In Understanding the Talmud: A Modern Reader's Guide for Study, Rabbi Edward S. Boraz presents a thoughtful introduction to the Talmud designed for study by the untrained reader. Using a unique approach, Rabbi Boraz focuses on a specific selection from one tractate of the Talmud, allowing readers to uncover the moral and theological concerns of the text. The portion he has selected comes from the tractate Bava Metziah and deals with the conditions under which an oath may be administered in a civil lawsuit. On the surface this issue appears mundane and far removed from the domain of holiness. However, when the discourse is studied in relation to passages from Scripture, Midrash, and Mishnah that are also presented, it becomes a spiritual and ethical adventure. Before embarking on this journey of discovery, the reader is given a concise explanation of the rules of logic and the argumentative style utilized in the Talmud. It becomes evident that the Talmud's style is essential to its mission to understand the timeless messages of Torah in the context of the ever-changing world in which we live. Equipped with the necessary background, the reader is prepared to delve into the texts.

This book presents an inductive account, through systematic inquiry into data, of the hermeneutics of the principal documents of Rabbinic Judaism. It undertakes a hypothetical-logical reconstruction of the thought-processes that generated the category-formations of the Halakhah, that is, the exegesis of the hermeneutics of Halakhic exegesis. To do so, Neusner asks whether a determinate theory of interpretation guides the sages in their exposition of the topics, the category-formations, of Rabbinic Judaism in the documents that expound those formations. His answer is, a hermeneutics of comparison and contrast yielding a hierarchical classification of data governs the selection of data and the interpretation thereof for the entire corpus of category-formations of the Halakhah. Hence 'Halakhic hermeneutics' here bears the primary meaning, 'a hermeneutics of analogical-contrastive analysis.'

One of India's greatest epics, the Ramayana pervades the country's moral and cultural consciousness. For generations it has served as a bedtime story for Indian children, while at the same time engaging the interest of philosophers and theologians. Believed to have been composed by Valmiki sometime between the eighth and sixth centuries BC, the Ramayana tells the tragic and magical story of Rama, the prince of Ayodhya, an incarnation of Lord Visnu, born to rid the earth of the terrible demon Ravana. An idealized heroic tale ending with the inevitable triumph of good over evil, the Ramayana is also an intensely personal story of family relationships, love and loss, duty and honor, of harem intrigue, petty jealousies, and destructive ambitions. All this played out in a universe populated by larger-than-life humans, gods and celestial beings, wondrous animals and terrifying demons. With her magnificent translation and superb introduction, Arshia Sattar has successfully bridged both time and space to bring this ancient classic to modern English readers.

First published in 2000. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

Transforming Literature into Scripture examines how the early textual traditions of ancient Israel - stories, laws, and rituals - were transformed into sacred writings. By comparing evidence from two key collections from antiquity - the royal library at Nineveh and the biblical manuscripts from the Dead Sea Scrolls - the book traces the stabilisation of textual traditions in the ancient Near East towards fixed literary prototypes. The study presents a new methodology which enables the quantification, categorisation and statistical analysis of texts from different languages, writing systems, and media. The methodology is tested on wide range of text genres from the cuneiform and biblical traditions in order to determine which texts tend towards stabilised forms. Transforming Literature into Scripture reveals how authoritative literary collections metamorphosed into fixed ritualised texts and will be of interest to scholars across Biblical, Judaic and Literary Studies.

Within the classical Islamic tradition, the field of Qur'anic exegesis, more commonly referred to as tafsir, occupies a revered place among the traditional Muslim sciences. Although tafsir encompasses various approaches to the explication of the Qur'an and these include legal, theological, rhetorical, linguistic, mystical, literary, and philosophical treatments, it is the technical tools and methodologies applied in Qur'anic exegesis and the history of their development which make the discipline so unique in its Islamic context. Given the significance of tafsir within the religious tradition, western academic scholars have devoted considerable attention to the field. This interest remains vigorous today and represents one of the key areas of research in modern Islamic studies. This collection of articles on tafsir provides a definitive overview of the tradition of tafsir in its early, medieval, and modern settings. Tafsir: Interpreting the Qur'an includes works germane to the history and development of exegesis; materials which focus on the tradition's great commentators and their commentaries; articles which look at the genres, themes and contexts of the tafsir tradition; research on exegetical ideas, sources, and constructs; and, finally, articles which examine the hermeneutic tools defined by scholarship for the explication of the sacred text. It is an essential work of reference destined to be valued by scholars and students as a vital one-stop research resource.

First Published in 1966. This is a study into the question of whether religion in general, and the Christian religion in particular, is to be regarded as an instrument of social stimulation and disturbance, or as a means of social reconciliation and stabilisation by focusing on religious literature of the sixteenth century.

The Bhagavad Gita is one of the most widely read Hindu scriptures in the Western world. Taking the form of a dialogue between the warrior Arjuna and the divine Krishna on the eve of battle, it is concerned with the most profound aspects of social and religious duty, and the relationship of human beings to God. In its eighteen short chapters it explores the spiritual struggle of the human soul and the search for both the true self and eternal life, culminating in an unparalleled vision of God the omnipotent.

This is a study of the relationship between two cognate religious components of Judaism, the laws of the Pentateuch and the corpus of Halakhah set forth by the Mishnah-Tosefta-Yerushalmi-Bavli. Both contain normative rules or Halakhah. The four relationships between the Torah and the Halakhah are [1] dependent, the Halakhah simply amplifying the Halakhic topic and proposition of Scripture, [2] autonomous, the Halakhah simply defining its own category-formation and determining the proposition that animates that category-formation, [3] interstitial (in-between) but derivative, and [4] interstitial yet fundamentally original. As to these latter two relationships, in the first of the two, Scripture defines the category-formation and determines the proposition to be explored in that connection. In the second of the two, Scripture supplies the topic, but the Halakhah on its own defines the proposition it wishes to explore in connection with that topic.

This book opens windows onto various aspects of Jewish legal culture. Rather than taking a structural approach, and attempting to circumscribe and define 'every' element of Jewish law, Windows onto Jewish Legal Culture takes a dynamic and holistic approach, describing diverse manifestations of Jewish legal culture, and its general mind-set, without seeking to fit them into a single structure. Jewish legal culture spans two millennia, and evolved in geographic centers that were often very distant from one another both geographically and socio-culturally. It encompasses the Talmud and talmudic literature, the law codes, the rulings of rabbinical courts, the responsa literature, decisions taken by communal leaders, study of the law in talmudic academies, the local study hall, and the home. But Jewish legal culture reaches well beyond legal and quasi-legal institutions; it addresses, and is reflected in, every aspect of daily life, from meals and attire to interpersonal and communal relations. Windows onto Jewish Legal Culture gives the reader a taste of the tremendous weight of Jewish legal culture within Jewish life. Among the facets of Jewish legal culture explored are two of its most salient distinguishing features, namely, toleration and even encouragement of controversy, and a preference for formalistic formulations. These features are widely misunderstood, and Jewish legal culture is often parodied as hair-splitting argument for the sake of argument. In explaining the epistemic imperatives that motivate Jewish legal culture, however, this book paints a very different picture. Situational constraints and empirical considerations are shown to provide vital input into legal determinations at every level, and the legal process is revealed to be attentive to context and sensitive to cultural concerns.

The work of the twelfth-century Shi ite scholar al-Tabrisi, Majma al-bayan, is one of the most important works of medieval commentary on the Qur an, and is still in use today. This work is an in-depth case study of Islamic exegetical methods and an exploration of the nature of scriptural interpretation in Islam.

Drawing on a wide variety of sources including unpublished manuscripts, the author examines how exegesis serves to construct, maintain and defend the status of the Qur an as scripture and to uphold certain ideological agendas, among them the notion of the literary and rhetorical supremacy of God 's revelation in Arabic. Focusing on the genre and process of Qur anic exegesis itself, he treats Qur an interpretation as part of a category of religious practice recognizable from the history and comparative study of religion.

Written in clear and accessible style, Qur anic Hermeneutics makes Qur anic exegesis intelligible to specialists in Islam as well as those interested in scripture and its interpretation in general. As such, it will be a valuable reference to scholars of Islamic studies, religion and scripture.

In 1896, Rabbi Solomon Schechter of Cambridge University stepped into the attic of the Ben Ezra Synagogue in Cairo and there found the largest treasure trove of mediaeval and early manuscripts ever discovered. He had entered the synagogue's genizah - its repository for damaged and destroyed Jewish texts - which held nearly 300,000 individual documents, many of which were over 1,000 years old.

Metaphors are a vital linguistic component of religious speech and serve as a cultural indicator of how groups understand themselves and the world. The essays compiled in this volume analyze the use, function, and structure of metaphors in Jewish writings from the Hellenistic-Roman period (including the works of Philo and the texts of Qumran), as well as in apocryphal early Christian texts and inscriptions.

What is happening in Islam is of concern to more than Muslims. The Qur'an is the prime possession of Muslims: how then, are they reading and understanding their sacred Book today? This volume, originally published in 1985, examines eight writers from India, Egypt, Iran and Senegal. Their way with the Qur'an indicates how some in Islam respond to the pressures in life and thought, associated in the West with thinkers such as Kierkegaard, Marx, Camus, Kafka, Jung, Fanon and De Chardin.

The book of Isaiah is without doubt one of the most important books in the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament, as evidenced by its pride of place in both Jewish and Christian traditions as well as in art and music. Most people, scholars and laity alike, are familiar with the words of Isaiah accompanied by the magnificent tones of Handel's 'Messiah'. Isaiah is also one of the most complex books due to its variety and plurality, and it has accordingly been the focus of scholarly debate for the last 2000 years. Divided into eight sections, The Oxford Handbook of Isaiah constitutes a collection of essays on one of the longest books in the Bible. They cover different aspects regarding the formation, interpretations, and reception of the book of Isaiah, and also offer up-to-date information in an attractive and easily accessible format. The result does not represent a unified standpoint; rather the individual contributions mirror the wide and varied spectrum of scholarly engagement with the book. The authors of the essays likewise represent a broad range of scholarly traditions from diverse continents and religious affiliations, accompanied by comprehensive recommendations for further reading.

The Bhagavad Gita is a unique literary creation but deciphering its meaning and philosophy is not easy or simple. This careful study of the Bhagavad Gita approaches the ancient text with a modern mind and offers a unifying structure which is of a universal relevance. Combining the philosophical-theoretical with the ethical-practical, Ithamar Theodor locates his study within comparative theology and identifies the various layers of meaning. The full text of the Bhagavad Gita is presented in new translation, divided into sections, and accompanied by in-depth commentary. This book makes the Bhagavad Gita accessible to a wide variety of readers, helping to make sense of this great spiritual classic which is one of the most important texts of religious Hinduism.

The Zen Way is an invaluable introduction to Zen practice. It is divided into three parts: in the first, Ven. Myokyo-ni provides an overview of Buddhist belief in general, from the perspective of Zen. In her second part, she describes the daily rituals in a Rinzai Zen training monastery; while in the third, Ven. Myokyo-ni assesses Zen practice from a modern and European perspective.

Reconnect with the power and promise of engagement with Torah from a modern men's perspective.

This major contribution to modern biblical commentary addresses the most important concerns of modern men issues like relationships, sexuality, ambition, work and career, body image, aging, and life passages by opening them up to the messages of the Torah. It includes commentaries by some of the most creative and influential rabbis, cantors, journalists, media figures, educators, professors, authors, communal leaders, and musicians in contemporary Jewish life, and represents all denominations in Judaism. Featuring poignant and probing reflections on the weekly Torah portions, this collection shows men how the messages of the Torah intersect with their own lives by focusing on modern men s issues.

Ideal for anyone wanting a new, exciting view of Torah, this rich resource offers perspectives to inspire all of us to gain deeper meaning from the Torah as well as a heightened appreciation of Judaism and its relevance to our lives.

Contributors Rabbi Howard A. Addison Rabbi Bradley Shavit Artson Doug Barden Rabbi Tony Bayfield, DD Ariel Beery Rabbi Joseph Black Rabbi Mitchell Chefitz Dr. Norman J. Cohen Rabbi Mike Comins Rabbi Elliot N. Dorff, PhD Rabbi Dan Ehrenkrantz Rabbi Dov Peretz Elkins Rabbi Edward Feinstein Rabbi Mordecai Finley, PhD Wayne L. Firestone Rabbi David J. Gelfand Dr. Sander L. Gilman Ari L. Goldman Rabbi Daniel Gordis, PhD Rabbi Arthur Green Rabbi Steven Greenberg Joel Lurie Grishaver Rabbi Donniel Hartman, PhD Rabbi Hayim Herring, PhD Peter Himmelman Rabbi Walter Homolka, PhD Rabbi Reuven Kimelman Rabbi Elliott Kleinman Cantor Jeff Klepper Rabbi Peter S. Knobel Rabbi Harold S. Kushner Rabbi Daniel Landes Rabbi Steven Z. Leder Prof. Julius Lester Rabbi Robert N. Levine, DD Rabbi Joseph B. Meszler Rabbi John Moscowitz Rabbi Perry Netter Rabbi Kerry M. Olitzky Rabbi Stephen S. Pearce, PhD Rabbi Daniel F. Polish Dennis Prager Rabbi Jack Riemer Rabbi Stephen B. Roberts Rabbi David B. Rosen Rabbi Jeffrey K. Salkin Rabbi Sidney Schwarz, PhD Rabbi Rami Shapiro Rabbi Charles Simon Rabbi Elie Kaplan Spitz Craig Taubman Rabbi Levi Weiman-Kelman Rabbi Simkha Y. Weintraub Rabbi Avraham (Avi) Weiss Dr. Ron Wolfson Rabbi David J. Wolpe Rabbi David Woznica Rabbi Sheldon Zimmerman Rabbi Daniel G. Zemel"