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Half a century ago, the primary contours of the history of the Jews in Roman times were not subject to much debate. This standard account collapsed, however, when a handful of insights undermined the traditional historical method, the method long enlisted by historians for eliciting facts from sources. In response to these insights, a new historical method gradually emerged. Rewriting Ancient Jewish History critiques the traditional historical method and makes a case for the new one, illustrating how to write anew ancient Jewish history. At the heart of the traditional historical method lie three fundamental presumptions. The traditional historical method regularly presumes that multiple ver...
"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...
The Jewish diasporic experience stands out in its remarkable scope, duration and cohesiveness. Communication is the dynamic mechanism that negotiates the interplay of these factors; hence this volume on Jewish Diasporic Communications. The Jewish Diaspora is unique in another way too: through most of their exilic experience, Jews did not have a geographical center to which they could orient themselves. The perspective guiding this volume is that the center of the Jewish Diaspora has been the communicative network linking its scattered communities in space, and the media serving its continuity through historical time. This Diasporic network has sustained a common flow of shared content between Jews and Jewish communities, let alone the imagination of connectedness. Thus, Diaspora Jews as Jews, and the People they comprise, existed—to invoke John Dewey—“in communication.” The studies in this volume, spanning antiquity and modernity and crossing disciplinary boundaries, provide together a broad-ranging and in-depth account of how a People can survive for millennia, without a homeland, but in communication.
Jenny R. Labendz shows that despite the highly internal and self-referential nature of rabbinic Torah study, some ancient rabbis believed that the involvement of non-Jews in rabbinic intellectual culture was an enriching aspect of rabbinic learning and teaching.
From the image offered by the Babylonian Talmud, Jewish elites were deeply embedded within the Sasanian Empire (224-651 CE). The Talmud is replete with stories and discussions that feature Sasanian kings, Zoroastrian magi, fire temples, imperial administrators, Sasanian laws, Persian customs, and more quotidian details of Jewish life. Yet, in the scholarly literature on the Babylonian Talmud and the Jews of Babylonia , the Sasanian Empire has served as a backdrop to a decidedly parochial Jewish story, having little if any direct impact on Babylonian Jewish life and especially the rabbis. Babylonian Jews and Sasanian Imperialism in Late Antiquity advances a radically different understanding of Babylonian Jewish history and Sasanian rule. Building upon recent scholarship, Simcha Gross portrays a more immanent model of Sasanian rule, within and against which Jews invariably positioned and defined themselves. Babylonian Jews realized their traditions, teachings, and social position within the political, social, religious, and cultural conditions generated by Sasanian rule.
JEWISH LAW AND IDENTITY is the second book in the Hermit Kingdom Studies in Christianity and Judaism, an academic monograph series in Hebrew, Jewish, and Early Christian Studies. This book contains 9 academic essays relating to the theme of Jewish law and identity. Chapter one compares English contract law (Law of Privity of Contracts) with Jewish contract law as found in the book of Genesis (the Abrahamic covenant). Chapters two and three discuss Jewish Rabbinic Law and its relevance for understanding Jewish identity in the period of the composition of the documents. Chapters four, five and seven discuss Jewish individual and group identity as found in the Old Testament, particularly in rel...
This Noble House explores the preoccupation with biblical genealogy that emerged among Jews in the Islamic Near East between the eleventh and fourteenth centuries. Arnold Franklin looks to Jewish society's fascination with Davidic ancestry, examining the profusion of claims to the lineage that had already begun to appear by the year 1000, the attempts to chart the validity of such claims through elaborate genealogical lists, and the range of meanings that came to be ascribed to the House of David in this period. Jews and Muslims shared the perception that the Davidic line and the noble family of the Prophet Muhammad were counterparts to one another, but captivation with Davidic lineage was j...
"Over the past generation, several major discoveries and methodological innovations have led scholars to reevaluate the foundations of Judaism. The Dead Sea Scrolls are the most famous, but other materials have further altered our understanding of Judaism's development after the Biblical era. This volume explores some of the latest clues into how early Judaism took shape ..."--Back cover.
Academic rivalries, medical ethics, child brides, the social etiquette of gift-giving-these and many other familiar issues have a long and fascinating history among the diverse communities and personalities that have made their contributions to the Jewish tradition. Unfortunately, this enthralling lore is often known only to scholarly specialists or readers of esoteric academic journals and monographs, much of it unavailable in English. In the present collection of short studies, Eliezer Segal introduces the public to the fruits of Judaic scholarship, while employing a charming style that combines erudition and wit. On the Trails of Tradition is a worthy successor to the author's acclaimed collections: Why Didn't I Learn That in Hebrew School? (1999), Ask Now of the Days that Are Past (2005) and A Meeting-Place for the Wise (2008).
In Religious Stories in Transformation: Conflict, Revision and Reception, the editors present a collection of essays that reveal both the many similarities and the poignant differences between ancient myths in Judaism, Christianity, Islam, and modern secular culture and how these stories were incorporated and adapted over time. This rich multidisciplinary research demonstrates not only how stories in different religions and cultures are interesting in their own right, but also that the process of transformation in particular deserves scholarly interest. It is through the changes in the stories that the particular identity of each religion comes to the fore most strikingly.