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Between Rome and Babylon includes over thirty papers by Aharon Oppenheimer about Jewish life in Palestine and Babylonia in the period of the Mishnah and the Talmud (1st-4th centuries), dealing with leadership and society, political and military activity, relations with the authorities and historical geography. The collection is organized around three inter-connected themes: 1 Roman Palestine and its Environs; 2 The Bar Kokhba Revolt; 3 Babylonia Judaica. About two-thirds of the papers were originally published in Hebrew. They have been selected and edited for this collection, and translated for the first time into English or German. The rest of the papers originally appeared in various diffe...
In The Second Jewish Revolt: The Bar Kokhba War, 132-136 C.E., Menahem Mor offers a detailed account on the Bar Kokhba Revolt in an attempt to understand the second revolt against the Romans. Since the Bar Kokhba Revolt did not have a historian who devoted a comprehensive book to the event, Mor used a variety of historical materials including literary sources (Jewish, Christian, Greek and Latin) and archaeological sources (inscriptions, coins, military diplomas, hideouts, and refuge complexes). The book reviews the causes for the outbreak while explaining the complexity of the territorial expansion of the Revolt. Mor portrays the participants and opponents as well as the attitudes of the non-Jewish population in Palestine. He exposes the Roman Army’s part in Judaea, the Jewish leadership and the implications of the Revolt.
Ishmael on the Border is an in-depth study of the rabbinic treatment of Abraham's firstborn son, Ishmael. This book examines Ishmael's conflicted portrayal over a thousand-year period and traces the shifts and nuances in his representation within the Jewish tradition before and after the emergence of Islam. In classical rabbinic texts, Ishmael is depicted in a variety of ways. By examining the biblical account of Ishmael's life, Carol Bakhos points to the tension between his membership in and expulsion from Abraham's household—on the one hand he is circumcised with Abraham, yet on the other, because of divine favor, his brother supplants him as primogenitor. The rabbis address his liminal ...
"Sharing many traditions and characteristics, the Gospel of Matthew, the letter of James, and the Didache invite comparative study. In this volume, internationally renowned scholars consider the three writings and the complex interrelationship between first-century Judaism and nascent Christianity. These texts likely reflect different aspects and emphases of a network of connected communities sharing basic theological assumptions and expressions." "Of particular importance for the reconstruction of the religious and social milieu of these communities are issues such as the role of Jewish law, the development of community structures, the reception of the Jesus tradition, and conflict manageme...
Francis Schmidt's works in various fields of religious studies (mainly ancient Judaism), can be characterized by three words: historiography, anthropological history, and comparatism. In that respect he placed himself in the continuation of previous French scholars, such as Maurice Halbwachs or Pierre Vidal-Naquet. Francis Schmidt also played an essential role in transmitting to a new generation of scholars the complex issues and debates concerning the Dead Sea scrolls and Qumranic research. The papers offered in this volume share all the same interest in ancient religions and the methodological devices previously mentioned. They offer a rare example of a large comparatism between Assyrian, Greek, Roman, Jewish, and Christian approaches of some essential social or intellectual issues, by some of the most competent specialists in each field.
Simon-Shoshan examines the neglected genre of rabbinic legal stories, arguing that this genre is crucial to understanding both rabbinic jurisprudence and rabbinic story-telling and challenging traditional distinctions between law and literature.
Social Studies of the sciences have long analyzed and exposed the constructed nature of knowledge. Pioneering studies of knowledge production in laboratories (e.g., Latour/Woolgar 1979; Knorr-Cetina 1981) have identified factors that affect processes that lead to the generation of scientific data and their subsequent interpretation, such as money, training and curriculum, location and infrastructure, biography-based knowledge and talent, and chance. More recent theories of knowledge construction have further identified different forms of knowledge, such as tacit, intuitive, explicit, personal, and social knowledge. These theoretical frameworks and critical terms can help reveal and clarify t...
Holy war, sanctioned or even commanded by God, is a common and recurring theme in the Hebrew Bible. Rabbinic Judaism, however, largely avoided discussion of holy war in the Talmud and related literatures for the simple reason that it became dangerous and self-destructive. Reuven Firestone's Holy War in Judaism is the first book to consider how the concept of ''holy war'' disappeared from Jewish thought for almost 2000 years, only to reemerge with renewed vigor in modern times. The revival of the holy war idea occurred with the rise of Zionism. As the necessity of organized Jewish engagement in military actions developed, Orthodox Jews faced a dilemma. There was great need for all to engage i...
This volume brings together a series of innovative studies on Roman, Byzantine, and Islamic Palestine, Qumran and the Dead Sea Scrolls, and ancient synagogues in honor of renowned archaeologist Jodi Magness.
"This collection of essays by Isaiah M. Gafni reflects over forty years of research on central issues of Jewish history in one of its formative eras. Questions relating to representations of the past, beginning with Josephus but primarily in rabbinic and post-rabbinic literature, represent an axial theme in this volume. Throughout the collection the author addresses the tension between realities on the ground and the historiography that shaped the image of that reality for all subsequent generations. Two specifc clusters of studies analyze the emergence and development of the Babylonian rabbinic community, as well as the complex relationship between the Judaean centre and the Jewish diaspora in Late Antiquity. A final selection of essays examines the impact of modern ideologies and revised methods of research on the image of Jewish life and rabbinic leadership in late antique Judaism."--