IN

This volume introduces a cycle of stories about Abraham as preserved in fifteen unpublished, late medieval manuscripts in Armenian, published here in English for the first time with commentaries, annotations, and critical apparatus. The texts present embroidered Abraham stories dealing with his youth, his life in Egypt, the binding of Isaac, the story of Melchizedek, and other tales. Embedding Jewish, Christian, Islamic, and other ancient traditions, these texts demonstrate mutual borrowing and influence over centuries.

"This book is a joint enterprise emerging from Michael Stone's senior seminar during the years 2003-2005. The seminar was devoted during those two years to a study of the traditions about a book or books of Noah and about Noah himself. The subject is enormous, as will be seen from the chronological and geographical range of the material assembled here. Two questions were defined that focused the discussion and, consequently, the material presented in this book. The first was to assess references to a Noah writing in the Second Temple period, including segments of existing works that scholars had in the past attributed to a Noah writing. As a corollary of this, the traditions of Noah in other Second Temple period works were studied, first, to gain insight into their character and, second, to see whether distinct enough traditions survived in those, often incidental, references to witness to the existence of a Noachic writing or writings"--Data View.

An exciting development of recent years in the study of early Judaism and Christianity has been the growing recognition of the importance of the extra-biblical traditions for understanding these religious movements apocryphal and pseudepigraphical literature, the Dead Sea Scrolls, and the Nag Hammadi Gnostic texts. One major source for surviving works and traditions, however, has been largely ignored. This is the wealth of later Jewish and Christian (and to some extent Islamic) texts, citations, and traditions relating to biblical figures. One reason for the relative neglect of this material is that it is difficult to access, requiring a range of knowledge extending beyond the biblical traditions, through patristics, and into medieval studies. This book is designed to provide access to some of these complex traditions and to do it in such a way as to present the reader both with specialized insights and also with a work of general reference value. An international array of outstanding scholars treat the evolution of the biographical traditions of some fourteen biblical figures during the second temple, late antique, and medieval periods: Adam and Eve (Gary A. Anderson), Seth (John D. Turner), Enosh (Steven D. Fraade), Enoch (Philip S. Alexander), Noah (Devorah Dimant), Abraham (George W. E. Nickelsburg), Melchizedek (Birger A. Pearson), Levi (Marinus de Jonge and Johannes Tromp), Joseph (Harm W. Hollander), Baruch (J. Edward Wright), Ezekiel (Benjamin G. Wright, Aviva Schussman), Ezra and Nehemiah (Theodore A. Bergren). The figures were selected on the grounds of the richness and interest of the traditions connected with them and their importance in the thought worlds of early Judaism and Christianity. Michael E. Stone is Gail Levin de Nur Professor of Religion and Professor of Armenian Studies at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and co-author of Faith and Piety in Early Judaism: Texts and Documents, also published by Trinity Press. Theodore Bergren is Associate Professor of Religion at the University of Richmond (Virginia). 1999 Biblical Archaeology Society Publication Award for the category Best Book Relating to the Old Testament>

This book is a collection of readings from Sallie McFague's most essential theological works. In this collection, Sallie McFague offers a lucid and powerful guide to theological thinking about God and the world, individual and community, humanity and nature, reality and metaphor, the sacramental and the prophetic, and the critical issue of climate change. She calls Christians to new feeling, new acting, and new thinking.

Ancient Judaism questions a broad range of basic assumptions made by students of Second Temple Judaism and calls for a radical rethinking of approaches to Jewish history studies. Michael Stone challenges theologically conditioned histories of ancient Judaism devised by later orthodoxies, whether Jewish or Christian, and he stresses the importance of understanding religious experience as a major factor in the composition of ancient religious documents. Addressing the Dead Sea Scrolls and apocalyptic literature as well as recent theories, Stone emphasizes the stunning complexity of both the raw data and the resulting picture of Judaism in antiquity.

Jewish writings from the period of Second Temple present a rich and potentially overwhelming variety of first-hand materials. George W. E. Nickelsburg and Michael E. Stone, experts on this formative period, have updated their classic sourcebook on Jewish beliefs and practices to take into account current thinking about the sources and to include new documents, including texts from Qumran not available in the first edition, in a brilliantly organized synthesis. Included are chapters on Jewish sects and parties, the Temple and worship in it, ideals of piety and conduct, expectations concerning deliverance, judgment, and vindication, different conceptions of the agents of God's activity, and the figure of Lady Wisdom in relationship to Israel.