From Renaissance to Risorgimento, the Hebrew tombstones of Padua express the cultural currents of their age, in text and art. The inscriptions are mainly rhymed and metered poems, about life, love and faith, while the design and ornamentation of the actual stones reflect prevailing architectural and artistic tastes. Additionally, the inscriptions illuminate the society of Padua's Jews, and the social and cultural changes they underwent during the 330 years covered by this study. Thus these tombstones capture the flow of Italian Jewish culture from Renaissance to Baroque, and from the early modern to the modern era.

Among the articles included in this Hebrew-English anthology are: . The Hebrew Manuscript as Source for the Study of History and Literature . A Fifteenth Century Hebrew Book List . Rashi's Commentary on the Pentateuch and on the Five Scrolls (Venice, 1538) . One Hundred Years of the Genizah Discovery and Research in the United States . Building a Great Judaica Library - At What Price? . The Liturgy of the Rothschild Mahzor . Two Philosophical Passages in the Liturgical Poetry of Rabbi Isaac Ibn Giat . The New Jewish Theological Seminary Library Prof. Menahem Schmelzer is Professor Emeritus of Medieval Hebrew Literature and Jewish Bibliography at The Jewish Theological Seminary. He has been a full-time member of the JTS faculty since 1961, and served as Librarian from 1964 to 1987. In addition to writing numerous articles and reviews for scholarly journals, Prof.. Schmelzer was Associate Division Editor of the "Modern Jewish Scholarship" section of Encyclopaedia Judaica. He has lectured at the Leo Baeck Institute, Yeshiva University and the Hungarian Academy of Sciences. In 1992, he received a Guggenheim Fellowship. In 1999, he was the recipient of an honorary degree from the Spertus Institute of Jewish Studies in Chicago. He was appointed as a Distinguished Visiting Senior Scholar at the Kluge Center in the Library of Congress for a four-month period in 2004.

This monograph discusses the Zohar, the most important book of the Kabbalah, as a late strata of the Midrashic literature. The author concentrates on the 'expanded' biblical stories in the Zohar and on its relationship to the ancient Talmudic Aggadah. The analytical and critical examination of these biblical themes reveals aspects of continuity and change in the history of the old Aggadic story and its way into the Zoharic corpus. The detailed description of this literary process also reveals the world of the authors of the Zohar, their spiritual distress, mystical orientations, and self-consciousness.

During the past two generations, Jewish public thought and discourse has differed dramatically from that of the era between the Emancipation and the Second World War. The chasm of the Holocaust and the watershed establishment of a Jewish state has radically changed the Jewish intellectual landscape. With their two largest concentrations in Israel and the United States, the Jews are no longer a European nation. Above all, the Jews, for the first time since they went into exile, have become free individuals, with the right to choose between the land of their birth and their ancestral homeland in Israel.

Are the Jews then a religious community dispersed among other nations? A community of equal citizens of various countries with their own cultural and historical identity? Or are the Jewish people a nation with its own homeland? However one answers this question, the political, socio-economic and cultural ramifications are enormous. Moreover, since world Jewry is now crisscrossed by divisions between religious and secular Jews, between groups of different cultural backgrounds, and between those living in a sovereign Jewish state and those who are citizens of other countries, it is the link between Israel and the Diaspora which confers a collective identity on this multiform entity. Yosef Gorny's central theme is Jewish public thought concerning the identity and essence of the Jewish people from the Holocaust and the establishment of the State of Israel up to the present day. Chapters address such topics as The Zionist Movement in Search of a National Role, The Zionist Movement in Quest of its Ideological Essence, The Intellectuals in Search of a Jewish Identity, The Diminishing Status of Israel as a Jewish State, Revolutionary RadicalismThe Left-Wing Jewish Student Movement, 1967-1973, Neo-Conservative Radicalism, The Alternative Zionism of Gush-Emunim, The Conservative Liberalism, and In Defense of Perpetual Zionist Revolt. Reflecting the collective thinking of Jewish intellectuals, this is a volume of interest to anyone concerned with issues of Jewish identity.

Rosenberg looks to the Qumran scrolls for clues to the relationship of the Essenes or Sadoqites to the early Christians. He finds that many of their beliefs, including the expectation of a Moreh Sedeq or Correct Teacher, were taken on by the early Christians and shaped in the early days of the Church.

By comparing Qumran texts with New Testament materials, Rosenberg shows that, in Christian teaching, Jesus plays the part of the three separate persons who, according to the Sadoqites, were supposed to represent and embody sedeq or divine justice. This book will be of interest to all who are concerned with Judaism and the evolution of Christianity.

Ancient texts, once written by hand on parchment and papyrus, are now increasingly discoverable online in newly digitized editions, and their readers now work online as well as in traditional libraries. So what does this mean for how scholars may now engage with these texts, and for how the disciplines of biblical, Jewish and Christian studies might develop? These are the questions that contributors to this volume address. Subjects discussed include textual criticism, palaeography, philology, the nature of ancient monotheism, and how new tools and resources such as blogs, wikis, databases and digital publications may transform the ways in which contemporary scholars engage with historical sources. Contributors attest to the emergence of a conscious recognition of something new in the way that we may now study ancient writings, and the possibilities that this new awareness raises.

The New Testament accounts of Jesus' crucifixion have stood at the bedrock of Christianity since it's birth in the 1st century, and they remain among the essential foundations of Western culture in the 21st. These Gospel narratives of the Passion - the arrest, trial, scourging, and execution of Jesus - cast the Jews as those responsible, directly and indirectly, for the death of their Messiah and the son of God. Cohen tracks the image of the Jew as the murderer of the Messiah and God from its origins to its most recent expressions. A great deal has been written about Christian anti-Semitism, its roots, and its horrific consequences in world history. This is the first book, however to focus on the powerful myth that has driven so much murderous hatred. An important addition to the literature on Jewish-Christian relations, it should appeal to a wide variety of readers in both communities.

This volume: Combines the development of German philosophy from the Enlightenment to Idealism, and from Idealism to the revolutionary turning-point of the mid-nineteenth century with the Jewish question;Shows the close entwining of anti-Jewish prejudices with awareness of the importance of Judaism in the formation of modern thought;Points out the hopes, obstacles, compromises, and disappointments of Jewish emancipation right up to the appearance of racial anti-Semitism;Traces the changes in the debate over Judaism from the theological perspective to the philosophical and from the philosophical to that of the economic and naturalistic;Underlines the dangers to toleration that arise from seeing human history as directed towards a single aim."

Modern Israel and its relations with its Arab neighbors has been conspicuously in the daily news ever since World War II. Until that time, the concept of Israel and a continuing Jewish people had been hovering in the distant background of Christian thought and doctrine since the post-apostolic era. In this important work, Dr. Diprose demonstrates the uniqueness of Israel and its special place in the divine plan. By carefully reviewing relevant New Testament and post-apostolic writings, the author traces the origin and development of Replacement Theology--the concept that the Church has completely and permanently replaced ethnic Israel in the outworking of God's plan throughout history--challenging its origin and role in the development of Christian thought on the future of ethnic Israel.

This book challenges Voltaire's doctrine of toleration. Can a Jew be a philosopher? And if so, at what cost? It seeks to provide an organic interpretation of Voltaire's attitude towards Jews, problematising the issue against the background of his theory of toleration. To date, no monograph entirely dedicated to this theme has been written. This book attempts to provide an answer to the crucial questions that have emerged in the past fifty years through a process of reading and analysis that starts with the publication of Des Juifs (1756), and ends with the posthumous publication of the apocryphal article 'Juifs' in the Kehl edition of the Dictionnaire Philosophique (1784).

The first twenty-four chapters of the book of Ezekiel are characterised by vehement declarations of judgement. This observation leaves the impression that Ezekiel 1-7 is devoid of references to hope and restoration. However, there is a redactional stratum in this section that supplemented the texts with material that conveys restoration and hope for the future. In Ezekiel 1-7, many of these additions focus on priestly topics. The motif of restoration in the redactional material of Ezekiel 3-5 is expressed by the reinstatement of Ezekiel in his priestly role. This editorial emphasis on Ezekiel as priest in the redactional material suggests that the redaction was influenced by Zechariah 3, a text that depicts the reinstitution of the exiled Zadokite priesthood. Moreover, the redactional material of Ezekiel 6-7 drew inspiration from the Law of the Temple in Ezekiel 43-46, as the redactors sought to enhance Ezekiel's priestly role. The study provides new insights into how redactors, who may have been associated with the Zadokite priesthood, inserted the message of hope and restoration into the literary unit Ezekiel 1-7 during the post-exilic period.

The Bible contains passages that allow both scholars and believers to project their hopes and fears onto ever-changing empirical realities. By reading specific biblical passages as utopia and dystopia, this volume raises questions about reconstructing the past, the impact of wishful imagination on reality, and the hermeneutic implications of dealing with utopia - "good place" yet "no place" - as a method and a concept in biblical studies. A believer like William Bradford might approach a biblical passage as utopia by reading it as instructions for bringing about a significantly changed society in reality, even at the cost of becoming an oppressor. A contemporary biblical scholar might approach the same passage with the ambition of locating the historical reality behind it - finding the places it describes on a map, or arriving at a conclusion about the social reality experienced by a historical community of redactors. These utopian goals are projected onto a utopian text. This volume advocates an honest hermeneutical approach to the question of how reliably a past reality can be reconstructed from a biblical passage, and it aims to provide an example of disclosing - not obscuring - pre-suppositions brought to the text.

The stories of Elisha the prophet have received scant attention in recent years, perhaps because they are so enigmatic. This study places the Elisha material firmly within the narrative of Genesis-2 Kings, and examines the effect these stories have on the reader's perception of the role of the 'prophet'. Using the narratological theories of Mieke Bal, David Jobling and others, Bergen shows that the Elisha stories present prophetism in a negative light, confining prophets to a rather limited scope of action in the narrative world.>

"In this book, Miriamne Ara Krummel complicates the notion of the English Middle Ages as a monolithic age of Christian faith. Cataloguing and explicating the complex depictions of semitisms to be found in medieval literature and material culture, this volume argues that Jews were always present in medieval England, and it is only in rereading the historical record that it has been considered Judenrein-without Jews"--

The present study addresses problems of an epistemological nature which hinge on the question of how to define Jewish thought. It will take its start in an ancient question, that of the relationship between Jewish culture, Greek philosophy, and then Greco-Roman (and Christian) thought in connection with the query into the history and genealogy of wisdom and knowledge. Our journey into the history of the denomination 'Jewish philosophy' will include a leg that will lead us to certain declarations of political, moral, and scientific principles, and then on to the birth of what is called philosophia perennis or, in Christian circles, prisca theologia. Our subject of inquiry will thus be the birth of the concept of Jewish philosophy, Jewish theology and Jewish philosophy of religion. A special emphasis will fall on the topic treated in the last part of this study: Jewish scepticism, a theme that involves a philosophical attitude founded on dialectical "enquiry", as the etymology of the Greek word skepsis properly means.

The Jewish people influenced Western civilization through their Bible and their religion. Basic to Judaism is the Sabbath. How did the Sabbath originate? How did it receive its name? Was it always observed from sundown to sundown?

This volume treats the interrelationship between Judaism and Christianity from the first centuries and into modern times, paying particular attention to these faiths' social, cultural, and theological interactions. The issues covered range from the formation of Jewish and Christian ideology in the context of Roman paganism to the ways in which Christian culture and theology of the medieval and modern periods form a backdrop to the creation of Jewish identity. While the historical periods and issues discussed are diverse, the result is to suggest the importance of our recognizing the close development of Judaism and Christianity. Written by top scholars in Judaic and Christian studies, these essays reflect on how the two faiths related to and were shaped by each other as they evolved in shared historical and cultural contexts, even as each maintained its own distinctive ideologies and beliefs.

The Nuremberg Miscellany [Germanisches Nationalmuseum Nurnberg, Bibliothek, 8 Degrees Hs. 7058 (Rl. 203)] is a unique work of scribal art and illumination. Its costly parchment leaves are richly adorned and illustrated with multicolour paint and powdered gold. It was penned and illustrated in southern Germany - probably Swabia - in 1589 and is signed by a certain Eliezer b. Mordechai the Martyr. The Miscellany is a relatively thin manuscript. In its present state, it holds a total of 46 folios, 44 of which are part of the original codex and an additional bifolio that was attached to it immediately or soon after its production. The book is a compilation of various Hebrew texts, most of which pertain to religious life. Others are home liturgies, Biblical exegeses, comments on rites and customs, moralistic texts, homiletic and ethical discourses, and an extensive collection of home liturgies, its major part being dedicated to the life cycle. The unparalleled text compilation of the Nuremberg Miscellany on the one hand, and the naive, untrained illustrations on the other hand, are puzzling. Its illustrations are hardly mindful of volume, depth or perspective, and their folk-art nature suggests that an unprofessional artist, possibly even the scribe himself, may have executed them. Whoever the illustrator was, his vast knowledge of Jewish lore unfolds layer after layer in a most intricate way. His sharp eye for detail renders the images he executed a valid representation of contemporary visual culture. The iconography of the Nuremberg Miscellany, with its 55 decorated leaves, featuring 25 text illustrations, falls into two main categories: biblical themes, and depictions of daily life, both sacred and mundane. While the biblical illustrations rely largely on artistic rendering and interpretation of texts, the depictions of daily life are founded mainly on current furnishings and accoutrements in Jewish homes. The customs and rituals portrayed in the miscellany attest not only to the local Jewish Minhag, but also to the influence and adaptation of local Germanic or Christian rites. They thus offer first-hand insights to the interrelations between the Jews and their neighbors. Examined as historical documents, the images in the Nuremberg Miscellany are an invaluable resource for reconstructing Jewish daily life in Ashkenaz in the early modern period. In a period from which only scanty relics of Jewish material culture have survived, retrieving the pictorial data from images incorporated in literary sources is of vital importance in providing the missing link. Corroborated by similar objects from the host society and with descriptions in contemporary Jewish and Christian written sources, the household objects, as well as the ceremonial implements depicted in the manuscript can serve as effective mirrors for the material culture of an affluent German Jewish family in the Early Modern period. The complete Nuremberg Miscellany is reproduced in the appendix of this book.

Ezra-Nehemiah has been neglected in biblical studies, but it is important as one of the few windows into the Persian period of Israel's history, the setting for so much of the final shape of the Hebrew Bible. To know this period is to know what influenced these redactors. In "Ezra and Nehemiah" Gordon Davies provides that knowledge using rhetorical criticism, a methodology that reveals the full range and progress of the book's ideas without hiding its rough seams and untidy edges.

The purpose of rhetorical criticism is to explain not the source but the power of the text as a unitary message. This approach does not look at plot development, characterization, or other elements whose roughness makes Ezra-Nehemiah frustrating to read. Instead, it examines the three parts of the relationship - the strategies, the situations, and the effects - between the speaker and the audience. Rhetorical criticism's scrutiny of the audience in context favors the search for the ideas and structures that are indigenous to the culture of the text.

Rhetorical criticism is interested in figures of speech as means of persuasion. Therefore, to apply it to Ezra-Nehemiah, Davies concentrates on the public discourse - the orations, letters, and prayers - throughout its text. In each chapter he follows a procedure that: (1) where it is unclear, identifies the rhetorical unit in which the discourse is set; (2) identifies the audiences of the discourse and the rhetorical situation; (3) studies the arrangement of the material; (4) studies the effect on the various audiences; (5) reviews the passage as a whole and judges its success. In the conclusion, Davies explains that Ezra-Nehemiah makes theological sense on its own terms, by forming a single work in which a range of ideas is argued.

Biblical scholars as well as those interested in literary criticism, communication studies, rhetorical studies, ecclesiology, and homiletics will find Ezra and Nehemiah enlightening.

Chapters are Ezra 1:1-6," "Ezra 4:1-24," "Ezra 5:1-6: 15," "Ezra 7," "Ezra 9-10," "Nehemiah 1- 2," "Nehemiah 3-7," and "Nehemiah 8-10."

"Gordon F. Davies is associate professor of Old Testament and dean of students at St. Augustine's Seminary of Toronto.""

The Second Century occupies a central place in the development of ancient Christianity. The aim of the book is to examine how in the cultural, social, and religious efflorescence of the Second Century, to be witnessed in phenomena such as the Second Sophistic, Christianity found a peculiar way of integrating into the more general transformation of the Empire and how this allowed the emerging religion to establish and flourish in Graeco-Roman society. Hadrian's reign was the starting point of that process and opened new possibilities of self-definition and external self-presentation to Christianity, as well as to other social and religious agencies. Differently from Judaism, however, Christianity fully seized the opportunity, thus gaining an increasing place in Graeco-Roman society, which ultimately led to the first Christian peace under the Severan emperors. The point at issue is examined from a multi-disciplinary perspective (including archaeology, cultural, religious, and political history) to challenge well-established, but no longer satisfactory, historical and hermeneutical paradigms. The contributors aim to examine institutional issues and sociocultural processes in their different aspects, as they were made possible on Hadrian's initiative and resulted in the merge of early Christianity into the Roman Empire.