The seminal medieval history of the Second Commonwealth period of ancient Jewish history. Sepher Yosippon was written in Hebrew by a medieval historian and noted by modern scholars for its eloquent style. This is the first known chronicle of Jewish history and legend-from Adam to the destruction of the Second Temple-since the canonical histories written by Flavius Josephus in Greek and later translated by Christian scholars into Latin. Sepher Yosippon has been cited and referred to by scholars, poets, and authors as the authentic source for ancient Israel for over a millennium, until overshadowed by the twentiethcentury Hebrew translations of Josephus. It is based on Pseudo Hegesippus's fourth-century anti-Jewish summary of Josephus's Jewish War. However, the anonymous author (a.k.a. Joseph ben Gurion Hacohen) also consulted with the Latin versions of Josephus's works available to him. At the same time, he included a wealth of Second Temple literature as well as Roman and Christian sources. This book contains Steven Bowman's translation of the complete text of David Flusser's standard Hebrew edition of Sepher Yosippon, which includes the later medieval interpolations referring to Jesus. The present English edition also contains the translator's introduction as well as a preface by the fifteenth-century publisher of the book. The anonymous author of this text remains unique for his approach to history, his use of sources, and his almost secular attitude, which challenges the modern picture of medieval Jews living in a religious age. In his influential novel, A Guest for the Night, the Nobel Laureate author Shmuel Yosef Agnon emphasized the importance of Sepher Yosippon as a valuable reading to understand human nature. Bowman's translation of Flusser's notes, as well as his own scholarship, offers a well-wrought story for scholars and students interested in Jewish legend and history in the medieval period, Jewish studies, medieval literature, and folklore studies.

In this warm and personal book, Dr. Phil Parshall looks at what Muslims believe and how this affects their behaviour.

Parshall compares and contrasts Muslim and Christian views on the nature of God, sacred scriptures, worship, sin, and holiness.

Where did the idea of sin arise from? In this meticulously argued book, David Konstan takes a close look at classical Greek and Roman texts, as well as the Bible and early Judaic and Christian writings, and argues that the fundamental idea of "sin" arose in the Hebrew Bible and the New Testament, although this original meaning was obscured in later Jewish and Christian interpretations. Through close philological examination of the words for "sin," in particular the Hebrew hata' and the Greek hamartia, he traces their uses over the centuries in four chapters, and concludes that the common modern definition of sin as a violation of divine law indeed has antecedents in classical Greco-Roman conceptions, but acquired a wholly different sense in the Hebrew Bible and New Testament.

Katie J. Woolstenhulme considers the pertinent questions: Who were 'the matriarchs', and what did the rabbis think about them? Whilst scholarship on the role of women in the Bible and Rabbinic Judaism has increased, the authoritative group of women known as 'the matriarchs' has been neglected. This volume consequently focuses on the role and status of the biblical matriarchs in Genesis Rabbah, the fifth century CE rabbinic commentary on Genesis. Woolstenhulme begins by discussing the nature of midrash and introducing Genesis Rabbah; before exploring the term 'the matriarchs' and its development through early exegetical literature, culminating in the emergence of two definitions of the term in Genesis Rabbah - 'the matriarchs' as the legitimate wives of Israel's patriarchs, and 'the matriarchs' as a reference to Jacob's four wives, who bore Israel's tribal ancestors. She then moves to discuss 'the matriarchal cycle' in Genesis Rabbah with its three stages of barrenness; motherhood; and succession. Finally, Woolstenhulme considers Genesis Rabbah's portrayal of the matriarchs as representatives of the female sex, exploring positive and negative rabbinic attitudes towards women with a focus on piety, prayer, praise, beauty and sexuality, and the matriarchs' exemplification of stereotypical, negative female traits. This volume concludes that for the ancient rabbis, the matriarchs were the historical mothers of Israel, bearing covenant sons, but also the present mothers of Israel, continuing to influence Jewish identity.

The essay Reading and studying the Qur'an is an updated English version of the work appeared in Italian (Rome 2021) Leggere e studiare il Corano which deals with the contents of the Qur'an, the style and formal features of the text, the history and fixation of it and an poutline of the reception in Islamic literature. The aim of the work is to give a reader a description of what he/she can find in the Islamic holy text and the state of the critical debates on all the topics dealt with, focusing mainly on the growing scholarly literature which appeared in the last 30 years. As such, the work is unique in combining the aim to give comprehensive information on the topic and, at the same, time, reconstruct the critical debate in a balanced outline also emphasizing confessional approaches and the dynamics in the study of the Qur'an. There is nothing similar in contemporary scholarship and the book is a handbook for students and scholars of Islam but also for readers in religious studies who need to know how the main questions related to the Islamic text have been discussed in recent scholarship.