The Parting of the Ways is James Dunn's classic exploration of the important questions that surround the emergence of Christian distinctiveness and the pulling apart of Christianity and Judaism in the first century of our era. The book begins by surveying the way in which questions have been approached since the time of F C Baur in the nineteenth century. The author then presents the four pillars of Judaism: monotheism, election and land, Torah and Temple. He then examines various issues which arose with the emergence of Jesus: Jesus and the temple; the Stephen affair; temple and cult in earliest Christianity; Jesus, Israel and the law; 'the end of the law'; and Jesus' teaching on God. The theme of 'one God, one Lord', and the controversy between Jews and Christians over the unity of God, lead to a concluding chapter on the parting of the ways. The issues are presented with clarity and the views and findings of others are drawn together and added to his own, to make up this comprehensive volume. James Dunn was Lightfoot Professor of Divinity at the University of Durham until his recent retirement. He is the author of numerous best-selling books and acknowledged as one of the world's leading experts on New Testament study.

The present study is the first of its kind to deal with Eastern European Karaite historical thought. It focuses on the social functions of Karaite historical narratives concerning the rise of Karaism from the Middle Ages to the nineteenth century. The book also deals with the image of Karaism created by Protestants, and with the perception of Karaism by some leaders of the Haskalah movement, especially the scholars of Hokhmat Israel. In both cases, Karaism was seen as an orientalistic phenomenon whereby the "enlightened" European scholars romanticized the "indigenous" people, while the Karaites (themselves), adopted this romantic images, incorporating it into their own national discourse. Finally, the book sheds new light on several conventional notions that shaped the study of Karaism from the nineteenth century.

This book focuses on Abraham Abulafia's esoteric thought in relation to Maimonides, Maimonideans, and Islamic thought in the line of Leo Strauss' theory of the history of philosophy. A survey of Abulafia's sources leads into an analysis of the esoteric meaning on the famous parable of the three rings, considering also the possible connection between this parable, which Abdulafia inserted into a book dedicated to his student, the 13th century rabbi Nathan the wise, and the Lessing's Play "Nathan the Wise." The book also examines Abulafia's universalistic understanding of the nature of the Bible, the Hebrew language, and the people of Israel (or the Sinaic revelation). The universal aspects of Abulafia's thought have been put in relief against the more widespread Kabbalistic views which are predominantly particularistic. A number of texts have also been identified here for the first time as authored by Abulafia.

The New Perspective on Paul cleared Judaism contemporary to Paul of the accusation that it was a religion based on works of righteousness. Reactions to the New Perspective, both positive and critical, and sometimes even strongly negative, reflect a more fundamental problem in the reception of this paradigm: the question of continuity and discontinuity between Judaism and Christianity and its assumed implications for Jewish-Christian dialogue. A second key problem revolves around Pauls understanding of salvation as exclusive, inclusive or pluralist. The contributions in the present volume represent at least six approaches that can be plotted along this axis, considering Pauls theology in its Jewish context. William S. Campbell and Thomas R. Blanton consider Pauls Covenantal Theology, Michael Bachman provides an exegetical study of Paul, Israel and the Gentiles, and Mark D. Nanos considers Paul and Torah. After this chapters by Philip A. Cunningham, John T. Pawlikowski, Hans-Joachim Sander, and Hans-Herman Henrix give particular weight to questions of Jewish-Christian dialogue. The book finishes with an epilogue by pioneer of the New Perspective James D.G. Dunn.

Jewish religion, Greek philosophy and Islamic thought mold the philosophy and theology of Maimonides and characterize his work as an excellent example of the fruitful transfer of culture in the Middle Ages. The authors show various aspects of this cultural cross-fertilization, despite religious and ethnic differences. The studies promptthoughts on a question which is important for the present and the future: How may the different religions, cultures and concepts of knowledge continue to be conveyed in synthesis? The volume publishes the lectures given at the July 2004 international congress at the occasion of the 800th anniversary of Maimonidesa (TM) death.

This Annual Review of the Sociology of Religion contributes cases of encounters, diversities and distances to an emerging Jewish-Muslim Studies field. The scholarly essays address both discourses about and lived experiences of minorities in contemporary French, German and UK cities. The authors explore how particular modes of governance and secularism shape individual and collective identities while new technologies re-make interfaith encounters. This volume shows that Middle Eastern and North African pasts and presents weigh on European realities, examines how the pull of Jewish intellectual history is felt by a new generation of Muslim scholars and activists, and uncovers how Orthodox communities negotiate living side by side.

Tobiah's travel with the angel in Tobit chapter six constitutes a singular moment in the book. It marks a before and after for Tobiah as a character. Considered attentively, Tobit six reveals a remarkable richness in content and form, and functions as a crucial turning point in the plot's development. This book is the first thorough study of Tobit six, examining the poetics and narrative function of this key chapter and revisiting arguments about its meaning. A better understanding of this central chapter deepens our comprehension of the book as a whole.

The Serekh Texts discusses the central rule documents produced by a pious Jewish community of the Essenes that lived at Qumran by the Dead Sea at the turn of the era. The texts describe the life of a highly ascetic group that had rejected the hellenistic Jewish culture and had withdrawn into the desert to live a life of perfect obedience to the Torah. Sarianna Metso introduces the twelve manuscripts of the Community Rule found in Qumran Caves 1, 4 and 5 in terms of their content, textual history, literary function, and significance for the study of ancient Judaism and early Christianity. The writings of the community open a fascinating window onto the religious life in Palestine at the time of the emergence of early Christianity and rabbinic Judaism. There are few other contemporary Jewish sources in which the life and religious practices of a Jewish group are so vividly and authentically illustrated. The Serekh Texts provides an accessible summary of current scholarly discussion on the central topics related to the Community Rule, such as the community's identity and history, and offers comprehensive bibliographies for further study. The Serekh Texts discusses the central rule documents produced by a pious Jewish community of the Essenes that lived at Qumran by the Dead Sea at the turn of the era. The texts describe the life of a highly ascetic group that had rejected the hellenistic Jewish culture and had withdrawn into the desert to live a life of perfect obedience to the Torah. Sarianna Metso introduces the twelve manuscripts of the Community Rule found in Qumran Caves 1, 4 and 5 in terms of their content, textual history, literary function, and significance for the study of ancient Judaism and early Christianity. The writings of the community open a fascinating window onto the religious life in Palestine at the time of the emergence of early Christianity and rabbinic Judaism. There are few other contemporary Jewish sources in which the life and religious practices of a Jewish group are so vividly and authentically illustrated. The Serekh Texts provides an accessible summary of current scholarly discussion on the central topics related to the Community Rule, such as the community's identity and history, and offers comprehensive bibliographies for further study. The Serekh Texts discusses the central rule documents produced by a pious Jewish community of the Essenes that lived at Qumran by the Dead Sea at the turn of the era. The texts describe the life of a highly ascetic group that had rejected the hellenistic Jewish culture and had withdrawn into the desert to live a life of perfect obedience to the Torah. Sarianna Metso introduces the twelve manuscripts of the Community Rule found in Qumran Caves 1, 4 and 5 in terms of their content, textual history, literary function, and significance for the study of ancient Judaism and early Christianity. The writings of the community open a fascinating window onto the religious life in Palestine at the time of the emergence of early Christianity and rabbinic Judaism. There are few other contemporary Jewish sources in which the life and religious practices of a Jewish group are so vividly and authentically illustrated. The Serekh Texts provides an accessible summary of current scholarly discussion on the central topics related to the Community Rule, such as the community's identity and history, and offers comprehensive bibliographies for further study.

Mordecai M. Kaplan (1881-1983), founder of Reconstructionism, is the preeminent American Jewish thinker and rabbi of our times. His life embodies the American Jewish experience of the first half of the twentieth century. With passionate intensity and uncommon candor, Kaplan compulsively recorded his experience in his journals, some ten thousand pages. At times, Kaplan thought his ideas were too radical or complex to share with his congregation, and what he could not share publicly he put into his journals. In this diary we find his uncensored thoughts on a variety of subjects. Thus, the diary was much more sophisticated and radical than anything he published while living. While in the first volume of Communings of the Spirit, editor Mel Scult covers Kaplan's early years as a rabbi, teacher of rabbis, and community leader, in the second volume we experience through Kaplan the economic problems of the thirties and their shattering impact on the Jewish community. It becomes clear that Kaplan, like so many others during this period, was attracted to the solutions offered by communism, notwithstanding some hesitation because of the anti-religiousnature of communist ideology. Through Kaplan we come to understand the Jewish community in the yishuv (Jews in Palestine) as Kaplan spent two years teaching at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem and his close circle of friends included Martin Buber, Judah Leon Magnes, and other prominent personalities. It is also during this time that the specter of Nazi Germany begins to haunt American Jews, and Kaplan, sensitive to the threats, is obsessed with Jewish security, both in Europe and Palestine. More than anything else, this diary is the chronicle of Kaplan's spiritual and intellectual journey in the early 1930s and 1940s. With honesty and vivid detail,Kaplan explores his evolving beliefs on religious naturalism and his uncertainties and self-doubts as he grapples with a wide range of theological issues.

This volume contains essays by some of the leading scholars in the study of the Jewish religious ideas in the Second Temple period, that led up to the development of early forms of Rabbinic Judaism and Christianity. Close attention is paid to the cosmological ideas to be found in the Ancient Near East and in the Hebrew Bible and to the manner in which the translators of the Hebrew Bible into Greek reflected the creativity with which Judaism engaged Hellenistic ideas about the cosmos and the creation. The concepts of heaven and divine power, human mortality, the forces of nature, combat myths, and the philosophy of wisdom, as they occur in 2 Maccabees, Ben Sira, Wisdom of Solomon and Tobit, are carefully analysed and compared with Greek and Roman world-views. There are also critical examinations of Dead Sea scroll texts, early Jewish prayers and Hebrew liturgical poetry and how they these adopt, adapt and alter earlier ideas. The editors have included appreciations of two major figures who played important roles in the study of the Second Temple period and in the history and development of the ISDCL, namely, Otto Kaiser and Alexander Di Lella, who died recently and are greatly missed by those in the field.

The medieval Jewish philosophers Saadia Gaon, Bahya ibn Pakuda, and Moses Maimonides made significant contributions to moral philosophy in ways that remain relevant today.
Jonathan Jacobs explicates shared, general features of the thought of these thinkers and also highlights their distinctive contributions to understanding moral thought and moral life. The rationalism of these thinkers is a key to their views. They argued that seeking rational understanding of Torah's commandments and the created order is crucial to fulfilling the covenant with God, and that intellectual activity and ethical activity form a spiral of mutual reinforcement. In their view, rational comprehension and ethical action jointly constitute a life of holiness. Their insights are important in their own right and are also relevant to enduring issues in moral epistemology and moral psychology, resonating even in the contemporary context.
The central concerns of this study include (i) the relations between revelation and rational justification, (ii) the roles of intellectual virtue and ethical virtue in human perfection, (iii) the implications of theistic commitments for topics such as freedom of the will, the acquisition of virtues and vices, repentance, humility, and forgiveness, (iv) contrasts between medieval Jewish moral thought and the practical wisdom approach to moral philosophy and the natural law approach to it, and (v) the universality and objectivity of moral elements of Torah.

In The Second Jewish Revolt: The Bar Kokhba War, 132-136 C.E., Menahem Mor offers a detailed account on the Bar Kokhba Revolt in an attempt to understand the second revolt against the Romans. Since the Bar Kokhba Revolt did not have a historian who devoted a comprehensive book to the event, Mor used a variety of historical materials including literary sources (Jewish, Christian, Greek and Latin) and archaeological sources (inscriptions, coins, military diplomas, hideouts, and refuge complexes). The book reviews the causes for the outbreak while explaining the complexity of the territorial expansion of the Revolt. Mor portrays the participants and opponents as well as the attitudes of the non-Jewish population in Palestine. He exposes the Roman Army's part in Judaea, the Jewish leadership and the implications of the Revolt.

This volume contains fifteen essays in honor of Professor Joseph Yahalom who served as a lecturer at the Hebrew University from 1974 until he became full professor in 1985. The completion of his Warburg price awarded thesis in 1973 marked the start of a long and successful academic career in both Hebrew and Jewish studies, with much emphasis on poetry and poetics. Yahalom's continuing interest in and research on ancient Piyyut led to a number of editions of Hebrew and Aramaic texts as well as to studies on the early Palestinian vocalization system and the language of Piyyut based on the Genizah findings. In 1983, Yahalom was elected a member of the Academy of the Hebrew Language. In 2003, he received the Yizhak Ben-Zvi award for his lifetime study of Jewish history and Hebrew literature. Yahalom's research on Hebrew medieval liturgical poetry focused on a period of roughly one thousand years, from the days of early Byzantium until the final days of Jewish presence on the Iberian Peninsula and the Sephardic diaspora. His bibliography testifies to his expertise of understanding Hebrew verse, laying much emphasis on the interaction between the Jewish and surrounding cultures, which concur with Yahalom's overall convictions and views about Jewish literature in context.