Biblical manuscripts from the Dead Sea and the Cairo Genizah have added immeasurably to our knowledge of the textual history of the Hebrew Bible. The papers collected in this volume compare the evidence of the biblical DSS with manuscripts from the Vienna Papyrus Collection, connected with the Cairo Genizah, as well as late ancient evidence from diverse contexts. The resulting picture is one of a dialectic between textual plurality and fixity: the eventual dominance of the consonantal Masoretic Text over the textual plurality of the Second Temple period, and the secondary diversification of that standardized text through scribal activity.

To better understand the phenomenon of Literature in the Second Degree - in Jewish and Biblical studies often characterized as parabiblical or Rewritten Bible - the current volume applies the theories of Gerard Genette to ancient and medieval literature from various cultures. Literature in the Second Degree realigns earlier (authoritative) texts to the dynamics of developing cultures and their changing cultural memories. In the case of authoritative base texts, Literature in the Second Degree reaffirms their authority by way of interpretative actualization. In the case of non-authoritative base texts it replaces them to effect cultural forgetting. Far from being just literary forgery (pseudepigraphy), Literature in the Second Degree has an important function in the development of the ancient and medieval cultures.

The five volumes provide a compendium of the history of and discourse about antisemitism - both as a unique cultural and religious category. Antisemitic stereotypes function as religious symbols that express and transmit a belief system of Jew-hatred, which are stored in the cultural and religious memories of the Western and Muslim worlds. This volume explores the phenomenon from the perspectives of Philosophy and Social Sciences.

This volume provides a compendium of the history of and discourse about antisemitism - both as a unique cultural and religious category. Antisemitic stereotypes function as religious symbols that express and transmit a belief system of Jew-hatred, which are stored in the cultural and religious memories of the Western and Muslim worlds, migrating freely between Christian, Muslim and other religious symbolic systems.

In their long history, Jews encountered political, social, cultural, and religious crises which threatened not only their very existence but Jewish identity as well. Examples for such crises include the Babylonian Exile, the so-called Hellenistic Religious reforms, the first and second Jewish war, the inquisition, and the Shoah, but also the encounter of modernity or socio-economic developments. Political, cultural, and religious crises did not coin Jewish culture, thought, and religion but forced Jews from the very beginnings of Judaism until today to rethink and shape their Jewish identity anew. This volume asks how Jews coped with events that threatened Jewish existence, culture, and religion and how they responded to them. Each crisis was different in nature and evoked hence different developments in Jewish culture, thought, and religion.

The Textual History of the Bible</> brings together for the first time all available information regarding the manuscripts, textual history and character of each book of the Hebrew Bible and its translations as well as the deuterocanonical scriptures. In addition, it covers the history of research, the editorial history of the Hebrew Bible, and other aspects of text-critical research and its subsidiary fields, such as papyrology, codicology, and the related discipline of linguistics. Volumes 1A, 1B and 1C: The Hebrew Bible Volume 1A consists of a series of overview articles and can already be considered as the first standalone introduction to the texts of the Hebrew Bible / Old Testament. Volumes 1A, 1B and 1C comprises a total of 353 articles, approximately 2,000 pages, presented in three volumes. For each textual version 15 area editors, who are highly recognized specialists in their field, have invited contributions from 120 authors. See the Table of Contents here. The Textual History of the Bible is also available online.

Volume three 'Companion to Textual Criticism' addresses the history of research of textual criticism from antiquity until today; history of research and editorial history, papyrology, codicology, and paleography, the third volume of THB will therefore engage also extensively with the sciences, hermeneutics, philosophy and translation technique. Table of contents of THB 3: Volume 3A The History of Research by Armin Lange and Russell E. Fuller: surveys the history of research on the textual criticism and textual history of the Hebrew Bible and its versions in both Judaism and Christianity from its ancient beginnings until today for all of its important versions. Volume 3B Modern Editions of the Text of the Bible in Hebrew and the Ancient Versions by Richard D. Weis (d. 2020) Volume 3C Theory and Practice of Textual Criticism by Mika Pajunen Volume 3D Science and Technology by Marilyn Lundberg

This book challenges scholars' assumption, without any explicit evidence, of institutionalized public prayer with fixed contents and times in the Qumran community. As the book observes, this assumption rests in part on a failure to distinguish between voluntary supplication prayers and biblically mandated blessings and thanks. The book closely examines the three Qumran writings assumed to typify prayer and critiques scholars' attempts to deduce the existence of public prayer from these and other sources, which are most likely pious expressions of individual authors. The lack of indispensable instructions for institutionalized prayer offers circumstantial evidence that such prayer was not practiced at Qumran. This study also explores the assumption that Qumran prayer was intended as a substitute for sacrifices after the group's separation from the temple cult and discusses relevant rabbinic statements. The innovative character of rabbinic fixed prayer is discussed and identified as an element of the fundamental transformation of Jewish theology and practice from worship founded on sacrificial rituals performed by priests at the Jerusalem Temple to abstract, unmediated, direct approaches to God by every Jew in any location. The book also examines Samaritan prayer and detects a variety of attitudes, rules, and customs similar to those found at Qumran that are incompatible with their rabbinic counterparts. This opens the door for investigating religious belief and practice at a crucial period in the history of Western civilization, namely, before the vast rabbinic reform of Judaism after 70 CE.

The biblical Dead Sea Scrolls are about a thousand years older than the earliest complete manuscript of the Hebrew Bible and provide crucial insights into the history of the biblical texts. The "Biblia Qumranica" is the first comparative edition of these unique textual witnesses. The present volume provides a synopsis of the Minor Prophets manuscripts from Qumran and the other sites at the Dead Sea. In addition the Masoretic text (according to Codex Leningradiensis) and the Septuagint (according to the Gottingen edition) are included as reference texts. The "Biblia Qumranica" is a unique tool for text-critical analysis which allows for the first time to analyse and interpret the textual witnesses of the Hebrew Bible as preserved from the Second Temple period in comparison to each other.

Until recently, most non-biblical manuscripts attested in the Qumran library were regarded as copies of texts that were composed after the books of the Hebrew Bible were written. Students of the Hebrew Bible found the Dead Sea Scrolls therefore mostly of interest for the textual and interpretative histories of these books. The present collection confirms the importance of the Dead Sea Scrolls for both areas, by showing that they have revolutionized our understanding of how the text of the biblical books developed and how they were interpreted. Beyond the textual and interpretative histories, though, many texts attested in the Qumran library illuminate the time in which the later books of the Hebrew Bible were composed and reworked as well as Jewish life and law in the time when the canon of the Hebrew Bible developed. This volume gives important examples as to how the early texts attested in the Dead Sea Scrolls help to better understand individual biblical books and as to how the later texts among them illustrate Jewish life and law when the canon of the Hebrew Bible evolved. In order to find an adequate expertise for the seminar The Dead Sea Scrolls and the Hebrew Bible, the editors invited both junior and senior specialists in the fields of Hebrew Bible, Second Temple Judaism, Dead Sea Scrolls and Rabbinics to Rome.

English summary: This book presents eight studies on the textual history of Jewish scriptures from Antiquity to the Middle Ages which engage in various aspects of Emanuel Tov's textcritical work. Contributions by Emanuel Tov, Armin Lange, Josef M. Oesch, Friedrich V. Reiterer, Hermann-Josef Stipp, Hanna Tervanotko, Kevin Trompelt and Jozsef Zengeller. German description: Die Textfunde von Qumran und der Codex Aleppo markieren zwei Wendepunkte in der Textgeschichte der Hebraischen Bibel. Die Textgeschichte dieser Sammlung judischer Schriften steht im Zentrum des wissenschaftlichen Lebens von Emanuel Tov, den die Universitat anlasslich seines 65. Geburtstags mit einem internationalen Symposium ehrte, welches seine Thesen diskutierte. Der vorliegende Band veroffentlicht diese kritische Wurdigung der textgeschichtlichen Forschungen von Emanuel Tov sowie eine seiner eigenen Arbeiten zu dem Thema. Mit Beitragen von Emanuel Tov, Armin Lange, Josef M. Oesch, Friedrich V. Reiterer, Hermann-Josef Stipp, Hanna Tervanotko, Kevin Trompelt und Jozsef Zengeller.