Jewish Studies

Since its inception at the beginning of the twentieth century, form criticism has diminished in popularity and use in recent years. Bryan H. Cribb’s studies demonstrates that, if appropriately modified, form criticism still has much to add to Old Testament studies. Using a synchronic and inductive approach to the text, Cribb engages in a form critical study of nine “death stories” in the Old Testament. In so doing, he not only provides substantial support for the existence of this genre, but he also shows how remarkably fruitful such a study can be in revealing the messages of these accounts.

This volume incorporates all the articles and reviews published in Volume 8 (2008) of the Journal of Hebrew Scriptures.

This volume consists of 14 papers delivered by Assyriologists and biblical specialists at the 2007 Society of Biblical Literature congress in sessions devoted to the scholarly legacy of the late Tikva Frymer-Kensky, Professor of the Hebrew Bible at the Divinity School of the University of Chicago.

This book describes the influence of Epicurus on Judaism. Judaism is the only national culture which has adopted the name of this Greek philosopher, using it as a term designating Jews who believe in freedom to choose their way of life, without obligation to obey religious precepts. Today, most Jews live as "Apikorsim". The heresy implicit in the denial of the existence of a personal God includes a denial of belief in life after death. Apikorsim believe that the purpose of life and of morality is found in striving for happiness.

The humanistic, non-religious approach of this book presents Judaism as the Culture of the Jewish People and God as a literary figure created by the authors of the Bible. This book defines key concepts in the discourse of Judaism as Culture. It offers a concise version of the history of pluralism in Judaism during the biblical era, the Hellenistic period, the influence of the Talmudic "culture of dispute" and the asking of new questions, the influence of the secularization process on Judaism, the assimilation of Jews in foreign cultures, and the formation of Israeli culture.

An examination of the centres, patterns and elements of Jewish worship and the transition from Jewish worship to Christian. The study also considers the origin of several aspects of Christian worship.

Whereas many studies suggest or presuppose some link between Christian liturgical origins and the practices of Judaism the Jewish sources are hard to find and understand for Christian students without any background in early Judaism and its literature. This book presents some of the relevant sources in clear English, with accompanying material which sets the sources in their context and introduces the student to the debate about the relationship between Jewish and early Christian liturgy.

Authors of the Hebrew Bible had at least 17 different verbs which they could use to represent “leading” or “guiding” in the Hebrew Bible. What are these “verbs of leading” and how are they related to one another? Why did an author choose the particular “leading” verb he chose in a particular context? Every occurrence of a verb of leading in the Hebrew Bible is examined through the lens of semantic-role theory by assigning roles to each of the phrases typically used with the verbs. This study resolves some problem passages and supplements traditional lexicographical research.

This book explores the role of the biblical patriarch Abraham in the formation and use of authoritative texts in the Persian and Hellenistic periods. It reflects a conference session in 2009 focusing on Abraham as a figure of cultural memory in the literature of these periods. Cultural memory is the shared reproduction and recalling of what has been learned and retained. It also involves transformation and innovation. As a figure of memory, stories of Abraham served as guidelines for identity-formation and authoritative illustration of behaviour for the emerging Jewish communities.

Leo Wiener presents an overview of the history, culture, and language of the Jews who emigrated from Germany to Slavic countries and continued to speak a dialect of German.

Ancient Egyptian leaders sought to preserve the status quo by using not only their military might, but also enlisting magical rituals to help control any perceived threats to their way of life. Biblical leaders also sought to control their respective peoples by means of divine authority, brute force, and/or ritual actions. Examples of ritual actions by Moses and Jeremiah mimic those used by the ancient Egyptians in order to preserve or restore order to their given societies.

This volume combines Targum studies with Judaic studies. The author assigns different Targums each to a respective particular “Sitz im Leben”, stressing the close connection between Targum and Midrash literature. She challenges the assumption that all extant Targums were compiled for the Synagogue. Instead, she suggests that Targum Onqelos might have fulfilled a function in the context of the early beth din and demonstrates that Pseudo-Jonathan can be linked with the rhetorical practices which abounded in later amoraic, educational circles.

Was there an active Jewish-Christian polemic in fourth-century Persia? Aphrahat’s Demonstrations, a fourth-century adversus Judaeos text, clearly indicates that fourth-century Persian Christians were interested in the debate. Is there evidence of this polemic in the rabbinic literature? Despite the lack of a comparable Jewish or rabbinic adversus Christianos literature, there is evidence, both from Aphrahat and the Rabbis that this polemic was not one sided.

The Rabbis’ King-Parables: Midrash From the Third-Century Roman Empire examines the ancient Rabbis at work using parables about kings; parables that reflect the Rabbis' ideas about the role of the ruler in society, and the relationship of humanity to God. It considers the parables as resistance literature in light of the work of theorists of dominated groups. It is the first systematic attempt to read the parables as sources for Roman history in over 100 years.

This volume contains the Syriac text of one of Dionysius bar Salibi’s polemical writings, that against the Jews, based on a manuscript now located at the Harvard Semitic Museum. An English translation was promised by the editor, but never appeared.

The imagery of thunder and lightning, fire and earthquake which attends YHWH's theophany in Old Testament poetic texts has most often been interpreted as a series of metaphors in biblical scholarship. This work applies insights from recent work in metaphor theory and myth theory to argue that this traditional interpretation of poetic theophanic imagery is mistaken, and that these texts make better exegetical sense when understood against the background of the ANE myth of the defeat of chaos.

Using societal patterns of exploitation that are evidenced in agrarian societies from the Bronze Age to modern-day corporate globalization, Re-Reading the Prophets offers a new approach to understanding the hidden contexts behind prophetic complaints against economic injustice in eighth-century Judah.

The dating of some Archaic Biblical Hebrew poems to the late second millennium – early first millennium BCE on the basis of a handful of linguistic forms in common with second millennium Ugaritic and Amarna-Canaanite texts is brought into question. This critique highlights the problems with the arguments and hypotheses presented in the literature, and concludes that there is no compelling evidence to support the use of linguistic data for dating purposes.

Judaic reasoning is discussed from the standpoint of modern logic. Andrew Schumann defines Judaic logic, traces Aristotelian influence on developing Jewish studies in Judaic reasoning, and shows the non-Aristotelian core of fundamentals of Judaic logic. Further, Schumann proposes some modern approaches to understanding and formalizing Judaic reasoning, including Judaic semantics and (non-Aristotelian) syllogistics.

Contained in this volume are the Proceedings of the Midrash session of the SBL's annual conferences in 2008 and 2009. This volume contains eight essays dealing with various aspects of rabbinic interpretation.

The Sasanian Empire was home to many religious communities. It was also a place of meeting and transformation. The studies in this volume encompass a diverse array of topics concerning these religious communities inhabiting the Sasanian Empire. Some include the Roman East in their deliberations. Most, however, deal with the interaction of one or other religious community based in the Sasanian Empire with the dominant religion of the empire, Zoroastrianism.

In this volume, Funk addresses questions concerning Aphrahat’s possible relationship to Jewish sources. His method in the main part is to go through biblical passages that Aphrahat comments on and show parallels with rabbinic literature.

This work contains three dialogues on love, desire, and the love of God, by a Jewish physician and philosopher.

Erol Haker recounts the history of the Sephardic Jewish Adoto family, which originally hails from the town of Kirklareli. This is one of the few books to describe the Jewish population of Turkish Thrace.

This work is a study of Jewish history writing in the Ottoman Empire through various periods, including the Sabbatian movement, and how these writings have affected our understanding of Ottoman Jewish history today.