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In Illuminating in Micrography, Dalia-Ruth Halperin analyzes the Catalan Micrography Maḥzor, a fourteenth-century Barcelonan manuscript in Israel’s National Library. Decorated with micrography, the Jewish scribal art typical of Bible manuscripts, this maḥzor, which includes a rich full-page panel micrography cycle, is unique. Along with the codicological and paleographical analysis, essential for understanding the scribe’s thought and working processes, the author’s meticulous reading of the micrography text reveals the scribe’s textual editing and manipulations. Decoding his writing flow and sequences revealed a close association between the penned text and the images formed, which reflect a Jewish theosophical-theurgical cycle. Evidence of the scribe’s association with the renowned Bassa atelier enhances our knowledge of the cultural, economic, and ethnic realities of the time.
This volume brings together the latest scholarship on Jewish literary products and the ways in which they can be interpreted from three different perspectives. In part 1, contributors consider texts as literature, as cultural products, and as historical documents to demonstrate the many ways that early Jewish, rabbinic, and modern secular Jewish literary works make meaning and can be read meaningfully. Part 2 focuses on exegesis of specific biblical and rabbinic texts as well as medieval Jewish poetry. Part 3 examines medieval and early modern Jewish books as material objects and explores the history, functions, and reception of these material objects. Contributors include Javier del Barco, ...
The nineteen essays assembled in this Festschrift represent the multiplicity of interests evident in Elisabeth (Elisheva) Revel-Neher’s work. They cover a variety of subjects dealing with pictorial messages encrypted in various artistic media, and address a broad array of topics: Jewish identity in the late antique period; patronage in late antique Jewish and Christian religious architecture; Jewish-Christian polemics and the representation of the “Other”; the question of Jewish or Christian illuminators of Hebrew books; the cultural background of illustrations in Hebrew manuscripts; Christian cosmology and dogma; the imagery of the Temple; and Jewish and Christian perceptions of women. Contributors are Rivka Ben-Sasson, Walter Cahn, Evelyn Cohen, Andreina Contessa, Eva Frojmovic, Lihi Habas, Dalia-Ruth Halperin, Colum Hourihane, Emma Maayan-Fanar, Herbert L. Kessler, Katrin Kogman-Appel, Shulamit Laderman, Mati Meyer, Bezalel Narkiss, Kurt Schubert, Sarit Shalev-Eyni, Margo Stroumsa-Uzan, Rina Talgam.
A sweeping exploration of the shaping role of animal skins in written culture and human imagination over three millennia "Richly detailed and illustrated. . . . An engaging exploration of book history."--Kirkus Reviews For centuries, premodern societies recorded and preserved much of their written cultures on parchment: the rendered skins of sheep, cows, goats, camels, deer, gazelles, and other creatures. These remains make up a significant portion of the era's surviving historical record. In a study spanning three millennia and twenty languages, Bruce Holsinger explores this animal archive as it shaped the inheritance of the Euro-Mediterranean world, from the leather rolls of ancient Egypt ...
Spanning the Strait: Studies in Unity in the Western Mediterranean brings together a multidisciplinary collection of essays that examines the deep connections that bound together the Iberian Peninsula and the Maghrib in the medieval and early modern periods. Six articles on topics ranging from the eighth-century slave trade to sixteenth-century apocalypticism trace and analyze movement, mutual influence and patterns shared in the face of political, religious, and cultural difference. By transcending traditional disciplinary and temporal divisions, this collection of essays highlights the long history of contact and exchange that united the two sides of the Strait of Gibraltar. A comprehensive introduction by the editors contextualizes the articles within the last half-century of scholarship and salient contemporary trends. Contributors are Adam Gaiser, Linda G. Jones, Hussein Fancy, S.J. Pearce, David Coleman, and Marya T. Green-Mercado.
This book discusses the decoration types of Sephardic illuminated Bibles in their broader historical, and social context in an era of cultural transition in Iberia and culture struggle within Spanish Jewry.
Following Levita’s statement, the Masorah transmitted by medieval illuminated manuscripts was generally considered as less significant for the study of the biblical and masoretical knowledge in the Jewish world. The biblical codices produced in Ashkenaz were considerably disregarded compared to Spanish codices. Challenging this assertion, this work engages in a reflection on the link between the standard Eastern tradition and the Ashkenazic biblical text-culture of the 13th century. Élodie Attia provides an edition of thirteen cases taken from MS Vat. Ebr. 14, offering the oldest series of Masoretic notes written inside figurative and ornamental designs. Its critical apparatus offers an u...
In his academic career, that by now spans six decades, Daniel J. Lasker distinguished himself by the wide range of his scholarly interests. In the field of Jewish theology and philosophy he contributed significantly to the study of Rabbinic as well as Karaite authors. In the field of Jewish polemics his studies explore Judeo-Arabic and Hebrew texts, analyzing them in the context of their Christian and Muslim backgrounds. His contributions refer to a wide variety of authors who lived from the 9th century to the 18th century and beyond, in the Muslim East, in Muslin and Christian parts of the Mediterranean Sea, and in west and east Europe. This Festschrift for Daniel J. Lasker consists of four...
Judaism and Its Bible explores the profoundly deep yet complex relationship between Jews, Judaism, and the Hebrew Bible, describing the extraordinary two-and-a-half-millennia journey of a people and its book that has changed the world.
This book zeroes in on hidden writing and alternative systems of graphic notation, exploring writings that deflect attention from language.