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This volume presents selected papers read at the first meeting of the Society for Jewish and Biblical Studies in Central Europe, in Piliscsaba, Hungary, February 2009, but does not publish the proceedings of this meeting (for a clarification see here).The papers investigate various aspects of the concept "Stranger" in Jewish tradition, from the Hebrew Bible to Mediaeval Jewish thought. The bulk of the material focuses on Early Jewish literature, which mirrors an intensive interaction with the Hellenistic system of thought, and the development of concurring Jewish interpretations of traditional values. The papers of the volume provide insightful case studies about the formation of Jewish identity in diverse periods of Israelite and Jewish history, as well as the different attitudes to strangers, being either outsiders, or belonging to opposing sects of Judaism itself. The reader finds essays of historical, literary, and hermeneutical attention; of interest also to scholars of various forms of ancient and mediaeval Judaism.
This study uses early Jewish sources to analyze the significance of Day of Atonement and High Priest imagery in the narrative of Simon Peter’s threefold denial of Jesus. It then describes the influence of other early Jewish sources on Jesus’ commissioning his main disciple Simon Peter as his own successor in John 21:15-19. Aus relates this event to Moses’ commissioning his main disciple Joshua as his successor.
In its famous opening chapter, the Hebrew Bible describes creation as consisting of twin acts of making and separating: God creates light on the first day and then separates it from the darkness, just as on the next day God creates the firmament and then sets it in place to separate the waters above from the waters below. And so it follows, at least in theory, that when human beings seek to create through the medium of their own artistry, creativity, or industry—and are obviously unable to mimic the uniquely divine act of creation ex nihilo—they seek to do so through the one part of the process they can imitate: separation. Indeed, the famous quip that the correct way to make a statue of a horse is to take a huge block of marble and then to chip away the parts that don’t look like a horse is just an amusing way of suggesting the same idea: namely, that the human creative process involves the perception of something embedded within something else and then the subsequent liberation of that thing from its former setting so that it may exist on its own and in its own right.
This Festschrift honours Günter Stemberger on the occasion of his 75th birthday on 7 December 2015 and contains 41 articles from colleagues and students. The studies focus on a variety of subjects pertaining to the history, religion and culture of Judaism – and, to a lesser extent, of Christianity – from late antiquity and the Middle Ages to the modern era.
Robert Phenix investigates the collection of twelve Syriac poetic sermons recounting the story of Joseph in Genesis 37 and 39-50. The authorship of these poems has been disputed, but this is the first study to attempt to argue from all aspects of the evidence that Balai of Qenneshrin is the author. The study then examines all of the data that can be associated with Balai: the religious environment of Qenneshrin and nearby Aleppo, Balai's connections with the monk-bishops of central Syria in the late fourth and early fifth centuries, particularly Acacius of Beroea/Aleppo and Rabbula of Edessa, the status of chorbishops, and the presence of Syriac speakers. Since it is argued in this study tha...
The present volume is devoted to the study of the life and work of Moritz (Moshe) Steinschneider (1816-1907). It shows that far from being a “mere bibliographer,” Steinschneider pursued a precise scientific agenda. This is a noteworthy contribution to our understanding of the project of the Wissenschaft des Judentums.
Concepts of voluntary death and martyrdom versus the ideal of preserving human life are an essential component of the Ethics of the Abrahamite religions throughout their history. The studies collected in this volume focus on concepts of voluntary death and martyrdom in the Hebrew Bible, Second Temple Period Judaism, Early Christianity and its pagan environment, Rabbinic Judaism as well as in Islam. The contributions of scholars of different background present a broad panorama of the varied perspectives of the Abrahamite religions on this phenomenon. The established concepts of martyrdom are challenged as too schematic. Betrachtungen über das Ideal eines freiwilligen Todes für den eigenen G...
In Pirqei deRabbi Eliezer: Structure, Coherence, Intertextuality Katharina E. Keim offers a description of the literary character of Pirqei deRabbi Eliezer, an enigmatic work of the late-eighth-to-early-ninth centuries CE. Katharina E. Keim explores the work’s distinctive literary features through an analysis of its structure and coherence. These literary features, when taken together with the work’s intertextual relationships with antecedent and contemporaneous Christian and Jewish (rabbinic and non-rabbinic) texts, reveal Pirqei deRabbi Eliezer to be an innovative work, and throw light on a new turn in Jewish literature following the rise of Islam.
The art of interpreting Holy Scriptures flourished throughout the culturally heterogeneous pre-modern Orient among Jews, Christians and Muslims. Different ways of interpretation developed within each religion not without considering the others. How were the interactions and how productive were they for the further development of these traditions? Have there been blurred spaces of scholarly activity that transcended sectarian borders? What was the role played by mutual influences in profiling the own tradition against the others? These and other related questions are critically treated in the present volume.
In The Wandering Throne of Solomon: Objects and Tales of Kingship in the Medieval Mediterranean Allegra Iafrate analyzes the circulation of artifacts and literary traditions related to king Solomon, particularly among Christians, Jews and Muslims, from the 10th to the 13th century. The author shows how written sources and objects of striking visual impact interact and describes the efforts to match the literary echoes of past wonders with new mirabilia. Using the throne of Solomon as a case-study, she evokes a context where Jewish rabbis, Byzantine rulers, Muslim ambassadors, Christian sovereigns and bishops all seem to share a common imagery in art, technology and kingship.