Religion

A multidisciplinary study of W.G. Sebald's concerns in German-Jewish history, traces, displacement, and memory of an evocative past, as can be found in his writings on the city of Manchester.

This anthology brings to English-language readers the riches of the Judaeo-Persian literary tradition produced by the Jewish community of Iran between the eighth and nineteenth centuries. Most of the translations were prepared specifically for this anthology from unpublished manuscripts. Extensive notes accompany each selection to clarify its meaning in Jewish and Islamic history and legend.

This collection of short case studies considers the issue of normatively in Judaism and Jewish identity. The questions of how and why certain aspects of Jewish life and thought come to be regarded as authoritative or normative, rather than inauthentic or marginal, have been and continue to be contentious ones. Topics include the philosopher Moses Maimonides, the composer Felix Mendelssohn, the self-perception of communal leadership in Manchester during the nineteenth- and twentieth-centuries, sermons of Jewish Reform rabbis during the Second World War, Orthodox rabbinic debate about war in general, representations of Jews in photographic exhibitions, the idea of Jewish music, and the academic study of Judaism itself.

John Wansbrough is famous for his pioneering studies on the “sectarian milieu” out of which Islam emerged. In his view, Islam grew out of different - albeit rather marginal - Jewish and Christian traditions. In the present volume, which is dedicated to Wansbrough’s memory, specialists in Islamic studies and students of the Jewish and early Christian traditions summarise Wansbrough’s achievements in the past thirty years and chart the future of the tradition study of the “sectarian milieu.”

The first English translation and study of St. Hippolytus' fascinating, early third-century commentary 'On the Song of Songs'. Important for the history of biblical interpretation, rival identities of early Christians, liturgy, and mystagogy in the pre-Constantinian church.

The Holocaust has provoked many different Jewish theological responses, yet upon closer inspection interesting commonalities can be observed between even seemingly antithetical thinkers. One of these common trends within Holocaust theology has been the rejection and replacement of traditional theodicies which explain and justify suffering, with responses centred on ideas of recovery, consolation and divine mystery. Another widespread, though largely unrecognized trend is use of Jewish mystical themes by Holocaust theologians. This study shows how the presence of Jewish mysticism can be explained, at least in part, by this post-Holocaust collapse of theodicy.

In this treatise, John the Solitary (ca. 390) enters into a dialogue with two disciples who have come past the beginning stage of the spiritual life and have brought him their struggle against the passions in the life of the inner person (barnâšâ gawwâyâ). John’s description of the life of the soul is outlined here in a framework of the stages of the spiritual life. Included is his analysis of the passions, showing very little if any Evagrian influence. The Dialogue on the Soul is a difficult text. It is hoped that this Syriac-English presentation will enable others to take the discussion forward. John’s genial thought merits this.

"When people prayed, they expected their gods to come," wrote Robin Lane Fox, providing the impetus for this volume of collected essays exploring the concept of how the ancients “envisioned” the deities within various ancient religious traditions. The perspectives of Judaism, Gnosticism, Syriac Christianity, Byzantium, and Classical Greco-Roman religion and philosophy are considered. Specific emphasis is given to phenomena such as dreams, visions, and initiatory rites mediating the divine encounter.

In recent years, the Qur’ān has come to the forefront of scholarly investigations in Islamic studies. However, the traditional interpretation of the book, commonly termed tafsīr, remains a vast, virtually untapped field of investigation. Many Muslims tend to ignore the material, seeing it as a storehouse of traditional restraints, and scholars frequently gloss over its importance as a historical record of the Muslim community, not appreciating the depth and breadth of the literature. The essays gathered here expose and explore various aspects of the field of tafsīr, and their potential for scholarly research.

This volume incorporates all the articles and reviews published in Volume 10 (2010) of the Journal of Hebrew Scriptures.

The fourth published colloquia of the International Syriac Language Project (ISLP), presenting papers from an international team of authors working to develop contemporary, interdisciplinary approaches to linguistics and lexicography.

The fifth published colloquia of the International Syriac Language Project (ISLP), presenting papers from an international team of authors working to develop contemporary, interdisciplinary approaches to linguistics and lexicography.

Kubaba is a peer-reviewed journal which specializes in the geographical region of Southwest Asia, the Eastern Mediterranean, and the Aegean before the Classical Era. It publishes articles, notes, news and reviews.

Collected essays on aspects of daily life at the Israelite site of Tell en-Nasbeh (biblical Mizpah of Benjamin). These include: trade and economy, death and burial, metals, cooking, water management, curation of the site’s materials, and a site bibliography.

In this innovative book Simon Lasair explores some of the potentials of applying narratology to the Pentateuch Targums. Lasair argues that when the targums present coherent narratives, they largely carry the major structures of the Pentateuch over into an Aramaic context. This book calls for a wide ranging rethink of the methodologies used to study targumic literature, as well as how to place the targums within their original historical contexts.

This volume is part of a series of English translations of the Syriac Peshitta along with the Syriac text carried out by an international team of scholars.

David the king, when studied against the backdrop of existing material cultural remains from the ancient Middle East, scarcely seems to have been there. Excavations in Jerusalem have turned up nothing concrete about his existence. The literature concerning him is fraught with problems and generally takes on a legendary-mythological character. Even the meaning of his name is unclear. If he is mentioned at all by his contemporary monarchs against whom he would have fought it is only obliquely or only intimated by omissions or partial spellings in context. This volume attempts to advance scholarship addressing these concerns.

Job finds himself in a situation similar to one experienced by everyone at some point in his or her life. He wants answers to questions concerning what has happened to him, since he lived his life according to the traditional wisdom and rules of conduct, asking what has gone wrong and why. The Book of Job raises fundamental questions of both the actions and expectations of humans and deities, and asks whether a clear understanding can be reached between them. The contributing essays to this anthology help advance and sharpen both the questions and the responses to that question.

Melilah is an interdisciplinary peer-reviewed journal concerned with Jewish law, history, literature, religion, culture and thought in the ancient, medieval and modern eras. Contributors (2008) include Tobias Green, David Lincicum, Daniel R. Langton, Dan Garner, and Giula F. Miller.

In this volume, a reprint of his 1966 monograph, H. J. W. Drijvers investigates the life and teachings of Bardaisan of Edessa, determining his place in the religious and cultural life of Edessa in the second half of the second century of the common era.

The fame of the martyr St. Phokas, first bishop of Sinope (on the Black Sea) and patron of seafarers, had spread to many parts of the Christian world by the fifth and sixth centuries. Although the Acts of his martyrdom under Trajan were composed in Greek, the earliest witness to them is the Syriac translation which is edited and translated here from two early manuscripts.

This volume is a good quality reprint of the 1920 edition of Augustin Périer's classic text. It will be of interest to scholars working in the fields of philosophy, theology and Christian Arabic studies.

Moses bar Kepha: Commentary on Myron is an important witness to the history of the West Syriac Liturgy. Fr. Baby Varghese has translated the Syriac text into English for the first time.

Volume 12 includes articles by Françoise Briquel Chatonnet, Kyle Smith, Adam Lehto, Mar Awa David Royel, Bernard Heyberger, Nasir al-Kaʿbi, Amir Harrak and Khalid Dinno.

This is the fifth issue of Proceedings of the Midrash Section at the Annual Meeting of the Society of Biblical Literature published in this series, and contains six papers on Jewish and Black biblical hermeneutics with regard to Rabbinic Midrash.