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Scepticism has been the driving force in the development of
Greco-Roman culture in the past, and the impetus for far-reaching
scientific achievements and philosophical investigation. Early
Jewish culture, in contrast, avoided creating consistent
representations of its philosophical doctrines. Sceptical notions
can nevertheless be found in some early Jewish literature such as
the Book of Ecclesiastes. One encounters there expressions of doubt
with respect to Divine justice or even Divine involvement in
earthly affairs. During the first centuries of the common era,
however, Jewish thought, as reflected in rabbinic works, was
engaged in persistent intellectual activity devoted to the laws,
norms, regulations, exegesis and other traditional areas of Jewish
religious knowledge. An effort to detect sceptical ideas in ancient
Judaism, therefore, requires a closer analysis of this literary
heritage and its cultural context. This volume of collected essays
seeks to tackle the question of scepticism in an Early Jewish
context, including Ecclesiastes and other Jewish Second Temple
works, rabbinic midrashic and talmudic literature, and reflections
of Jewish thought in early Christian and patristic writings.
Contributors are: Tali Artman, Geoffrey Herman, Reuven Kiperwasser,
Serge Ruzer, Cana Werman, and Carsten Wilke.
'''Who am I?' and 'Who are we?' are the existential, foundational
questions in our lives. In our modern world, there is no construct
more influential than 'identity' - whether as individuals or as
groups. The concept of group identity is the focal point of a
research group named "A Question of Identity" at the Mandel
Scholion Interdisciplinary Research Center in the Humanities at the
Hebrew University of Jerusalem. The papers collected in this volume
represent the proceedings of a January 2017 conference organized by
the research group which dealt with identity formation in six
contextual settings: Ethno-religious identities in light of the
archaeological record; Second Temple period textual records on
Diaspora Judaism; Jews and Christians in Sasanian Persia;
minorities in the Persian achaemenid period; Inter-ethnic dialogue
in pre-1948 Palestine; and redefinitions of Christian Identity in
the Early Modern period.
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