In The Intellectual History and Rabbinic Culture of Medieval Ashkenaz, author Ephraim Kanarfogel challenges the dominant perception that medieval Ashkenazic rabbinic scholarship was lacking in intellectualism or broad scholarly interests. While cultural interaction between Jews and Christians in western Europe was less than that of Sephardic Jews, Kanarfogel's study shows that the intellectual interests of Ashkenazic rabbinic figures were much broader than Talmudic studies alone. Kanarfogel begins by highlighting several factors that have contributed to relatively narrow perceptions of Ashkenazic rabbinic culture and argues that the Tosafists, and Ashkenazic rabbinic scholarship more generally, advocated a wide definition of the truths that could be discovered through Torah study. He explores differences in talmudic and halakhic studies between the Tosafist centers of northern France and Germany, delves into aspects of biblical interpretation in each region, and identifies important Tosafists and rabbinic figures. Kanarfogel also examines the composition of liturgical poetry (piyyut) by Tosafists, interest in forms of (white) magic and mysticism on the part of a number of northern French Tosafists, and a spectrum of views on the question of anthropomorphism and messianism. Overall, Kanarfogel demonstrates that the approach taken by Tosafists was broader, more open, and more multi-disciplinary than previously considered. Medieval and Jewish history scholars will appreciate Kanarfogel's volume, which is the culmination of several decades of research on the subject.

This volume discusses various conceptions of family and kinship in the context of deuterocanonical literature. After analyzing the topic family in a narrow sense of the term, the articles investigate general ideas of morality, respect, or love and take a critical look at representations of gender, power, and social norms in Judaism and Early Christianity.

Survival in Auschwitz: If This Is a Man is a book written by the Italian author, Primo Levi. It describes his experiences in the concentration camp at Auschwitz during the Second World War.

Levi, then a 25-year-old chemist, spent 10 months in Auschwitz before the camp was liberated by the Red Army. Of the 650 Italian Jews in his shipment, Levi was one of only twenty who left the camps alive. The average life expectancy of a new entrant was three months.

This truly amazing story offers a revealing glimpse into the realities of the Holocaust and its effects on our world.

Conceptual Tension: Essays on Kinship, Politics, and Individualism is a critical philosophical examination of the role of concepts and concept formation in social sciences. Written by Leon J. Goldstein, a preeminent Jewish philosopher who examined the epistemological foundations of social science inquiry during the second half of the twentieth century, the book undertakes a study of concept formation and change by looking at the four critical terms in anthropology (kinship), politics (parliament and Rousseau's concept of the general will), and sociology (individualism). The author challenges prevailing notions of concept formation and definition, specifically assertions by Gottlieb Frege that concepts have fixed, clear boundaries that are not subject to change. Instead, drawing upon arguments by R.G. Collingwood, Goldstein asserts that concepts have a historical dimension with boundaries and meanings that change with their use and context. Goldstein's work provides insight for philosophers, historians, political scientists, anthropologists, and Judaica scholars interested in the study and meaning of critical concepts within their fields.

The early 1930's were a period of dire foreboding for the entire world. The dark clouds of World War II were rapidly gathering, as the Jewish population of Europe was becoming especially vulnerable to the most hideous form of genocide that had ever been devised. It was with this background that a young boy made his way to school on the morning after Kristalnacht. In the fascinating and absorbing chapters that follow, the author, Norbert Weinberg, vividly describes how his family made it to the shores of America, via a year in London. Dressed in European-style knickers and hardly able to speak English, the boy tackles his social and educational challenges. His success is apparent when he is ordained as a rabbi at Yeshiva University in New York. Many captivating incidents and situations are discussed as the rabbi meets with personages such Senator Edward Kennedy, President Jimmy Carter and opens a session of the House of Representatives with an invocation. But the heart of the book lies in his warm relationships with congregants, members of other faiths and family. The pages are infused with humor as when, for example, the rabbi is housed in a small hotel in Quebec City, Canada, for a rabbinical interview. A brooding portrait of Jesus stares at him from over his bed. How do they get along? Or when, in that same city, he was invited to a formal event at which everyone raised a glass of wine to toast the Queen and his wine was not kosher. Was this a soluble predicament? The poignant pages of this book promise to warm the heart of every reader.

This is the fourth volume of the hard-copy edition of a journal that has been published online (www.jgrchj.net) since 2000. Volume 1 was for 2000, Volume 2 was for 2001-2005, Volume 3 is for 2006, and Volume 4 for 2007. As they appear, the hardcopy editions will replace the online materials. The scope of JGRChJ is the texts, language and cultures of the Graeco-Roman world of early Christianity and Judaism.The papers published in JGRChJ are designed to pay special attention to the 'larger picture' of politics, culture, religion and language, engaging as well with modern theoretical approaches.

The series Beihefte zur Zeitschrift fur die alttestamentliche Wissenschaft (BZAW) covers all areas of research into the Old Testament, focusing on the Hebrew Bible, its early and later forms in Ancient Judaism, as well as its branching into many neighboring cultures of the Ancient Near East and the Greco-Roman world.

What accounts for the seemingly atypical pattern of scriptural exegesis that Paul uses to interpret Exodus 34 in 2 Cor 3:7-18? While previous scholars have approached this question from a variety of angles, in this monograph, Michael Cover grapples particularly with the evidence of contemporaneous Jewish and Greco-Roman commentary traditions. Through comparison with Philo of Alexandria's Allegorical Commentary, the Pseudo-Philonic homilies De Jona and De Sampsone, the Anonymous Theaetetus Commentary, the Dead Sea Scrolls, Seneca's Epistulae morales, and other New Testament texts, Paul's interpretation of Exodus emerges as part of a wider commentary practice that Cover terms "secondary-level exegesis." This study also provides new analysis of the way ancient authors, including Paul, interwove commentary forms and epistolary rhetoric and offers a reconstruction of the context of Paul's conflict with rival apostles in Corinth. At root was the legacy of Moses and of the Pentateuch itself, how the scriptures ought to be read, and how Platonizing theological and anthropological traditions might be interwoven with Paul's messianic gospel.

We all are growing older. "A Heart of Wisdom "shows us how to understand and meet the challenges of our own process of aging and the aging of those we care about from a Jewish perspective, from midlife through the elder years.

How does Jewish tradition influence our own aging? What are the tasks and the meaning of aging? How does being Jewish inform our relationships with the elderly? How does living, thinking and worshipping as a Jew affect us as we age? How can Jewish tradition help us retain our dignity as we age?

Over 40 contributors people who themselves are dealing with the unique life passages that aging brings; their loved ones; and the rabbis, social workers, and other professionals who assist them offer their insights about the changes and new perspectives that come with aging, retiring, growing, learning, caring for elderly parents, living, and dying. By sharing experiences in direct and personal narratives, poems, ceremonies, and stories, they help us explore: What traditional religious texts have to teach us about aging. Ways to cherish the integrity of the aging process. Women's unique roles as they age in our changing society. Advice for all generations on how to meet the opportunities and difficulties of aging. Creative ceremonies to mark milestones in our lives and in the lives of senior citizens.

Offering enlightenment from Jewish tradition, " A Heart of Wisdom" is not just for the middle-aged, the old or the soon-to-be old. It is for all of us.

This textbook provides an introduction to the Second Temple period (520 BCE-70 CE), the formative era of early Judaism and the milieu of Jesus and of the earliest Christians. By paying close attention to original sources--especially the Bible, the Pseudepigrapha, the Dead Sea Scrolls, and Josephus--Frederick J. Murphy introduces students to the world of ancient Jews and Christians. "Early Judaism: The Exile to the Time of Christ," designed to serve students and teachers in the classroom, will also be of great interest to anyone looking for an entree into this pivotal period. It contains suggestions for primary readings, bibliographies, maps, illustrations, glossaries, and indexes.

This book is the first greater attempt to construct a dialogical theology from a Jewish point of view. It contributes to an emerging new theology that promotes the interrelatedness of religions in which encounter, openness, hospitality and permanent learning are central. The monograph is about the self and the other, inner and outer, own and strange; about borders and crossing borders, and about the sublime activities of passing and translating. Meir analyses and critically discusses the writings of great contemporary Jewish dialogical thinkers and argues that the values of interreligious theology are moored in their thoughts. In his view interreligious dialogue supposes attentive listening, humility, a critical attitude towards oneself and others, a good amount of self-relativism and humor. It is about proximity, dialogical reading, engagement and interconnectedness.

Islam prides itself on being "the religion of facility". Muslim sources are unanimous in assigning to Judaism the role of counterweight in this regard, pronouncing it a system of "burdens and shackles" by which the Jews "oppressed their souls". This neat polarity both fueled, and was the product of, a fascinating reciprocal process: at the same time that shari'a was being created in the negative image of halakha, halakha was being retroactively re-imagined by Muslim jurists and exegetes as the antipode of shari'a . Although scholarly studies of the intertexture of Islam and Judaism abound, few have touched upon the Muslim tradition's perception and utilization of Jewish law, and none has done so in depth. This book aims to fill that lacuna and further our understanding of the age-old embrace and grapple between the two faiths.

A comprehensive discussion of texts concerning the goddess Asherah, as she is portrayed in texts from Ugarit (both epic and ritual texts, as well as the lists of sacrifices), Israel (the Khirbet el-Qom and Kuntillet Ajrud inscriptions) and the Old Testament. The main theses of the book are that two or more divinities carrying the same name but separated by several hundred years are not necessarily to be identified; that Asherah is probably not a name, but rather a title, carried by the main goddess in ancient Syria-Palestine; that the Asherah of the Old Testament and the Israelite texts was indeed the consort of Yahweh; and that the relationship between the text-groups discussed is of a nature that demands great caution, if one wishes to work comparatively with them.>

Why are the names of the chief characters in the biblical Book of Esther those of Mesopotamian deities? Stephanie Dalley argues that the narrative reflects real happenings in seventh-century Assyria, where the widespread belief that revenge belongs to the gods explains why Assyrian kings described punitive campaigns as divine acts, leading to the mythologizing of certain historical events. Ashurbanipal's sack of Susa, led by the deities Ishtar and Marduk, underlies the Hebrew story of Esther, and that story contains traces of the cultic calendar of Ishtar-of-Nineveh. Dalley traces the way in which the long-term settlement of lost tribes' in Assyria, revealed by the fruits of excavation in Iraq and Syria, inspired a blend of pagan and Jewish traditions.

In this fertile collection of essays, prominent theologians, philosophers, historians, and social scientists explore the mutual entanglements of religious identity with political activity in religiously plural societies. Four essays are devoted to each of the three great religions of "The Book, " evidencing the variety of conceptions of such a relation within the same religious tradition and demonstrating how they came to be so conceived. In addition, the three sections together display intriguing similarities between the conceptions that are pertinent to the different traditions. These range from definant theocracy to religious sanction of the liberal, secular state.

Why did the Gentile church keep Old Testament commandments about sex and idolatry, but disregard many others, like those about food or ritual purity? If there were any binding norms, what made them so, and on what basis were they articulated?In this important study, Markus Bockmuehl approaches such questions by examining the halakhic (Jewish legal) rationale behind the ethics of Jesus, Paul and the early Christians. He offers fresh and often unexpected answers based on careful biblical and historical study. His arguments have far-reaching implications not only for the study of the New Testament, but more broadly for the relationship between Christianity and Judaism.

Patriarchal religion was distinct from both ancient Near Eastern and Israelite religions, and compatible only with the patriarchal lifestyle portrayed in Genesis. Since Wellhausen, the study of patriarchal religion has been chiefly confined either to the divine names or to the social and legal practices attested in Genesis and has neglected the patriarchal cultic practices-altars, pillars, tithes, vows and purifications-frequently attested there. In this study, Pagolu investigates such aspects in the light of second-millennium ancient Near Eastern and Israelite parallels, concluding that the patriarchal practices bore no comparison to those of the ancient Near East or of Israel, in that the patriarchs themselves offered sacrifices, conducted prayer, raised pillars and offered worship, all without the aid of an established cult. Thus patriarchal religion was distinct both from ancient Near Eastern religions and from the religion of Israel itself. It is peculiar to the world of Genesis.

"The Chosen" explores Judaism's key defining concept and inquires why it remains the central unspoken and explosive psychological, historical, and theological problem at the heart of Jewish-Gentile relations. Crisscrossing the twin cultural and theological divides between Judaism, Christendom, and Islam, "The Chosen" explains how the Jews, of all people, have come to represent at once the epitome of both the good and the odious. Beker covers not only the great stories of how the Jews came to be chosen and the Christian, Muslim, and Nazi efforts to appropriate the title, but also the key role "chosenness" plays in contemporary anti-Semitism and in the current Middle East conflict over the Land of Israel and the chosen city of Jerusalem.

Given the recent interest in the emotions presupposed in early religious literature, it has been thought useful to examine in this volume how the Jews and early Christians expressed their feelings within the prayers recorded in some of their literature. Specialists in their fields from academic institutions around the world have analysed important texts relating to this overall theme and to what is revealed with regard to such diverse topics as relations with God, exegesis, education, prophecy, linguistic expression, feminism, happiness, grief, cult, suicide, non-Jews, Hellenism, Qumran and Jerusalem. The texts discussed are in Greek, Hebrew and Aramaic and are important for a scientific understanding of how Rabbinic Judaism and Early Christianity developed their approaches to worship, to the construction of their theology and to the feelings that lay behind their religious ideas and practices. The articles contribute significantly to an historical understanding of how Jews maintained their earlier traditions but also came to terms with the ideology of the dominant Hellenistic culture that surrounded them.

The addresses presented in this volume were delivered by the first Prime Minister of the State of Israel to a select group of students who comprised the "Prime Minister's Bible Study Circle." The issues with which Mr. Ben-Gurion wrestles, and the resolutions he proposes, will be of interest to all those interested in the sacred text, regardless of religion. Originally published in Hebrew in 1969.