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This book explores the Tanhuma-Yelammedenu Literature, an important Jewish homiletic genre prevailing in late antiquity and early Byzantine Palestine. Originating in the culture of the study house, and addressing the synagogue audience, this literature allows us to follow the reception of the rabbinic culture in the wider Jewish society.
In this book various authors explore how rabbinic traditions that were formulated in the Land of Israel migrated to Jewish study houses in Babylonia. The authors demonstrate how the new location and the unique literary character of the Babylonian Talmud combine to create new and surprising texts out of the old ones. Some authors concentrate on inner rabbinic social structures that influence the changes the traditions underwent. Others show the influence of the host culture on the metamorphosis of the traditions. The result is a complex study of cultural processes, as shaped by a unique historical moment.
The Power of Parables documents the surprising ways in which Jewish and Christian parables bridge religion with daily life. This 2019 conference volume rediscovers the original power of parables to shock and affect their audience, which has since been reduced by centuries of preaching and repetition. Not only do parables enhance the perspective on Scripture or the kingdom of heaven, they also change the sensory regime of the audience in perceiving the outer world. The theological differences in their applications appear secondary in view of their powerful rhetoric and suggest a shared genre.
This volume in the Bible and Women series is devoted to rabbinic literature from late Jewish antiquity to the early Middle Ages. Fifteen contributions feature different approaches to the question of biblical women and gender and encompass a wide variety of rabbinic corpora, including the Mishnah-Tosefta, halakhic and aggadic midrashim, Talmud, and late midrash. Some essays analyze biblical law and gender relations as they are reflected in the rabbinic sages’ argumentation, while others examine either the rabbinic portrayal of a certain woman or a group of women or the role of biblical women in a specific rabbinic context. Contributors include Judith R. Baskin, Yuval Blankovsky, Alexander A. Dubrau, Cecilia Haendler, Tal Ilan, Gail Labovitz, Moshe Lavee, Lorena Miralles-Maciá, Ronit Nikolsky, Susanne Plietzsch, Natalie C. Polzer, Olga I. Ruiz-Morell, Devora Steinmetz, Christiane Hannah Tzuberi, and Dvora Weisberg.
For many, the Middle Ages in general evokes a sense of the sinister and brings to mind a world of fear, superstition, and religious fanaticism. For Jews it was a period marked by persecutions, pogroms, and expulsions. Yet at the same time, the Middle Ages was also a time of lively cultural exchange and heightened creativity for Jews. In The Jewish Middle Ages, contributors explore the ways in which the stories of biblical women, including, Eve, Sarah, Hagar, Rebekah, Zipporah, Ruth, Esther, and Judith, make their way into the rich tapestry of medieval Jewish literature, mystical texts, and art, particularly in works emanating from Ashkenazic circles. Contributors include Carol Bakhos, Judith R. Baskin, Elisheva Baumgarten, Dagmar Börner-Klein, Constanza Cordoni, Rachel Elior, Meret Gutmann-Grün, Robert A. Harris, Yuval Katz-Wilfing, Sheila Tuller Keiter, Katrin Kogman-Appel, Gerhard Langer, Aurora Salvatierra Ossorio, and Felicia Waldman. These essays give us a glimpse into the role women played and the authority they assumed in medieval Jewish culture beyond the rabbinic centers of Palestine and Babylonia.
Blood for Thought delves into a relatively unexplored area of rabbinic literature: the vast corpus of laws, regulations, and instructions pertaining to sacrificial rituals. Mira Balberg traces and analyzes the ways in which the early rabbis interpreted and conceived of biblical sacrifices, reinventing them as a site through which to negotiate intellectual, cultural, and religious trends and practices in their surrounding world. Rather than viewing the rabbinic project as an attempt to generate a nonsacrificial version of Judaism, she argues that the rabbis developed a new sacrificial Jewish tradition altogether, consisting of not merely substitutes to sacrifice but elaborate practical manuals that redefined the processes themselves, radically transforming the meanings of sacrifice, its efficacy, and its value.
Menahem Schmelzer, widely recognized for his expertise in Jewish manuscripts and piyyut, has also influenced Jewish liturgical research of the past half century. This collection of sixteen academic studies, by Israeli, European, and American scholars, honors Schmelzer's contribution. The contributors represent three generations, and their topics and methods testify to the vast subject area that Jewish liturgy has become. The articles explore a wide variety of texts and ritual occasions, the relationship between text and worship experience, and implications for related areas such as mysticism; most apply the methods of other subject areas such as liguistics to liturgical study and its implications for related fields. "...this volume, as a whole, is as much a testimony to the enduring centrality of the librarian in scholarship as it is a collection of essays on "the experience of Jewish liturgy." Wide ranging in scope, these essays are an accurate snapshot of the state of research, illustrating the wealth of material awaiting publication, the need for revisiting prior assumptions, and also the limits of our scholarship." Yoel Kahn, Congregation Beth El, Berkeley
In this book, Steven Fraade explores the practice and conception of multilingualism and translation in ancient Judaism. Interrogating the deep and dialectical relationship between them, he situates representative scriptural and other texts within their broader synchronic - Greco-Roman context, as well as diachronic context - the history of Judaism and beyond. Neither systematic nor comprehensive, his selection of Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek primary sources, here fluently translated into clear English, best illustrate the fundamental issues and the performative aspects relating to translation and multilingualism. Fraade scrutinizes and analyzes the texts to reveal the inner dynamics and the pedagogical-social implications that are implicit when multilingualism and translation are paired. His book demonstrates the need for a more thorough and integrated treatment of these topics, and their relevance to the study of ancient Judaism, than has been heretofore recognized.
Accommodates both the cosmopolitan narrative of the Jewish diaspora with traditional Jews and their culture.
The book of Esther was a conscious reaction to much of the conventional wisdom of its day, challenging beliefs regarding the Jerusalem Temple, the land of Israel, Jewish law, and even God. Aaron Koller identifies Esther as primarily a political work, and shows that early reactions ranged from ignoring the book to 'rewriting' Esther in order to correct its perceived flaws. But few biblical books have been read in such different ways, and the vast quantity of Esther-interpretation in rabbinic literature indicates a conscious effort by the Rabbis to present Esther as a story of faith and traditionalism, and bring it into the fold of the grand biblical narrative. Koller situates Esther, and its many interpretations, within the intellectual and political contexts of Ancient Judaism, and discusses its controversial themes. His innovative line of enquiry will be of great interest to students and scholars of Bible and Jewish studies.