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Le messianisme, projection d'une fin dans la temporalité humaine, fut sans doute à la source de nombreux bouleversements. Il peut inciter au quiétisme, mais il peut aussi se retourner vers l'activisme le plus effréné. L'idée d'une « fin de l'histoire », sous une face libérale ou démocratique, ne peut être qu'un leurre. Depuis deux siècles, soit depuis Hegel, l'Occident sécularisé a pu croire l'avoir atteinte ; or, depuis lors, l'histoire s'est déchaînée avec une violence inédite. Les Juifs se méfient de tout discours d'« accomplissement historique », lequel débouche souvent sur la tragédie. Le messianisme juif, à rebours de toute idéalisation, suggère que l'histoire ne s'achève jamais, qu'elle est toujours à reprendre dans la mise en oeuvre d'une « réparation » destinée à retrouver l'ordre originel de la Création. L'histoire est toujours ouverte vers une potentialité de justice non encore accomplie, et toujours à réaliser.

This book examines the oracle of deliverance that Yhwh communicated to Ebed-melech, the Cushite (Jer 39,15-18). In order to comprehend this analeptically presented promise, however, the research also scrutinizes two other related events in Jeremiah's mission in the context of Jer 37–39: i) the unpleasant incident in which the Jerusalem officials maliciously threw the Lord's messenger into the muddy cistern (Jer 38,1–6) and ii) Ebed-melech's benevolent intervention to rescue the prophet from the water reservoir (Jer 38,7-13). In this monograph, the author uses the historical-critical method and rhetorical & narrative analyses.

The Oxford Handbook of Historical Books of the Hebrew Bible is a collection of essays that provide resources for the interpretation of the books of Joshua, Judges, Samuel, Kings, Chronicles, Ezra, and Nehemiah. The volume is not exhaustive in its coverage, but examines interpretive aspects of these books that are deemed essential for interpretation or that are representative of significant trends in present and future scholarship. The individual essays are united by their focus on two guiding questions: (1) What does this topic have to do with the Old Testament Historical Books? and (2) How does this topic help readers better interpret the Old Testament Historical Books? Each essay critically surveys prior scholarship before presenting current and prospective approaches. Taking into account the ongoing debates concerning the relationship between the Old Testament texts and historical events in the ancient world, data from Assyrian, Babylonian, and Persian culture and history are used to provide a larger context for the content of the Historical Books. Essays consider specific issues related to Israelite/Judean history (settlement, state formation, monarchy, forced migration, and return) as they relate to the interpretation of the Historical Books. This volume also explores the specific themes, concepts, and content that are most essential for interpreting these books. In light of the diverse material included in this section of the Old Testament, the Handbook further examines interpretive strategies that employ various redactional, synthetic, and theory-based approaches. Beyond the Old Testament proper, subsequent texts, traditions, and cultures often received and interpreted the material in the Historical Books, and so the volume concludes by investigating the literary, social, and theological aspects of that reception.

Der Jalkut Schimoni ist ein Sammelwerk rabbinischer Auslegungen zur gesamten hebräischen Bibel. Unerforscht ist, nach welchen Kriterien die Auslegungen ausgewählt wurden und ob das Werk als umfassendes Nachschlagewerk für exegetische Fragen, zur Verbindung von Bibelauslegung in Talmud und Midrasch oder zur Reform der rabbinischen Auslegungstradition konzipiert wurde. Die Übersetzung des Werkes ist ein erster Schritt, diese Fragen zu beantworten.

Samson as God's Adulterous Wife reveals striking parallels between the depiction of Samson in the Book of Judges and the prophetic literature's metaphorical representations of Israel as an adulterous woman. This book endeavors to understand why Judges dwells on Samson's sexual and romantic relationships while the personal lives of the other six judges are not afforded the same narrative attention. M. Alroy Mascrenghe compares adulterous Samson with idolatrous Israel and argues that Samson's life is marked by the same cycles of adultery, bondage, crying out, and deliverance that structure the Book of Judges as a whole. Mascrenghe continues to pursue the theme of God's adulterous wife through a comparison of the Levite-concubine story of Judges 19 to that of Hosea and Gomer. Samson as God's Adulterous Wife demonstrates the author's own method for recognizing intertextual narrative allusions. Drawing from a wide variety of disciplines—including narratology, sociology, and theological hermeneutics—Samson as God's Adulterous Wife offers a fresh perspective on the role of the Samson story within the broader intertextual thematic space of the Hebrew Bible.

Remix Judaism: Preserving Tradition in a Diverse World offers an eloquent and thoughtful new vision for all Jews seeking a sense of belonging in a changing world, regardless of their current level of observance. Kwall sets out a process of selection, rejection, and modification of rituals that allow for a focus on Jewish tradition rather than on the technicalities of Jewish law. Her goal is not to sell her own religious practices to readers but, rather, to encourage them to find their own personal meaning in Judaism outside the dictates of Commandment by broadening their understanding of how law, culture and tradition fit together. In Remix Judaism, Kwall inspires her audience to be intentional and mindful about the space they allocate for these elements in defining their individual Jewish journeys and identities.

Rabbi on the Ganges: A Jewish-Hindu Encounter is the first work to engage the new terrain of Hindu-Jewish religious encounter.The book offers understanding into points of contact between the two religions of Hinduism and Judaism. Providing an important comparative account, the work illuminates key ideas and practices within the traditions, surfacing commonalities between the jnana and Torah study, karmakanda and Jewish ritual, and between the different Hindu philosophic schools and Jewish thought and mysticism, along with meditation and the life of prayer and Kabbalah and creating dialogue around ritual, mediation, worship, and dietary restrictions. The goal of the book is not only to unfold the content of these faith traditions but also to create a religious encounter marked by mutual and reciprocal understanding and openness.

The four kingdoms motif enabled writers of various cultures, times, and places, to periodize history as the staged succession of empires barrelling towards an utopian age. The motif provided order to lived experiences under empire (the present), in view of ancestral traditions and cultural heritage (the past), and inspired outlooks assuring hope, deliverance, and restoration (the future). Four Kingdom Motifs before and beyond the Book of Daniel includes thirteen essays that explore the reach and redeployment of the motif in classical and ancient Near Eastern writings, Jewish and Christian scriptures, texts among the Dead Sea Scrolls, Apocrypha and pseudepigrapha, depictions in European architecture and cartography, as well as patristic, rabbinic, Islamic, and African writings from antiquity through the Mediaeval eras.

Reaching from biblical times to the present day, Esther Benbassa's prize-winning exploration of Jewish identity is both epic and comprehensive. She shows how in the Jewish world, the representation and ritualization of suffering have shaped the history of both the people and the religion.Benbassa argues that the nineteenth century gave rise to a Jewish'lachrymose'historiography, and that Jewish history was increasingly seen to be a'vale of tears'-a development that has become even more pronounced since the Holocaust. The treatment of the Holocaust in the State of Israel now has the form of a civil religion. In principle within reach of everyone, the'duty of memory'and the uniqueness of the genocide have mitigated for many Jews the loss of other traditions. The Israeli government invokes the memory of the Holocaust to neutralize threats to its interests-ensuring that suffering continues to be a central part of Jewish identity and positioning the State of Israeli as a redemptive force.

Le judaisme rabbinique a pu notamment s'imposer en tant qu'orthodoxie grace a son importante production litteraire. Si les rabbins de l'antiquite ne cherchent pas a faire rire dans leurs textes, leur sens de l'humour ne passe pas inapercu. Bien que preoccupes principalement par la halakha, les tanna'im n'avaient pas moins d'humour que leurs successeurs, les amora'im. L'etude exhaustive des recits humoristiques dans la Mishna et la Tosefta permet de developper de nouvelles perspectives sur ces textes (parfois enigmatiques) et leurs protagonistes, tout particulierement sur les polemiques internes et externes au mouvement rabbinique, les traits de caractere de certains sages et leur maniere d'etudier et de penser, ainsi que l'evolution de l'humour entre les differents corpus rabbiniques (Talmud compris). L'humour juif trouve donc probablement ses premieres manifestations dans l'humour complexe et varie des tanna'im.

Die Perserzeit wird zunehmend als einer der bedeutendsten Abschnitte der israelitisch-jüdischen Geschichte entdeckt. Das geschieht sowohl im Hinblick auf die institutionengeschichtliche Entwicklung in Juda und Jerusalem als auch hinsichtlich neuer theologischer Konzepte und Entwicklungen der Literaturproduktion dieser Gegend. Joachim Schaper liefert einen Beitrag zur Erforschung des perserzeitlichen Juda. Er wendet sich dabei gegen die bisher übliche Beschränkung auf rein traditionsgeschichtliche Fragestellungen und geht statt dessen konsequent historisch vor. Er rekonstruiert die Lebenswelt der Priester und Leviten jener Zeit. Dabei stellt er neue Fragen und bringt religions-, sozial- und wirtschaftsgeschichtliche Positionen miteinander ins Gespräch. Dieses Vorgehen ermöglicht ein vertieftes Verständnis der Geschichte des nachexilischen Priestertums in ihrer ganzen Vielfalt. Joachim Schaper greift vor allem die Fragestellungen und Methoden Albrecht Alts, Marc Blochs und Max Webers auf, die für die weitere Erforschung der Geschichte Israels richtungweisend sind.

Nach den 1997 erschienenen Studien zu Mystik und Theologie des rabbinischen Judentums liegt nun der zweite und letzte Band der Gesammelten Studien von Arnold Goldberg vor. Im Mittelpunkt der Arbeiten des ersten Bandes standen vornehmlich zentrale inhaltliche Fragen rabbinischer Mystik und Theologie. Die neunzehn hier vorgelegten, zwischen 1974 und 1990 entstandenen Untersuchungen verstehen die rabbinische Literatur vor allem als methodologische Herausforderung. Die spezifische Eigenart dieser Literatur als Traditionsliteratur (im Gegensatz zur Autorenliteratur) besteht darin, daß ihre'Fragmente'oder'Zitate'aus ihrem ursprünglichen Kontext gelöst wurden und von Redaktoren in neue Formen eingebettet und zu neuen literarischen Einheiten gestaltet wurden. Arnold Goldberg betrachtete daher die Entwicklung einer formanalytischen Methode als vorrangige Aufgabe. Dadurch erst wird die Erforschung der einzelnen Formen, ihrer ursprünglichen und eigentümlichen Funktionen als selbständige literarische Formen, und die Entstehung neuer Formen und sekundärer Funktionen durch die Komposition möglich. Erst von der Form her kann die Aussage in ihren Gesamtzusammenhängen und in ihrem Bezugssystem erschlossen werden. Folgerichtig legte Arnold Goldberg nach einer ersten Studie zu Form und Funktion des Ma'ase in der Mischna seinen programmatischen und wegweisenden Entwurf einer formanalytischen Methode für die Exegese der rabbinischen Traditionsliteratur vor, dem er in den Folgejahren zahlreiche Einzeluntersuchungen folgen ließ. Im Zentrum seines methodologischen Interesses stehen rabbinische Texte als Gegenstand der Schriftauslegung, was zum Beispiel in den Arbeiten Das schriftauslegende Gleichnis im Midrasch, Die Schrift der rabbinischen Schriftausleger oder seinen Studien zu den Kompositionsformen der rabbinischen Homilie deutlich wird.

Tal Ilan explores the real, as against the ideal social, political and religious status of women in Palestinian Judaism of the Hellenistic and Roman periods. The main conclusions of this investigations are that extreme religious groups in Judaism of the period influenced other groups, classes and factions to tighten their control of women and represent the ideal relationships beween men and women as requiring greater chastity, in order to prove their piety. However, the lives of real women, over and against their representation in the literature of the time, and their relationships to men as opposed to the ideals represented by legal codes, were much more varied and nuanced. This book integrates both Jewish and Early Christian sources together with a feminist critique.'This book is a tour de force - a major piece of research and a'must read'for all concerned with the recovery of women's history.'Judith Romney Wegner in Journal of Biblical Literature 2 (1997), pp. 354'This fine collection of carefully analysed data will have lasting value...'Martin Goodman in Journal of Roman Studies vol. 88 (1998), p. 189'The scope of the work is impressive.'Joshua Schwartz in Journal of Jewish Studies 1 (1997), pp. 156

The Mediterranean Diaspora in Late Antiquity examines the fate of Jews living in the Mediterranean Jewish diaspora after the Roman emperor Constantine threw his patronage to the emerging orthodox (Nicene) Christian churches. By the fifth century, much of the rich material evidence for Greek and Latin-speaking Jews in the diaspora diminishes sharply. Ross Shepard Kraemer argues that this increasing absence of evidence is evidence of increasing absence of Jews themselves. Literary sources, late antique Roman laws, and archaeological remains illuminate how Christian bishops and emperors used a variety of tactics to coerce Jews into conversion: violence, threats of violence, deprivation of various legal rights, exclusion from imperial employment, and others. Unlike other non-orthodox Christians, Jews who resisted conversion were reluctantly tolerated, perhaps because of beliefs that Christ's return required their conversion. In response to these pressures, Jews leveraged political and social networks for legal protection, retaliated with their own acts of violence, and sometimes became Christians. Some may have emigrated to regions where imperial laws were more laxly enforced, or which were under control of non-orthodox (Arian) Christians. Increasingly, they embraced forms of Jewish practice that constructed tighter social boundaries around them. The Mediterranean Diaspora in Late Antiquity concludes that by the beginning of the seventh century, the orthodox Christianization of the Roman Empire had cost diaspora Jews--and all non-orthodox persons, including Christians--dearly.

In this study, Scott C. Ryan situates Paul's letter to the Romans as one voice among a number of Jewish voices that frame God as a divine warrior. He first investigates motifs related to divine conflict in Exodus 14-15, Amos, Isaiah, Ezekiel, and Daniel 7-12, along with 1 Enoch, Psalms of Solomon, Wisdom of Solomon, the War Scroll, and 4 Ezra. The author then places Romans in dialogue with the works of Paul's predecessors and near contemporaries. When Romans and these Jewish texts are placed alongside one another, Paul emerges as a writer who participates in Jewish divine conflict traditions. The apostle maintains Israel's eschatological hope in a warring deity even as he modifies that image in light of God's action in the Christ-event.

For many years, the historical-critical quest for a reconstruction of the origin(s) and development of the Pentateuch or Hexateuch has been dominated by the documentary hypothesis, the heuristic power of which has produced a consensus so strong that an interpreter who did not operate within its framework was hardly regarded as a scholar. However, the relentless march of research on this topic has continued to yield new and refined analyses, data, methodological tools, and criticism. In this spirit, the contributions to this volume investigate new ideas about the composition of the Pentateuch arising from careful analysis of the biblical text against its ancient Near Eastern background.Covering a wide spectrum of topics and diverging perspectives, the chapters in this book are grouped into two parts. The first is primarily concerned with the history of scholarship and alternative approaches to the development of the Pentateuch. The second focuses on the exegesis of particular texts relevant to the composition of the Torah. The aim of the project is to foster investigation and collegial dialogue in a spirit of humility and frankness, without imposing uniformity.In addition to the editors, the contributors include Tiago Arrais, Richard E. Averbeck, John S. Bergsma, Joshua A. Berman, Daniel I. Block, Richard Davidson, Roy E. Gane, Duane A. Garrett, Richard S. Hess, Benjamin Kilchör, Michael LeFebvre, Jiří Moskala, and Christian Vogel.

In this study, Domenico Lo Sardo shows that the section of MT Exod 35-40 dedicated to the construction of the Tabernacle involves textual and literary problems. It has different textual forms according to MT, LXX, and Vetus Latina (Monacensis ms): LXX Exod 35-40 shows a different order of the literary material and its extension is shorter than the MT. One of the most important differences is the absence of MT Exod 36:8b-34 in the LXX. The Monacensis ms is even shorter than the Greek text. In a text-critical analysis, the author demonstrates that the'Short Hebrew Vorlag e'behind the Latin manuscript is the oldest text. In the MT there was post-priestly editorial work marked by expansions, rewritings, and reinterpretations. Employing literary criticism, the author proves that with the expansion of Exod 36:8b-34 and the stressed use of the term miškān (Tabernacle), MT points to legitimate the centralization of the Jerusalem Temple.

Targum Chronicles and Its Place Among the Late Targums heralds a paradigm shift in the understanding of many of the Jewish-Aramaic translations of individual biblical books and their origins. Leeor Gottlieb provides the most extensive study of Targum Chronicles to date, leading to conclusions that challenge long-accepted truisms with regard to the origin of Targums. This book's trail of evidence convincingly points to the composition of Targums in a time and place that was heretofore not expected to be the provenance of these Aramaic gems of biblical interpretation. This study also offers detailed comparisons to other Targums and fascinating new explanations for dozens of aggadic expansions in Targum Chronicles, tying them to their rabbinic sources.

A constant re-evaluation of the new archaeological and textual material unearthed and edited in recent decades is a recurrent duty of ancient and modern scholars. Since the overwhelming amount of available data and the complexity of new methodologies can be competently handled only by specialized scholars, such a re-evaluation is no longer possible for a single scholar. For this reason, archaeologists, cuneiform and biblical scholars as well as classicists joined forces at an international conference in Rome in May 2017 to share their accumulated knowledge. The results of the proceedings are presented here in the oral stage along with the Assyrian, Babylonian, Persian, and Greco-Roman periods.

Judaism, Christianity and Islam: An Introduction to Monotheism shows how a shared monotheistic legacy frames and helps explain the commonalities and disagreements among Judaism, Christianity and Islam and their significant denominations in the world today. Taking a thematic approach and covering both historical and contemporary dimensions, the authors discuss how contemporary geographic and cultural contexts shape the expression of monotheism in the three religions. It covers differences between religious expressions in Israeli Judaism, Latin American Christianity and British Islam. Topics discussed include scripture, creation, covenant and identity, ritual, ethics, peoplehood and community, redemption, salvation, life after death, gender, sexuality and marriage. This introductory text, which contains over 30 images, a map, a timeline, chapter afterthoughts and critical questions, is written by three authors with extensive teaching experience, each a specialist in one of the three monotheistic traditions.

Max Webers Studie zur Religionssoziologie des antiken Judentums, die kurz vor seinem Tod abgeschlossen wurde, ist das methodisch ausgereifteste Werk und insofern eine Summe der religionssoziologischen Arbeiten Max Webers. Es zeigt die Bedeutung des antiken Judentums mit der Überwindung magischer Ethik für die Entstehung des rationalen Geistes der Moderne auf. Mit diesem Band der Gesamtausgabe wird ein umfangreiches handschriftliches Manuskript Max Webers zum antiken Judentum aus den Jahren 1911-1913 der wissenschaftlichen Öffentlichkeit vorgelegt, das die Genese von Max Webers Studien des antiken Judentums in neuem Licht erscheinen läßt. Max Webers Arbeitsweise wird durch dieses Manuskript'Ethik und Mythik / rituelle Absonderung'aus dem Max-Weber-Deponat der Bayerischen Staatsbibliothek, das sowohl in den'Religiösen Gemeinschaften'wie in den Studien des antiken Judentums rezipiert wurde, so verdeutlicht, daß es zum Verständnis des Gesamtwerks Max Webers neue Perspektiven beizutragen vermag. In einer ausführlichen Einleitung, die der Edition vorangestellt ist, entfaltet Eckart Otto Max Webers Rezeption der komplexen Diskussionen in der zeitgenössischen Alttestamentlichen Wissenschaft und Wissenschaft des Judentums, die den zum Verständnis der Studie des antiken Judentums unabdingbaren Hintergrund bilden.

Entre plusieurs sortes de Silence de l'être, Les Cinq Délivrances sont cinq bénédictions Divines pour éveiller en chaque humain les chemins entre la Pensée et la Parole, menant à la Connaissance de Dieu et à Ses Créations. Par sa vision intérieure, l'héroïne aveugle ira de la Parole - le Verbe incarné, le Christ - le fil de sept Marches initiatiques soutenues par les Lettres hébraïques : Aleph, Beith, Guimel, Daleth, Hé, Wav et Zahin, la guidant vers l'ouverture de la Grande Marche qu'évoque la Révélation ou l'Apocalypse de l'apôtre Jean. Ces Voies seront la remontée de l'Arbre de Vie avec ses trente-deux Sentiers ineffables de la Sagesse. Peu à peu, des visions mystiques se révèleront vers l'expérience extatique.

This monograph demonstrates that the book of Genesis is a result of highly creative, hypertextual reworking of the book of Deuteronomy. This detailed reworking consists of around 1,000 strictly sequentially organized conceptual, and at times also linguistic correspondences between Genesis and Deuteronomy. The strictly sequential, hypertextual dependence on Deuteronomy explains numerous surprising features of Genesis. The critical analysis of Genesis as a coherently composed hypertextual work disproves hypotheses of the existence in this writing of Priestly and non-Priestly materials or multiple literary layers.

This book unpacks the history of British-Israelism in the UK. Remarkably, this subject has had very little attention: remarkable, because at its height in the post-war era, the British-Israelist movement could claim to have tens of thousands of card-carrying adherents and counted amongst its membership admirals, peers, television personalities, MPs and members of the royal family including the King of England.British-Israelism is the belief that the people of Britain are the descendants of the Lost Tribes of Israel. It originated in the writing of a Scottish historian named John Wilson, who toured the country in the mid-Nineteenth Century. Providing a guide to the history of British-Israelism as a movement, including the formation of the British-Israel World Federation, Covenant Publishing, and other institutions, the book explores the complex ways in which British-Israelist thought mirrored developments in ethnic British nationalism during the Twentieth Century.A detailed study on the subject of British-Israelism is necessary, because British-Israelists constitute an essential element of British life during the most violent and consequential century of its history. As such, this will be a vital resource for any scholar of Minority Religions, New Religious Movements, Nationalism and British Religious History.

Philons Schrift De Migratione Abrahami ist ein allegorischer Kommentar zu Gen 12. Der Auszug Abrahams aus seiner chaldäischen Heimat wird von Philon allegorisch auf den Auszug der Seele aus der Sinnenwelt und ihre Rückkehr zu Gott gedeutet. Die vorliegende Ausgabe bietet neben einer ausführlichen Einführung in Leben und Denken des alexandrinischen Religionsphilosophen den Text mit Übersetzung und erläuternden Anmerkungen. Kommentierende Essays aus unterschiedlichen Fachperspektiven ordnen die Schrift in den Kontext des zeitgenössischen Judentums sowohl in Alexandria wie im palästinischen Mutterland ein, würdigen Philon als Vertreter des kaiserzeitlichen Platonismus und machen mit der Gotteserkenntnis und philosophisch gedeuteten Exilserfahrungen zwei zentrale Topoi der Schrift zum Thema. Vergleichende Untersuchungen zur Figur des Abraham im Neuen Testament und in Thomas Manns Joseph und seine Brüder runden den Band ab.

Winner of the 2020 Canadian Jewish Literary Award in the category of Jewish Thought and CultureBal tashḥit, the Jewish prohibition against wastefulness and destruction, is considered to be an ecological ethical principle by contemporary Jewish environmentalists. Waste Not provides a comprehensive intellectual history of this concept, charting its evolution from the Bible through classical rabbinic literature, commentaries, codes of law, responsa, and the works of modern environmentalists. Tanhum S. Yoreh uses the methodology of tradition histories to identify pivotal moments in the development of the prohibition—in particular, its transition into an economic framework. He finds that bal tashḥit's earliest stages of conceptualization connect the prohibition against wastefulness with avoidance of self-harm. This connection is commonplace within contemporary environmental thought and a universalizing Jewish principle with important contributions to be made to Jewish and general societal ecological discourse. This narrative provides a foundation for understanding bal tashḥit as an environmental ethic for today and tomorrow.

Gewisse frühjüdische und neutestamentliche Texte beschreiben eine Verbindung der himmlischen und irdischen Gemeinde im Gottesdienst oder setzen diese voraus. Exegetisch erlangte das Thema insbesondere durch die Textfunde von Qumran Aufmerksamkeit. Die Thematik ist aber auch relevant für das ökumenische Gespräch mit den östlich-orthodoxen Kirchen, in deren Liturgien gerade die Teilnahme der himmlischen Welt am irdischen Gottesdienst eine herausragende Rolle spielt. Systematisch spielte die Fragestellung zudem im Werk des katholischen Theologen Erik Peterson und seiner Diskussion mit Karl Barth eine Rolle. Der vorliegende Sammelband dokumentiert die Beiträge einer Tagung an der Theologische Fakultät der Universität Zürich zur Beziehung von Gottesdienst und Engeln in antik-jüdischer, rabbinischer, neutestamentlicher, frühchristlicher, liturgiegeschichtlicher und systematischer Perspektive.

In this study, Andrew J. Niggemann provides a comprehensive account of Martin Luther's Hebrew translation in his academic mid-career. Apart from the Psalms, no book of the Hebrew Bible has yet been examined in any comprehensive manner in terms of Luther's Hebrew translation. Andrew J. Niggemann furthers the scholarly understanding of Luther's Hebrew by examining his Minor Prophets translation, one of the final pieces of his first complete translation of the Hebrew Bible. As part of the analysis, he investigates the relationship between philology and theology in his Hebrew translation, focusing specifically on one of the themes that dominated his interpretation of the Prophets: his concept of Anfechtung. He thus shows that by mid-career, the impact of Hebrew on Luther's Bible translation was immense and very diverse, more so than has been appreciated. He expands the frame of reference with which scholars can understand Luther's Hebrew. He provides detailed analyses of many examples of his Hebrew translation which have never before been discussed or examined in any depth, and hundreds of examples of his methodological handling of Hebrew translation issues. He also includes one of the most exhaustive analyses to date of three key philological challenges that confronted Luther in translating the Bible: Hebrew figures of speech, the Hebrew trope of repetition, and Hebrew transliteration. Likewise included as an appendix is a substantial body of refined data from Luther's Hebrew translation, which further illuminates the examples in this study, and facilitates additional analysis for future research. The PhD dissertation this book is based on was awarded the Coventry Prize for the PhD dissertation in Theology with the highest mark and recommendation, University of Cambridge, St. Edmund's College in 2018.

Stories portraying heretics ('minim') in rabbinic literature are a central site of rabbinic engagement with the'other'. These stories typically involve a conflict over the interpretation of a biblical verse in which the rabbinic figure emerges victorious in the face of a challenge presented by the heretic. In this book, Michal Bar-Asher Siegal focuses on heretic narratives of the Babylonian Talmud that share a common literary structure, strong polemical language and the formula,'Fool, look to the end of the verse'. She marshals previously untapped Christian materials to arrive at new interpretations of familiar texts and illuminate the complex relationship between Jews and Christians in Late Antiquity. Bar-Asher Siegal argues that these Talmudic literary creations must be seen as part of a boundary-creating discourse that clearly distinguishes the rabbinic position from that of contemporaneous Christians and adds to a growing understanding of the rabbinic authors'familiarity with Christian traditions.

How did the use of biblical traditions shape theology? Benjamin Wold focuses on allusions to traditions from Genesis in Musar leMevin from the Dead Sea Scrolls and explores implications for the document's understanding of women, men and angels. Cosmology and anthropology are conceived of in light of creation and ethical instruction provided on this basis. The nature of creation is reflected upon and alluded to in the document to educate and exhort the addressees about who they are and how they should live. The behaviour between the addressee and members of the family, society and angelic beings are formulated on the basis of interpretations of creation stories. Creation is also related to the esoteric'mystery of being', angels and the apocalyptic worldview of the author(s). This is a sustained study on both explicit and non-explicit uses of Genesis creation traditions in the Hebrew Wisdom document Musar leMevin.

Die kanonischen Grundtexte in Judentum, Christentum und Islam zeichnen sich - in unterschiedlichem Maße - durch einen Anspruch auf Unveränderlichkeit aus, bedürfen jedoch der aktualisierenden Exegese. Nicht zuletzt deshalb werden sie in andere Sprachen oder Medien übertragen. Die Analyse der religiösen und gesellschaftlichen Normen, die bei solchen Übertragungen wirksam werden, eröffnet einen Zugang zur jeweiligen Vorstellung vom heiligen Text. Diesen Ansatz verfolgt der religionsübergreifend angelegte Band in Fallstudien zu verschiedenen Zeit- und Kulturräumen (vom Alexandria des 3. Jahrhunderts v.Chr. bis hin zum zeitgenössischen Indonesien). In der Zusammenschau zeigen die breit gefächerten Beiträge, dass sich trotz der unterschiedlichen Auratisierung der kanonischen Texte in den einzelnen Religionen analoge Problemstellungen bei der Übertragung heiliger Texte finden lassen.

Authors from the ancient world rarely used great detail to describe the physical features of characters in their works. When they did mention bodies, they did so with very specific goals in mind. In particular, the bodies of'heroic'figures, such as warriors, kings, and other leaders became loaded sites of meaning for encoding cultural, religious, and political values on a number of fronts. Brian Doak analyzes the way biblical authors described the bodies of some of their most iconic male figures, such as Jacob, the Judges, Saul, and David. These bodies represent not mere individuals-they communicate as national bodies, signaling the ambiguity of Israel's murky pre-history, the division during the period of settlement in the land, and the contest of leading bodies fought between Saul and David. Heroic Bodies in Ancient Israel examines the heroic world of ancient Israel within the Hebrew Bible, and shows that ancient Israelite literature operated within and against a world of heroic ideals in its ancient context. The heroic body tells a story of Israel's remembered history in the eventual making of the monarchy, marking a new kind of individual power. Not merely a textual study of the Hebrew Bible in isolation, this book also considers iconography and compares Israelite literature with other ancient Mediterranean and Near Eastern materials, illustrating Israel's place among a wider construction of heroic bodies.

An essential biography of one of the Bible's most powerful and inspiring booksExodus is the second book of the Hebrew Bible, but it may rank first in lasting cultural importance. It is here that the classic biblical themes of oppression and redemption, of human enslavement and divine salvation, are most dramatically expressed. Joel Baden tells the story of this influential and enduring book, tracing how its famous account of the Israelites'journey to the promised land has been adopted and adapted for millennia, often in unexpected ways.Baden draws a distinction between the Exodus story and the book itself, which is one of the most multifaceted in the Bible, containing poems, law codes, rituals, and architectural plans. He shows how Exodus brings together an array of oral and written traditions from the ancient Middle East, and how it came to be ritualized in the Passover Seder and the Eucharist. Highlighting the remarkable resilience and flexibility of Exodus, Baden sheds light on how the bestowing of the Torah to Moses on Mount Sinai divided Jewish and Christian thinkers, on the importance of Exodus during the Reformation and the American Revolution, and on its uses in debates for and against slavery. He also traces how the defining narrative of ancient Israel helped to define Mormon social identity, the American civil rights movement, and liberation theology.Though three thousand years old, the Exodus—as history, as narrative, as metaphor, as model—continues to be vitally important for us today. Here is the essential biography of this incomparable spiritual masterpiece.

Psalter und Chronik stehen im dritten Kanonteil der hebräischen Bibel, wo sie den Anfang und den Schluss der Ketubim markieren. Sie haben eine Reihe von gemeinsamen sprachlichen und inhaltlichen Merkmalen, die sie in der Literatur des zweiten Tempels als verwandte Textcorpora ausweisen. Noch sichtbarer wird ihre Nähe, wenn man sie als einen konkreten Fall des wechselseitigen Verhältnisses von Poesie und Prosa in antik(-jüdischer) Überlieferung betrachtet und dabei schließlich genauer beleuchtet, wie stark die Geschichtsdarstellung der Chronik Psalmen als deutende Doxologien einsetzt (alle aus den theokratischen Büchern 4 und 5 des Psalters). Umgekehrt lohnt der Vergleich von Geschichtskonzepten der Psalmen mit chronistischen Perspektiven. Dieser Band dokumentiert die Beiträge einer Tagung an der Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München, bei der erstmals durch internationale Spezialisten Aspekte des Verhältnisses von Psalmen und Chronik grundsätzlich und im Detail diskutiert wurden.

In the last two decades, increasing numbers of texts have been suggested as coming from or edited during the Persian period, but these discussions do not always reflect extensively on the assumptions used in making these claims or the implications on a broader scale. Earlier generations of scholars found it sufficient to categorize material in the biblical books simply as'late'or'postexilic'without adequately trying to determine when, by whom, and why the material was incorporated into the text at a fixed point in the Persian period. By grappling with these questions, the essays in this volume evince a greater degree of precision vis-à-vis dating and historical context. The authors introduce the designations early Persian, middle Persian, and late Persian in their textual analysis, and collectively they take significant steps toward developing criteria for locating a biblical text within the Persian period.

Guillaume Lepesqueux présente dans ce livre l'interprétation d'Ex 3,14 dans le contexte d'énonciation du livre de l'Exode et de sa composition littéraire. L'histoire de la réception de ce verset en Occident montre en effet qu'il n'a été le plus souvent lu qu'au prisme de ses traductions grecque et latine, en étant presque toujours isolé du contexte littéraire dans lequel il fait prioritairement sens. L'auteur se propose ainsi de resituer et d'interpréter Ex 3,14 dans le cadre de la péricope du buisson ardent (Ex 3,1-4,18), puis d'élargir son propos aux deux autres passages de l'Exode dans lesquelles Dieu/Yhwh communique et explique lui-même son nom à Moïse (Ex 6,2-7,7 ; 33-34). L'exégèse détaillée de ces trois récits conduit à la mise au jour de quatre logiques d'exposition du nom divin, qui correspondent à quatre moments singuliers de la composition du livre.

In this study, Kevin Mattison examines Deuteronomy's reworking of existing legal texts, arguing that Deuteronomy was designed to amend its main legal source, the Covenant Code (Exod 20:22-23:19). The model of amendment draws on existing models of replacement and supplementation in order to provide a more complete explanation of Deuteronomy's rewriting of the Covenant Code, which is characterized by a combination of presupposition, complementation, and contradiction. Internal revisions within the growing text of Deuteronomy exhibit a similar combination of these three factors. Deuteronomy's authors sought to amend the Covenant Code even as they continued to amend their own growing text. The author draws examples from laws governing sacrifice and slaughter (Deut 12:1-28), tithes and firstlings (Deut 14:22-29; 15:19-23; 26:12-15), and manslaughter and asylum (Deut 19:1-13).

This book represents an extensive examination of human hands and feet and their functions as media of nonverbal communication in the transmission of the mission and message of Jesus by the early church. Research sources for the task include the Greek text of Acts and the Gospel of Luke as well as Greek Second Temple Jewish writings, contemporary Greek literature and medical works. Scholarly definitions and descriptions from the field of interpersonal communication lend credibility to the enquiry. In the process of discovering whether or not these media of nonverbal communication contribute effectively to the advancement of the mission and message of Jesus, the author's interesting and innovative approach casts light on the text as several new and creative insights emerge. The book concludes with some practical applications of its findings to the life of the church of today.