This volume takes a fresh view of the role representations of the past play in the construction of Jewish identity. Its central theme is that the study of how Jews construct the past can help in interpreting how they understand the nature of their Jewishness. The individual chapters illuminate the ways in which Jews responded to and made use of the past. If Jews choices of what to include, emphasize, omit, and invent in their representation of the past is a fundamental variable, then this volume contributes to the creation of a more nuanced approach to the construction of the histories of Jews and their thought.

A comprehensive bibliography of the Pseudepigrapha and related literature, covering 1850 to 1999, providing an indispensable resource for scholar and library. This comprehensive bibliography of research on the Pseudepigrapha and cognate literature covers the period from 1850 to the present day - thus encompassing almost all the secondary literature on this topic. A reference work designed for both institutions and individual scholars, it systematically presents a structured bibliography for each ancient text, highlighting elements such as 'Texts and Textual Issues', 'Translations', 'General Studies', and 'Specific Studies'. In addition, this book covers a host of topics related to the context and content of the classic pseudepigrapha, providing an indispensable reference tool for anyone, scholar or student, engaged on, or interested in, research in the Pseudepigrapha.

The Jewish culture of the Hellenistic and early Roman periods established a basis for all monotheistic religions, but its main sources have been preserved to a great degree through Christian transmission. This Guide is devoted to problems of preservation, reception, and transformation of Jewish texts and traditions of the Second Temple period in the many Christian milieus from the ancient world to the late medieval era. It approaches this corpus not as an artificial collection of reconstructed texts-a body of hypothetical originals-but rather from the perspective of the preserved materials, examined in their religious, social, and political contexts. It also considers the other, non-Christian, channels of the survival of early Jewish materials, including Rabbinic, Gnostic, Manichaean, and Islamic. This unique project brings together scholars from many different fields in order to map the trajectories of early Jewish texts and traditions among diverse later cultures. It also provides a comprehensive and comparative introduction to this new field of study while bridging the gap between scholars of early Judaism and of medieval Christianity.

The video-game is among the most prominent media of the explosion of apocalyptic popular culture in the twenty-first century. Apocalyptic video games are a global phenomenon, international in their scope and democratic in their appeal. This book will be the first volume dedicated to the subject of apocalyptic video games. Its two dozen invited contributions address the subject comprehensively, from game design to player experience, and from the perspective of content, theme, sound, ludic textures, and social function. The volume offers scholars, students, and general readers a thorough discussion of one of the most fascinating illustrations of "apocalyptic" in the popular imagination and novel insights into an important facet of contemporary digital culture. Special Feature: The volume concludes with a curated Q&A with game designers on the concept and construction of “apocalyptic” game worlds.

The study of early Judaism and early Christianity has been revolutionised by new evidence from a host of sources: the Dead Sea Scrolls, the Pseudepigrapha, the New Testament Apocrypha, the Nag Hammadi writings and related texts, and new papyrus and amulet discoveries. Now scholars have entered the "next generation" of scholarship, where these bodies of evidence are appreciated in conversation with each other and within the contexts of the wider Jewish, Christian, and Greco-Roman cultures from the fourth century BCE to the fourth century CE. This volume features chapters from leading scholars who approach the study of early Judaism and early Christianity from this synthetic approach. The chapters engage in an inter-generational and international dialogue among the past, present and future generations of scholars, and also among European, North-American, African and South-American scholars and their various methodologies and approaches -- linguistic, historical or comparative. Among the chapters are contributions by Professors James Charlesworth (Princeton), Andre Gagne (Concordia) and Loren Stuckenbruck (Munich), as well as papers from researchers from North America, Europe, South America and Africa.