The first half of the book of Daniel contains world-famous stories like the Writing on the Wall. These stories have mostly been transmitted in Aramaic, not Hebrew, as has the influential apocalypse of Daniel 7. This Aramaic corpus shows clear signs of multiple authorship. Which different textual layers can we tease apart, and what do they tell us about the changing function of the Danielic material during the Second Temple Period? This monograph compares the Masoretic Text of Daniel to ancient manuscripts and translations preserving textual variants. By highlighting tensions in the reconstructed archetype underlying all these texts, it then probes the tales' prehistory even further, showing how Daniel underwent many transformations to yield the book we know today.

According to narratives in the Bible the threats of the people's end come from various sources, but the most significant threat comes, as learned from the Pentateuch, from God himself. What is the theological meaning of this tradition? In what circumstances did it evolve? How did it stand alongside other theological and socio-political concepts known to the ancient authors and their diverse audience? The book employs a diachronic method that explores the stages of the tradition's formation and development, revealing the authors' exegetical purposes and ploys, and tracing the historical realities of their time. The book proposes that the motif of the threat of destruction existed in various forms prior to the creation of the stories recorded in the final text of the Pentateuch. The inclusion of the motif within specific literary contexts attenuated the concept of destruction by presenting it as a phenomenon of specific moments in the past. Nevertheless, the threat was resurrected repeatedly by various authors, for use as a precedent or a justification for present affliction.

Jewish life in Europe has undergone dramatic changes and transformations within the 20th century and also the last two decades. The phenomenon of the dual position of the Jewish minority in relation to the majority, not entirely unusual for Jewish Diaspora communities, manifested itself most distinctly on the European continent. This unique Jewish experience of the ambiguous position of insider and outsider may provide valuable views on contemporary European reality and identity crisis. The book focuses inter alia on the main common denominators of contemporary Jewish life in Central Europe, such as an intense confrontation with the heritage of the Holocaust and unrelenting antisemitism on the one hand and on the other hand, huge appreciation of traditional Jewish learning and culture by a considerable part of non-Jewish Europeans. The volume includes contributions on Jewish life in central European countries like Hungary, the Czech Republic, Poland, Austria, and Germany.

Pinchas Giller offers a wide-ranging overview of the most influential school of kabbalah in modernity, the Jerusalem kabbalists of the Beit El Yeshivah. The school is associated with the writings and personality of a charismatic Yemenite Rabbi, Shalom Shar'abi. Shar'abi's activity overwhelmed the Jerusalem Kabbalah of the eighteenth-century, and his acolytes are the most active mystics in contemporary Middle Eastern Jewry to this day. Today, this meditative tradition is rising in popularity in Jerusalem, New York, and Los Angeles, both among traditional Beit El kabbalists and memebers of the notorious Kabbalah Learning Centers. After providing the historical setting, Giller examines the characteristic mystical practices of the Beit El School. The dominant practice is that of ritual prayer with mystical "intentions", or kavvanot. The kavvanot themselves are the product of thousands of years of development, and incorporate many traditions and bodies of lore. Giller examines the archaeology of the kavvanot literature, the principle of the sacred names that make up the majority of kavvanot, the development of particular rituals, and the innovative mystical and devotional practices of the Beit El kabbalists to this day. The first book in the English language to address the character and spread of jewish mysticism through the Middle East in early modernity, it will be a guide post for further study of this vast topic.

This is a study of two metaphors, 'an eternal planting' and 'a house of holiness', which were used extensively by the DSS Community in expression of their self-understanding. These two metaphors embrace a wide range of biblical themes which they appropriated for themselves. The sectarian writings and non-sectarian writings used by the community have been examined in order to bring out the theology behind these two metaphors. Each passage is compared and contrasted primarily with the Hebrew Bible to see how the text has been reworked or nuanced to suit its new context.

It is concluded that these two metaphors express the deep yearning of the DSS Community for a complete restoration of Israel, for a return to Edenic conditions as before the Fall, and for a temple which was pure. These metaphors contribute to the community's self-understanding of themselves as the 'eternal planting', or True Israel, the faithful remnant, who practised justice and righteousness and awaited the eschaton. They beleived that they were indeed a 'kingdom of priests and a holy nation'. They understood themselves to be a proleptic temple in advance of the eschatological temple to be built by God. They were also the true priests, functioning in God's heavenly temple carrying out the priestly ministry of atonement, teaching, intercession, and blessing. These two metaphors appear to be quite distinct at first sight, but on closer examination they are seen to convey many complementary theological ideas.

Space and Conversion in Global Perspective examines experiences of conversion as they intersect with physical location, mobility, and interiority. The volume's innovative approach is global and encompasses multiple religious traditions. Conversion emerges as a powerful force in early modern globalization. In thirteen essays, the book ranges from the urban settings of Granada and Cuzco to mission stations in Latin America and South India; from villages in Ottoman Palestine and Middle-Volga Russia to Italian hospitals and city squares; and from Atlantic slave ships to the inner life of a Muslim turned Jesuit. Drawing on extensive archival and iconographic materials, this collection invites scholars to rethink conversion in light of the spatial turn. Contributors are: Paolo Aranha, Emanuele Colombo, Irene Fosi, Mercedes Garcia-Arenal, Agnieszka Jagodzinska, Aliocha Maldavsky, Giuseppe Marcocci, Susana Bastos Mateus, Adriano Prosperi, Gabriela Ramos, Rocco Sacconaghi, Felicita Tramontana, Guillermo Wilde, and Oxana Zemtsova.

The mystery of lost, apocryphal Jewish-Christian gospels has intrigued scholars for centuries. Scholars have also debated whether the Ebionites with their low Christology or the more "orthodox" Nazarenes are the genuine successors of the early Jerusalem church. This book provides a fresh assessment of the patristic sources and the scholarly theories on the number and contents of Jewish-Christian gospels. A new approach, the study of indicators of Jewish-Christian profiles, shows the artificial nature of the church fathers' heretical discourse, bringing forth previously neglected connections between various Jewish-Christian movements. This book also challenges the widely accepted theory of three Jewish-Christian gospels bringing the Gospel of the Hebrews closer to its synoptic cousins-not, however, as a witness of the earliest Jesus traditions but as a post-synoptic composition.

Liturgy, a complex interweaving of word, text, song, and behavior is a central fixture of religious life in the Jewish tradition. It is unique in that it is performed and not merely thought. Because liturgy is performed by a specific group at a specific time and place it is mutable. Thus, liturgical reasoning is always new and understandings of liturgical practices are always evolving. Liturgy is neither preexisting nor static; it is discovered and revealed in every liturgical performance.
Jewish Liturgical Reasoning is an attempt to articulate the internal patterns of philosophical, ethical, and theological reasoning that are at work in synagogue liturgies. This book discusses the relationship between internal Jewish liturgical reasoning and the variety of external philosophical and theological forms of reasoning that have been developed in modern and post liberal Jewish philosophy. Steven Kepnes argues that liturgical reasoning can reorient Jewish philosophy and provide it with new tools, new terms of discourse and analysis, and a new sensibility for the twenty-first century.
The formal philosophical study of Jewish liturgy began with Moses Mendelssohn and the modern Jewish philosophers. Thus the book focuses, in its first chapters, on the liturgical reasoning of Moses Mendelssohn, Hermann Cohen, and Franz Rosenzweig. However, it attempts to augment and further develop the liturgical reasoning of these figures with methods of study from Hermeneutics, Semiotic theory, post liberal theology, anthropology and performance theory. These newer theories are enlisted to help form a contemporary liturgical reasoning that can respond to such events as the Holocaust, the establishmentof the State of Israel, and interfaith dialogue between Jews, Christians, and Muslims.

This study raises that difficult and complicated question on a broad front, taking into account the expressions and attitudes of a wide variety of Greek, Roman, Jewish, and early Christian sources, including Herodotus, Polybius, Cicero, Philo, and Paul. It approaches the topic of ethnicity through the lenses of the ancients themselves rather than through the imposition of modern categories, labels, and frameworks. A central issue guides the course of the work: did ancient writers reflect upon collective identity as determined by common origins and lineage or by shared traditions and culture?

This collection presents innovative research by scholars from across the globe in celebration of Gabriele Boccaccini's sixtieth birthday and to honor his contribution to the study of early Judaism and Christianity. In harmony with Boccaccini's determination to promote the study of Second Temple Judaism in its own right, this volume includes studies on various issues raised in early Jewish apocalyptic literature (e.g., 1 Enoch, 2 Baruch, 4 Ezra), the Dead Sea Scrolls, and other early Jewish texts, from Tobit to Ben Sira to Philo and beyond. The volume also provides several investigations on early Christianity in intimate conversation with its Jewish sources, consistent with Boccaccini's efforts to transcend confessional and disciplinary divisions by situating the origins of Christianity firmly within Second Temple Judaism. Finally, the volume includes essays that look at Jewish-Christian relations in the centuries following the Second Temple period, a harvest of Boccaccini's labor to rethink the relationship between Judaism and Christianity in light of their shared yet contested heritage.

This unique study is the first systematic examination to be undertaken of the high priesthood in ancient Israel, from the earliest local chief priests in the pre-monarchic period down to the Hasmonaean priest-kings in the first century BCE. It discusses material from the Old Testament and Apocrypha, together with contemporary documents and coins. It challenges the view that by virtue of his office the high priest became sole political leader of the Jews in later times.

"Qumranica Minora II: Thematic Studies on the Dead Sea Scrolls" brings together fourteen previously published studies of Florentino Garcia Martinez on a variety of thematic topics from the Dead Sea Scrolls, including English translations of essays that were hitherto only available in French or Spanish. The studies range from essays on the interpretation of the biblical texts in the Scrolls, to more general studies on topics such as priestly functions in a community without temple, Messianism, magic, wisdom, sonship between the Old and the New Testament, and the "other" in the Dead Sea Scrolls or at Qumran.

The study of the Books of Chronicles has focused in the past mainly on its literary relationship to Historical Books such as Samuel and Kings. Less attention was payed to its possible relationships to the priestly literature. Against this backdrop, this volume aims to examine the literary and socio-historical relationship between the Books of Chronicles and the priestly literature (in the Pentateuch and in Ezekiel). Since Chronicles and Pentateuch (and also Ezekiel) studies have been regarded as separate fields of study, we invited experts from both fields in order to open a space for fruitful discussions with each other. The contributions deal with connections and interactions between specific texts, ideas, and socio-historical contexts of the literary works, as well as with broad observations of the relationship between them.

The fourth century is often referred to as the first Christian century, and for the Jews a period of decline and persecution. But was this change really so immediate and irreversible? What was the real impact of the Christianization of the Roman Empire on the Jews, especially in their own land?

Stemberger draws on all available sources, literary and archaeological, Christian as well as pagan and Jewish, to reconstruct the history of the different religious communities of Palestine in the fourth century.

This book demonstrates how lively, creative, and resourceful the Jewish communities remained.

This book discusses the decoration types of Sephardic illuminated Bibles. Unlike illuminated Passover manuscripts from the same period with their rich figurative and narrative picture cycles, Bibles are almost exclusively aniconic. Whereas the former borrow heavily from Christian art, the Bibles are entirely indebted to Islamic culture. The volume elaborates in particular on the cultural history of the decorative motifs and types of ornamentation in an era of cultural transition in Iberia and culture struggle within Spanish Jewry. The first two chapters describe the cultural, social and artistic background in which the Bibles were produced, whereas the other chapters describe the works of the different schools and discuss them within different cultural, historical and social contexts.
The text is accompanied by 10 color plates and 141 black-and-white figures.

Tamara Prosic gives a new explanation of the origins, development and symbolism of Passover. First, she examines Passover from the diachronic perspective, tracing its development from the period before the centralisation of the cult until the second destruction of the temple. Issues with previous scholarship are considered, while at the same time she places the study of Passover within the framework of the new paradigm of historical studies of ancient Israel that advocates the indigenous Canaanitic origin of Israelites. The second part of the book is synchronic in its approach to Passover and deals with its symbolism. Prosic discusses Passover in biblical legends arguing that the pre-Yahwistic Passover was essentially a rite of passage. From there the investigation moves to symbolic elements of Passover such as time symbolism, space symbolism and symbolism of the sacrifice. This is volume 414 in the Journal for the Study of the Old Testament Supplement series.

Continuum announces a new series of classic works of mysticism with representative texts from all the major world religions: Christianity, Islam, Judaism, Hinduism, Buddhism, and Taoism.

A mix of familiar texts with proven sales potential and less familiar works with untapped readerships will introduce the committed of all faiths to key contemplative texts from outside their traditions. Each volume will be bound with lavish, full-color covers, and illustrated throughout.

The Book of Concealed Mystery is a book of the key text of the Kabbalah, a work known as the Zohar ("Splendour"). The Zohar is a commentary on the Torah and although it is sometimes ascribed to a second-century rabbi, Simon Bar-Yochai, the form in which it is most widely known originates with Moses of Leon, a native of Granada, who died in 1305.

The kabbalists believe that the undefinable origin of all things is Ein Sof -- the cause of causes, the infinite, that which underlies everything. The universe emanates from the divine in successive layers called esefiroti. Everything exists in God, but God extends infinitely beyond existence. All we know and are is linked together, pervaded and maintained by the divine. According to The Book of Concealed Mystery, the light of God must be concealed in order to be revealed to creation. Even though the kabbalists believe that ultimately Ein Sof is beyond expression or understanding, the contemplation of God's presence in all things causes our thoughts to be purified