeal to those of a philosophical bent searching for answers to questions of Ultimate Concern; answers that invest our lives with meaning
"Why bother to be Jewish?
Can secularism and religiosity be bridged?
Why do new religious movements survive-or fail?
Are the Kabbalah's teachings relevant to contemporary times?
How can a modernist Jew conceptualize the significance of God?

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.

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 the first study to compare the allusions to scribal culture found in the Aramaic Story of Ahiqar and the Hebrew Tale of Jeremiah and Baruch's Scroll in Jeremiah 36. It is shown that disguised in the royal propagandistic message of Ahiqar is a sophisticated Aramaic critique on the social practices of Akkadian scribal culture. Jeremiah 36, however, uses loci of scribal activity as well as allusions to scribal interactions and the techniques of the scribal craft to construct a subversive tale. When studied from a comparative perspective it is argued that the Story of Ahiqar, which has long been associated with the well-known court tale genre, is an example of a subgenre which is here called the scribal conflict narrative, and Jeremiah 36 is found to be a second example of or a response to it. This observation is arrived at by means of rigorous manuscript examination combined with narrative analysis, which identified, among other things, the development of autobiographical and biographical styles of the same ancient narrative. This study not only provides new perspectives on scribal culture, Ahiqar studies, and Jeremiah studies, but it may have far reaching implications for other ancient sources.

The Talmud's Red Fence explores how rituals and beliefs concerning menstruation in the Babylonian Talmud and neighboring Sasanian religious texts were animated by difference and differentiation. It argues that the practice and development of menstrual rituals in Babylonian Judaism was a product of the religious terrain of the Sasanian Empire, where groups like Syriac Christians, Mandaeans, Zoroastrians, and Jews defined themselves in part based on how they approached menstrual impurity. It demonstrates that menstruation was highly charged in Babylonian Judaism and Sasanian Zoroastrian, where menstrual discharge was conceived of as highly productive female seed yet at the same time as stemming from either primordial sin (Eve eating from the tree) or evil (Ahrimen's kiss). It argues that competition between rabbis and Zoroastrians concerning menstrual purity put pressure on the Talmudic system, for instance in the unusual development of an expert diagnostic system of discharges. It shows how Babylonian rabbis seriously considered removing women from the home during the menstrual period, as Mandaeans and Zoroastrians did, yet in the end deemed this possibility too "heretical." Finally, it examines three cases of Babylonian Jewish women initiating menstrual practices that carved out autonomous female space. One of these, the extension of menstrual impurity beyond the biblically mandated seven days, is paralleled in both Zoroastrian Middle Persian and Mandaic texts. Ultimately, Talmudic menstrual purity is shown to be driven by difference in its binary structure of pure and impure; in gendered terms; on a social axis between Jews and Sasanian non-Jewish communities; and textually in the way the Palestinian and Babylonian Talmuds took shape in late antiquity.

Chaos is a perennial source of fear and fascination. The original "formless void" (tohu-wa-bohu) mentioned in the book of Genesis, chaos precedes the created world: a state of anarchy before the establishment of cosmic order. But chaos has frequently also been conceived of as a force that persists in the cosmos and in society and threatens to undo them both. From the cultures of the ancient Near East and the Old Testament to early modernity, notions of the divine have included the power to check and contain as well as to unleash chaos as a sanction for the violation of social and ethical norms. Yet chaos has also been construed as a necessary supplement to order, a region of pure potentiality at the base of reality that provides the raw material of creation or even constitutes a kind of alternative order itself. As such, it generates its own peculiar 'formations of the formless'. Focusing on the connection between the cosmic and the political, this volume traces the continuities and re-conceptualizations of chaos from the ancient Near East to early modern Europe across a variety of cultures, discourses and texts. One of the questions it poses is how these pre-modern 'chaos theories' have survived into and reverberate in our own time.