The series Religion and Society (RS) contributes to the exploration of religions as social systems- both in Western and non-Western societies; in particular, it examines religions in their differentiation from, and intersection with, other cultural systems, such as art, economy, law and politics. Due attention is given to paradigmatic case or comparative studies that exhibit a clear theoretical orientation with the empirical and historical data of religion and such aspects of religion as ritual, the religious imagination, constructions of tradition, iconography, or media. In addition, the formation of religious communities, their construction of identity, and their relation to society and the wider public are key issues of this series.

The Gospel of Mark presents Jesus' ministry and mission as a journey on "the way," a journey to Jerusalem that ultimately results in his suffering and crucifixion. On the journey to the cross, Jesus embodies that which is least, vulnerable, and destitute in society, and he invites his followers to journey with him on the way. Robert Ewusie Moses argues that this invitation to discipleship is a call for believers to reassess their relationship with material possessions and their desire for wealth and power. Like Jesus, believers are to travel light on the way, for holding on strongly to possessions can be a hindrance for the journey. To embrace those in society who are least, vulnerable, and destitute is to embrace Jesus himself and the God who sent him. Traveling light on the way requires believers to place their trust in God, to depend on God to provide their needs. Moses shows that the journey is by its very nature a rejection of the status quo; it demands followers of Jesus to shun greed and the amassing of superfluous possessions that the world encourages. The book demonstrates that to be on this journey is to commit to the creation of communities of care, where those like Jesus-poor, vulnerable, and marginalized-are welcomed and cared for.

This book spotlights the Old Testament's "supporting cast," the vast array of nameless characters wedged in the margins of biblical stories. Often categorized as literary props or aspects of scenery, these anonymous figures ("laborers," "a creditor," "the crowd," "servants," "elders," "a midwife," etc.) frequently shoulder the burden of a story that is never theirs. Grounded in literary theory, Gina Hens-Piazza sets forth a new taxonomy for these often anonymous characters.

Where Judaism and health intersect, healing may begin.

Essential reading for people interested in the Jewish healing, spirituality and spiritual direction movements, this groundbreaking volume explores the Jewish tradition for comfort in times of illness and Judaism s perspectives on the inevitable suffering with which we live.

Pushing the boundaries of Jewish knowledge, scholars, teachers, artists and activists examine the aspects of our mortality and the important distinctions between curing and healing. Topics discussed include: The Importance of the Individual Health and Healing among the Mystics Hope and the Hebrew Bible From Disability to Enablement Overcoming Stigma Jewish Bioethics

Drawing from literature, personal experience, and the foundational texts of Judaism, these celebrated thinkers show us that healing is an idea that can both soften us so that we are open to inspiration as well as toughen us like good scar tissue in order to live with the consequences of being human.

Who are the Jews and Israelites of the Bible, and why do they matter? The Bible records their early history and offers a guide to identifying them today, but more is needed to truly understand their significance.

"In The Truth behind Truths," author Cedric Boswell shares the history of the Jews as revealed in the Bible. He asks pertinent questions not often seen in typical histories and provides Scriptures in support of his answers. Beginning with Adam, Boswell relates different stories of Jews in the Bible and how they are truly the chosen people of God.

Boswell argues that those who currently call themselves Jews do not fit the historic evidence in their looks or how they were dispersed from Israel. He discusses skin pigmentation and explains that many of the early Jewish people were black and not white. He then explores the subject of God's elect, the genealogy of the Jews, and the tribes of Israel. In the last section, Boswell tackles the heavy yet crucial subject of redemption.

An unorthodox and intriguing study, "The Truth behind Truths" seeks to open your eyes to new questions and new perspectives on the Jews of the Bible.

A Probing and Powerful Look at the Role You Play
in Shaping Your Relationship with God

No matter how hard we look, the God of Israel cannot be seen. Looking is not seeing, and seeing God is not like seeing an apple. It is much more like making a medical diagnosis on the basis of looking at a complex set of symptoms. Each of the symptoms is a dot. We can look at the dots and still miss the pattern. from Part I

The Torah is replete with references to hearing God but precious few references to seeing God. Seeing is complicated. What we look for and see are traces of God s presence in the world and in history, but not God. In order to identify those traces as reflections of divine presence, we need to re-examine how we see, what we see, and how we interpret that information.

In this challenging and inspiring look at the dynamics of the religious experience, award-winning author and theologian Neil Gillman guides you into a new way of seeing the complex patterns in the Bible, history, and everyday experiences and helps you interpret what those patterns mean to you and your relationship with God.

Examining faith and doubt, revelation and law, suffering and redemption, Gillman candidly deconstructs familiar biblical moments in order to help you develop and refine your own spiritual vision, so that you are able to discern the presence of God in unanticipated ways."

The hermeneutics employed in this work is partly referred to as hindsight hermeneutics, and upholds the resonance and dissonance between the Epilogue of the Book of Job and the preceding sections. Within the Theophany-epilogue continuum, rebuke and approval, retribution and its suspension, divine transcendence and accessibility are all held together. The dramatically discordant traditions in the preceding section are not interpreted as competing alternatives but as complementary possibilities for understanding the nature of the divine-human relationship and responding to the threat and reality of chaos and suffering.

This book explores the cultural and religious politics of the contemporary food movement, starting from the example of Jewish foodies, their zeal for pig (forbidden by Jewish law), and their talk about why ignoring traditional precepts around food is desirable. Focusing on the work of Michael Pollan, Jonathan Schorsch questions the modernist, materialist, and rationalist worldview of many foodies and discusses their lack of attention to culture, tradition, and religion.

The question of how the Bible received its unusual form has been a question addressed by scholars since critical study of the text began. Early attention focused on the Pentateuch and the Primary History. Archival Historiography in Jewish Antiquity argues that Ezra and Nehemiah, late texts sometimes overlooked in such discussions, reveal another piece of this longstanding puzzle. Laura Carlson Hasler suggests that the concept of archival historiography makes sense of Ezra and Nehemiah's unusual format and place in the Bible. Adapting the symbolic quality of ancient Near Eastern archives to their own purposes, the writers of these books found archiving an expression of religious and social power in a colonized context. Using the book of Esther as a comparative example, Carlson Hasler addresses literary disruption, a form unpalatable to modern readers, as an expected element of archival historiography. This book argues that archiving within the experience of trauma is more than sophisticated history writing, and in fact served to facilitate Judean recovery after the losses of exile.

Despite the impressive strides made in the past century in the understanding of Second Temple Jewish history and the strong scholarly interest in paideia within ancient Greek, Hellenistic, Roman, and late antique Christian cultures, the nature of Jewish paideia during the period has, until recently, received surprisingly little attention. The essays collected here were first offered for discussion at the Fifth Enoch Seminar Nangeroni Meeting, held in Naples, Italy, from June 30 - July 4, 2015, the purpose of which was to gain greater insight into the diversity of views of Jewish education during the period, both in Judea and Diaspora communities, by viewing them in light of their contemporary Greco-Roman backgrounds and Ancient Near Eastern influences. Together, they represent the broad array of approaches and specialties required to comprehend this complex and multi-faceted subject, and they demonstrate the fundamental importance of the topic for a fuller understanding of the period. The volume will be of particular interest to students and scholars of the history and culture of the Jewish people during the Hellenistic and Roman periods, ancient education, and Greek and Roman history.

This encyclopedia presents historical accounts of Jewish rituals, the meaning behind their development, and descriptions of how the rituals are practiced among different Jewish communities. Entries discuss how the rituals evolved over time and what they are designed to symbolize. Whether practiced in the personal or public realm, the rituals included in this volume are generally acknowledged as such by the Jewish community, even if they are not practiced by large segments of the community. Comparisons are drawn among rituals as they are practiced by Reform, Conservative, Reconstructionist, and Orthodox Jews. This volume brings together a wealth of information about the often complicated rituals practiced in Jewish communities throughout North America.

Readers desiring to learn more about Jewish rituals will appreciate the mix of historical and practical concerns each entry details. Specific information is readily accessible in the encyclopedic format. Entries are cross-referenced throughout, and each concludes with references for further research. An index is included.

This work is not addressed only to scholars of Judaism or theologians, but also, and primarily, to all Jews and non-Jews who would like to share the thoughts and struggles of a person who loves Torah and Halakhah, who is committed to helping make room for and celebrate the religious and cultural diversity present in the modern world, and who believes that a commitment to Israel and to Jewish particularity must be organically connected to the rabbinic teaching, Beloved are all human beings created in the image of God. from the Introduction

With clarity, passion, and outstanding scholarship, David Hartman addresses the spiritual and theological questions that face all Jews and all people today. From the perspective of traditional Judaism, he helps us understand the varieties of twentieth-century Jewish practice and shows that commitment to both Jewish tradition and to pluralism can create bridges of understanding between people of different religious convictions.

This engaging and accessible textbook provides an introduction to the study of ancient Jewish and Christian women in their Hellenistic and Roman contexts. This is the first textbook dedicated to introducing women's religious roles in Judaism and Christianity in a way that is accessible to undergraduates from all disciplines. The textbook provides brief, contextualising overviews that then allow for deeper explorations of specific topics in women's religion, including leadership, domestic ritual, women as readers and writers of scripture, and as innovators in their traditions. Using select examples from ancient sources, the textbook provides teachers and students with the raw tools to begin their own exploration of ancient religion. An introductory chapter provides an outline of common hermeneutics or "lenses" through which scholars approach the texts and artefacts of Judaism and Christianity in antiquity. The textbook also features a glossary of key terms, a list of further readings and discussion questions for each topic, and activities for classroom use. In short, the book is designed to be a complete, classroom-ready toolbox for teachers who may have never taught this subject as well as for those already familiar with it. Jewish and Christian Women in the Ancient Mediterranean is intended for use in undergraduate classrooms, its target audience undergraduate students and their instructors, although Masters students may also find the book useful. In addition, the book is accessible and lively enough that religious communities' study groups and interested laypersons could employ the book for their own education.

Unorthodox is the bestselling memoir of a young Jewish woman’s escape from a religious sect, in the tradition of Ayaan Hirsi Ali’s Infidel and Carolyn Jessop’s Escape, featuring a new epilogue by the author.

As a member of the strictly religious Satmar sect of Hasidic Judaism, Deborah Feldman grew up under a code of relentlessly enforced customs governing everything from what she could wear and to whom she could speak to what she was allowed to read. Yet in spite of her repressive upbringing, Deborah grew into an independent-minded young woman whose stolen moments reading about the empowered literary characters of Jane Austen and Louisa May Alcott helped her to imagine an alternative way of life among the skyscrapers of Manhattan. Trapped as a teenager in a sexually and emotionally dysfunctional marriage to a man she barely knew, the tension between Deborah’s desires and her responsibilities as a good Satmar girl grew more explosive until she gave birth at nineteen and realized that, regardless of the obstacles, she would have to forge a path—for herself and her son—to happiness and freedom.

Remarkable and fascinating, this “sensitive and memorable coming-of-age story” (Pittsburgh Post-Gazette) is one you won’t be able to put down.

Ancient literature was generally written by and produced for elite men. That fact creates specific challenges to modern interpreters of gender roles in the ancient world, especially once contemporary understandings of gender as construction and performance are embraced. In Gender and Second-Temple Judaism, world-renowned scholars take on these challenges with regard to ancient Judaism (here including early Christianity and early rabbinic Judaism as well), at once examining the ancient evidence and quite consciously addressing difficult methodological questions regarding gender. Taken together, these chapters further complicate discussions of the construction of identity (e.g., "who is a Jew?") by inflecting them with questions of gender construction as well. Scholars of ancient Judaism and of gender alike will find much to grapple with in these pages.

Unexplainable coincidences abound in the Bible and in biblical Hebrew. For example, the Hebrew words for ear and balance are derived from the same philological root. But it was only toward the end of the nineteenth century that scientists discovered that the human body s balancing mechanism resides in the ear. Coincidences in the Bible and in biblical Hebrew details scores of such incidents, including:

Words in Hebrew that show intent to convey a message
Coincidences in the Hebrew language that show intent to convey hidden information, and occasionally information that could not be expected to be known in biblical times
Passages in the Bible that convey or assume information or knowledge unlikely to have been known in biblical times
Other coincidences from Jewish tradition or Jewish history

In this second edition, author Haim Shore discusses two types of coincidences-those that can be considered just that, and others that are subject to rigorous statistical analysis. Altogether, nineteen analyses have been conducted with highly significant results. Simple plots that accompany the analyses clarify their meanings and implications so that no prior statistical know-how is required. Genesis creation story is statistically analyzed.

This book is an exploration of what would seem to be a simple question, but is actually the object of a profound quest-"who is a Jew?" This is a deeply complex issue, both within Judaism, and in interactions between Jews and Christians. Jewish-Christian Difference and Modern Jewish Identity: Seven Twentieth-Century Converts contends that in the twentieth century the Jewish-Christian relationship has changed to the extent that definitions of Jewish identity were reshaped. The stories of the seven influential and creative converts that are related in this book indicate that the borders dividing the Jewish and Christian faiths are, for many, more fluid and permeable than ever before.

The goal of this closely reasoned study is to explain why, in Priestly texts of the Hebrew Bible, the verb kipper, traditionally translated 'atone', means the way of dealing both with sin and with impurity-which might seem very different things. Sklar's first key conclusion is that when the context is sin, certain sins also pollute; so 'atonement' may include some element of purification. His second conclusion is that, when the context is impurity, and kipper means not 'atone' but 'effect purgation', impurity also endangers; so kipper can include some element of ransoming. The goal of this closely reasoned study is to explain why, in Priestly texts of the Hebrew Bible, the verb kipper, traditionally translated 'atone', means the way of dealing both with sin and with impurity-which might seem very different things. Sklar's first key conclusion is that when the context is sin, certain sins also pollute; so 'atonement' may include some element of purification. His second conclusion is that, when the context is impurity, and kipper means not 'atone' but 'effect purgation', impurity also endangers; so kipper can include some element of ransoming. The goal of this closely reasoned study is to explain why, in Priestly texts of the Hebrew Bible, the verb kipper, traditionally translated 'atone', means the way of dealing both with sin and with impurity-which might seem very different things. Sklar's first key conclusion is that when the context is sin, certain sins also pollute; so 'atonement' may include some element of purification. His second conclusion is that, when the context is impurity, and kipper means not 'atone' but 'effect purgation', impurity also endangers; so kipper can include some element of ransoming. In fact, sin and impurity, while distinct categories in themselves, have this in common: each of them requires both ransoming and purification. It is for this reason that kipper can be used in both settings. This benchmark study concludes with a careful examination of the famous sentence of Leviticus 17.11 that 'blood makes atonement' (kipper) and explains how, in the Priestly ideology, blood sacrifice was able to accomplish both ransom and purification. In fact, sin and impurity, while distinct categories in themselves, have this in common: each of them requires both ransoming and purification. It is for this reason that kipper can be used in both settings. This benchmark study concludes with a careful examination of the famous sentence of Leviticus 17.11 that 'blood makes atonement' (kipper) and explains how, in the Priestly ideology, blood sacrifice was able to accomplish both ransom and purification. In fact, sin and impurity, while distinct categories in themselves, have this in common: each of them requires both ransoming and purification. It is for this reason that kipper can be used in both settings. This benchmark study concludes with a careful examination of the famous sentence of Leviticus 17.11 that 'blood makes atonement' (kipper) and explains how, in the Priestly ideology, blood sacrifice was able to accomplish both ransom and purification.