This is the first full-scale assessment of the theological, social and ideational implications of our new understandings of ancient Israel's social and religious development. Scholars now stress the gradual emergence of Israel out of the culture of ancient Palestine and the surrounding ancient Near East rather than contrast Israel with the ancient world. Our new paradigms stress the ongoing and unfinished nature of the monotheistic 'revolution', which is indeed still in process today. Gnuse takes a further bold step in setting the emergence of monotheism in a wider intellectual context: he argues brilliantly that the interpretation of Israel's development as both an evolutionary and revolutionary process corresponds to categories of contemporary evolutionary thought in the biological and palaeontological sciences (Punctuated Equilibrium).

In recent decades, there has been a resurgence of interest among both secular and religious Israelis in Talmudic stories. This growing fascination with Talmudic stories has been inspired by contemporary Israeli writers who have sought to make readers aware of the special qualities of these well-crafted narratives that portray universal human situations, including marriages, relationships between parents and children, power struggles between people, and the challenge of trying to live a good life. The Charm of Wise Hesitancy explores the resurgence of interest in Talmudic stories in Israel and presents some of the most popular Talmudic stories in contemporary Israeli culture, as well as creative interpretations of those stories by Israeli writers, thereby providing readers with an opportunity to consider how these stories may be relevant to their own lives.

Jewish Prayer Texts from the Cairo Genizah, which sets a new tone for future studies, consists of a selection of transcribed and translated Genizah fragments that contain some of the earliest known texts of rabbinic prayers. Reif describes in detail the physical makeup of each manuscript and assesses the manner in which the scribe has tackled the matter of recording a preferred version. He then places the prayer texts included in the manuscript within the context of Jewish liturgical history, explaining the degree to which they were innovative and whether they established precedents to be followed in later prayer-books. He offers specialists and more general readers a fresh understanding of the historical, theological, linguistic, and social factors that may have motivated adjustments to their liturgical formulations.

Women as Ritual Experts reveals how in gender segregated religions like Orthodox Judaism women develop their own autonomous religious sphere and activities that sacralize female roles. Until recently, this female world of religion has been all but invisible to both anthropologists and scholars of religion, who typically speak as though the male sphere of religion were the only definition of religion or the sacred. By exploring this separate sphere of women's religion and demonstrating its variety, depth, and dynamism, Susan Sered here attempts to expand the definition of religion, ritual and the sacred. Sered's research was conducted among uneducated, illiterate Kurdish women. She uncovers the strategies these women have used to circumvent the patriarchal institutions of Judaism, the techniques by which they have made their lives meaningful within an androcentric culture, and how they have developed their own `little tradition' within and parallel to the `great tradition' of Torah Judaism.

The New Ethnic Studies in Latin America aims at going beyond and against much of Jewish Latin American historiography, situating Jewish-Latin Americans in the larger multi-ethnic context of their countries. Senior and junior scholars from various countries joined together to challenge commonly held assumptions, accepted ideas, and stable categories about ethnicity in Latin America in general and Jewish experiences on this continent in particular. This volume brings to the discussions on Jewish life in Latin America less heard voices of women, non-affiliated Jews, and intellectuals. Community institutions are not at center stage, conflicts and tensions are brought to the fore, and a multitude of voices pushes aside images of homogeneity. Authors in this tome look at Jews' multiple homelands: their country of birth, their country of residence, and their imagined homeland of Zion. "This volume brings together an important series of chapters that pushes ethnic studies to greater complexity; therefore, this work is critical in laying the foundation for what Jeffrey Lesser has called the new architecture of ethnic studies in Latin America." - Joel Horowitz, St. Bonaventure University, in: E.I.A.L. 28.2 (2017) "Overall, this collection serves as a stimulating invitation to scholars of Latin American ethnic studies. It offers multiple models of scholarship that go beyond and against traditional narratives of Jewish Latin America." -Lily Pearl Balloffet, University of California Santa Cruz, in: J.Lat Amer. Stud. 50 (2018) "These essays manage to bring to the fore stories of Jews whose journeys have been sidelined until now. Their stories demonstrate that identities are always a work in progress, a continuous dance between ancestry, history, and culture." - Ariana Huberman, Haverford College, in: American Jewish History 103.2 (2019)

Analyzes the structure and logic of aggadic discourse in the Talmud.

The scholarly study of the texts traditionally regarded as sacred in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam has been an important aspect of Wissenschaft des Judentums and was often conceptualized as part of Jewish theology. Featuring studies on Isaak Markus Jost's Jewish children's Bible, Samson Raphael Hirsch's complex position on the question whether or not the Hebrew Bible is to be understood within the context of the Ancient Orient, Isaac Mayer Wise's "The Origin of Christianity," Ignaz Goldziher's Scholarship on the Qur'an, modern translators of the Qur'an into Hebrew, and the German translation of the Talmud, the volume attempts to shed light on some aspects of this phenomenon, which as a whole seems to have received few scholarly attention, and to contextualize it within the contemporary intellectual currents.

Going beyond Allan BlooM's "The Closing of the American Mind," Paul Eidelberg shows how the cardinal principles of democracy--freedom and equality--can be saved from the degradation of moral relativism by applying Jewish law to these principles. The author attempts to overcome the dichotomy of religion and secularism as well as other contradictions of Western civilization by means of a philosophy of history that uses thoroughly rational concepts and is supported by empirical evidence.

Eidelberg enumerates and elucidates the characteristics that make Jewish law particularly suited to reopening the secular mind and elevating democracy's formative principles. The author compares and contrasts Jewish law with political philosophy. His goal is to derive freedom and equality from a conception of man and society that goes beyond the usual political and social categories, avoiding both relativism and absolutism. In conclusion, Eidelberg attempts to overcome the perennial problem of democracy: how to reconcile wisdom and consent. This he does by sketching the basic institutions of a new community. This unique analysis should be read by political and religious theoreticians alike.

The institution of the American synagogue has played a significant role in the history of American Judaism, which remains an incomplete history if it is limited to the lives of individuals and events. This work helps complete the history as it is the first reference book to document the historical development of many individual synagogues in the United States and Canada. It includes over 350 entries of synagogues from among the four main movements, each of which have made an impact on the Jewish community, either locally or beyond. It is an essential tool for researchers, scholars, and students, as well as anyone interested in the historical aspects of American Judaism. An essay on the historical development of the American Synagogue by Frances Weinman Schwartz, introduces the volume. Entries are arranged alphabetically by city within each state. Synagogue descriptions include the date of the congregation's founding, the reason for its founding and its congregational mission, the history of buildings and neighborhood, its local or national historical impact, its significance in the movement to which it belongs, major episodes in the congregation's history, as well as details about the service of its rabbis. A brief bibliography follows each entry, and a general bibliography and index complete the volume.

Recent discussion of biblical law sees it either as a response to socio-economic factors or as an intellectual tradition. In either case it is viewed as the product of elites that form an international community drawing on a common culture. This book takes that fundamental discussion a step further by proposing that 'law' is an inappropriate term for the biblical codes, and that they represent, rather, the 'moral advice' of scribes working independently of the legal framework and appealing to Yahweh as authority. Only by prolonged exegesis and through the transformation of Judaean religion does this 'advice' take the form of divine law binding on Jews.>

A result of more than fifteen years of research and study, "Prophecy: Past, Present, and Future" examines the Bible's Book of Daniel and its predictions of some of history's major events.

Author Calev Ben Avraham explains how God uses the royalty as signposts in the prophetic time element-known by only a few biblical scholars-thus making it possible to pinpoint the exact time in prophecy for the end of days and the ending of Gentile rule over the earth. In "Prophecy: Past, Present, and Future, " Avraham refers to the Babylonian dynasty of Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon; Cyrus, king of the Persians; Alexander, the great emperor of Greece; and the emergence of Christianity under the Roman emperor Constantine.

Through the Book of Daniel, he shows how the prophecy pertains not only to abdication for the royals but also to death by fatal accidents, such as Princess Grace and Princess Diana of England. He also explains how God will gather his people from the four corners of the earth back to the Holy Land in the very, very near future.

Expand your study of prophecy and gain a new understanding of the years to come.

This companion volume to "Judaism and Other Religions" provides the first extensive collection of traditional and academic Jewish approaches to the religions of the world, focusing on those Jewish thinkers that actually encounter the other world religions of Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, and Buddhism--that is, it moves beyond the theory of inclusive/exclusive/pluralistic categories and looks at Judaism's interactions with other faiths "in practice."

This is not just another book of records. The Guiness Book of World Records has done that job admirably, and it would be difficult to improve upon it. This book is primarily about the people who established or broke a record that had already been established.

The Emancipation led Italian Jews to redefine themselves in fundamental ways, beginning a debate about integration and assimilation that continued until the Racial Legislation Laws of 1938. This groundbreaking study examines the numerous youth movements, newspapers, and cultural societies that attempted to revitalize Italian Judaism and define the "essence" of Jewish identity during this period. Throughout, author Cristina M. Bettin demonstrates how Jews integrated rather than assimilated, which became a unique and defining feature of Italian Judaism.

This is the first book about the meals of Early Judaism. As such it breaks important new ground in establishing the basis for understanding the centrality of meals in this pivotal period of Judaism and providing a framework of historical patterns and influences.

Blech argues that both Christianity and Judaism are responsible for anti-Semitism in claiming divine revelation as the source of their scriptures.

This edited collection of essays critically examines how diverse religions of the world represent, understand, theologize, theorize and respond to disability and/or chronic illness. Contributors employ a wide variety of methodological approaches including ethnography, historical, cultural, or textual analysis, personal narrative, and theological/philosophical investigation.

In the late eighteenth century, German Jews began entering the middle class with remarkable speed. That upward mobility, it has often been said, coincided with Jews' increasing alienation from religion and Jewish nationhood. In fact, Michah Gottlieb argues, this period was one of intense engagement with Jewish texts and traditions. One expression of this was the remarkable turn to Bible translation. In the century and a half beginning with Moses Mendelssohn's pioneering translation and the final one by Martin Buber and Franz Rosenzweig, German Jews produced sixteen different translations of at least the Pentateuch. Exploring Bible translations by Mendelssohn, Leopold Zunz, and Samson Raphael Hirsch, Michah Gottlieb argues that each translator sought a "reformation" of Judaism along bourgeois lines, which involved aligning Judaism with a Protestant concept of religion. Buber and Rosenzweig famously critiqued bourgeois German Judaism as a craven attempt to establish social respectability to facilitate Jews' entry into the middle class through a vapid, domesticated Judaism. But Mendelssohn, Zunz, and Hirsch saw in bourgeois values the best means to serve God and the authentic actualization of Jewish tradition. Through their learned, creative Bible translations, these scholars presented competing visions of middle-class Judaism that affirmed Jewish nationhood while lighting the path to a purposeful, emotionally-rich spiritual life grounded in ethical responsibility.

Sin, often defined as a violation of divine will, remains a crucial idea in contemporary moral and religious discourse. The apparent familiarity of the concept, however, obscures its origins within the history of Western religious thought. This book examines a watershed moment in the development of sin as an idea-namely, within the language and culture of ancient Israel-by examining the primary metaphors used for sin in the Hebrew Bible. Drawing from contemporary theoretical insights coming out of linguistics and philosophy of language, this book offers a comprehensive look at four patterns of metaphor that pervade the biblical texts: sin as burden, sin as an account, sin as path or direction, and sin as stain or impurity. In exploring the permutations of these metaphors and their development within the biblical corpus, the book offers a compelling account of how a religious and theological concept emerges out of the everyday thought-world of ancient Israel. Key aspects of the approach to metaphor adopted in this book, such as the patterning of metaphor, the notion of metaphorical construal, and how metaphors become lexicalized over time, also have important ramifications for the study of biblical and ancient Near Eastern texts more broadly.