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 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.

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.

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.

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.

Each time Bubbie gets diverted from making charoses for the Passover seder, family members add their own secret ingredient until the charoses is atrocious.

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.

Yiddish and the Creation of Soviet Jewish Culture gives voice to the Soviet Jewish activists empowered by the state to create a Soviet Jewish national culture. Jewish activists were interested in building a Soviet Jewish culture because they were striving for a national revolution - the creation of a new culture through which Jews would identify as Jews on new, secular, Soviet terms. This book explores the ways in which Jews were part of, not apart from, the Soviet system and Jewish history. Soviet Jewish culture worked within contemporary Jewish national and cultural 1920s trends and simultaneously participated in the larger project of propagating the Soviet state and ideology. Soviet Jewish activists were not nationalists or Soviets, but both at once. David Shneer addresses some of the painful truths about the Jews' own implication and imbrication in the system and places his analysis in the context of wider twentieth-century culture.