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The Samaritan Aramaic Targum presents an extremely literal translation of SP, but the measure of literalness varies between different manuscripts. Further textual differences between these manuscripts can be related to different Hebrew Vorlagen, or to different interpretations of one and the same Hebrew Vorlage. It can thus be concluded that the Samaritan Targum tradition does not represent a single Aramaic translation of SP, but rather consists of several translations, based on different Hebrew Vorlagen. SAT and also the Samaritan Arabic translation are therefore important witnesses for the textual history of SP, relating to the written transmission of SP in the period before the 12th century CE, for which no Hebrew manuscripts are extant, and also to the Samaritan vocalization. This evidence demonstrates that the textual variety found in the Hebrew manuscripts of SP was already present in the transmission of SP between the 1st and the 11th century CE. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

What does it really mean to study the law? Who are law students and what do they do? This paper is aimed at answering to these questions starting from Levinsas essay on the Torah study and on the students’ role in the Jewish cultural tradition and Jewish educational practices. By comparing Levinas’ work with Kafka and Benjamin’s works, this paper will define the study of law as conversion (Umkehr) – that is also a reversal – of the law itself, a practice which separates law from its violence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article aims to understand the concept of work in the teachings of Rabbi Avraham Yitzchak Hacohen Kook (1865–1935). As the person who had the maximum impact on the religious Zionist sector, with its guiding principle of Torah va’avodah, meaning Torah and work, it is necessary to clarify his attitude towards work. Did he perceive work as a necessity, a part of one’s duty to support the members of the household, or perhaps also as an ideological value, part of a worldview that combines religious values with extra-religious values, or then again maybe he perceived work as a religious value? This article shows that R. Kook’s positive attitude towards work differs from traditional perspectives on work because of a pantheistic influence. Pantheism made him redefine the boundaries of Torah and include work and materiality.

El presente artículo es un estudio de Sal 1 y 2 desde una lectura intertextual- canónica. Una lectura de este tipo exige principalmente un estudio literario de ambos Salmos para ver si contienen algunos vínculos intertextuales que los pongan en mutua relación. En segundo lugar, combinando la lectura intertextual con la canónica, surge la pregunta por la función de estos Salmos colocados al inicio del Salterio para la interpretación del mismo. Finalmente, Sal 1 y 2 también tienen relación con otros textos relevantes del canon veterotestamentario, posibilitando un más amplio entendimiento de aquéllos. En la segunda parte de este artículo se estudiará la recepción e interpretación que han tenido estos dos Salmos en el Nuevo Testamento.

El presente artículo es la continuación del estudio de Sal 1 y 2 desde una lectura intertextual-canónica. En esta segunda parte estudiamos la recepción e interpretación que han tenido estos dos Salmos en el Nuevo Testamento. El objetivo es obtener una más amplia comprensión de Sal 1 y 2 de acuerdo a esta recepción. Sal 1 no es citado explícitamente en el Nuevo Testamento pero a la luz de los Evangelios y de la Carta a los Romanos puede ser leído cristianamente. Sal 2, en cambio, es uno de los más citados en el Nuevo Testamento y ha jugado un papel muy importane en la cristología neotestamentaria.

This article explores the theology behind the integration of religious Zionists in all spheres of activity in Israel, from commerce and industry to agriculture, academia, and the defence establishment. It argues that religious Zionism is not a combination of religiosity and Zionism but a movement motivated by a distinct theology of integration that espouses a combination of Torah and work, not as part of one's natural duties to support one's family but as an integral part of one's religious duties. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Cumhuriyet Ilahiyat Dergisi / Cumhuriyet Theology Journal is the property of Cumhuriyet Universitesi, Ilahiyat Fakultesi / Cumhuriyet University, Faculty of Theology and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Journal of College of Education / Wasit is the property of Republic of Iraq Ministry of Higher Education & Scientific Research (MOHESR) and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Journal of College of Education / Wasit is the property of Republic of Iraq Ministry of Higher Education & Scientific Research (MOHESR) and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This contribution includes a critical discussion of Joachim J. Krause, »›Writing on the Heart‹ in Jeremiah 31:31–34 in Light of Recent Insights into the Oral-Written Interface and Scribal Education in Ancient Israel,« ZAW 132 (2020): 236–249. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Afyon Kocatepe University Journal of Social Sciences / Afyon Kocatepe Üniversitesi Sosyal Bilimler Dergisi is the property of Afyon Kocatepe University (AKU) Sosyal Bilimler Enstitusu and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Intertextual links between Deuteronomy and Ecclesiastes have begun only recently to garner interest as a possible literary source for Qohelet. In examining these proposed links, Deuteronomy proves, in fact, to be the sole literary precursor from which Qohelet draws by all three rhetorical modes: citation, allusion, and echo. In addition, Deuteronomy and Ecclesiastes share several important discourse concepts, including eating as the joyful response to God's provision, remembrance as an antidote against spiritual apostasy, and divine kingship as the source for wisdom. These cumulative links form a chain of evidence suggesting that Deuteronomy's positive message of enjoying the blessings of life as grateful and obedient recipients of divine grace is perhaps more influential upon Qohelet than realized. The literary connections suggest furthermore that Qohelet should be read in a more positive light than interpreters have been accustomed to do. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This Article discusses the instrumentalization of the Torah by groups of returnees in the Second Temple Period. In the first part of the study we will analyze the Torah as a text of memory and invented traditions and as an object of ideological dispute. In the second part of the research we will make a brief history of Torah research and composition to show the complexity of the memories, narratives and traditions of his texts. Finally, we will comment briefly on a foundational mythical text for the insertion of the Torah in the post-exile community. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In late medieval-early modern Iberia, translations of sacred texts often involved changes beyond those concerning linguistic and cultural frameworks. The sacred nature of the source text turned it into a potentially powerful tool for a variety of purposes. Translations were used to advance didactic and cultural policies and to disseminate political and religious propaganda. They became building blocks for communal identities under fatal threat. When need be, they could be manipulated both as weapons of self-defense or of belligerent attack against rival religiosities and institutions that harbored them. The power generated by the divine authority that spoke through sacred texts also made their translations and their translators, targets of suspicion and victims of strict control, and at times, destruction. The five articles that I introduce represent a wide spectrum of these possibilities as they examine translation projects of Christian, Jewish, and Muslim sacred texts and the transformations they catalyzed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

al-Asbât in Islamic thought is a controversial concept among Shia and Sunni schools. Sunni school believes that they all were the brothers of Prophet Joseph and were Prophets. Yet, Shia school rejects the idea that al-Asbât were Prophets, due to the big sins they committed. Some of Shia sholars think that al-Asbât were Wasiyy (Legatee) of Prophets. Sheikh Ali Hasan Galum adds a new idea to al-Asbât by arguing the similarity between the concept of al-Asbât in Quran with those Judges in Torah. He gives the concept of Judges and al-Asbât as a reference to Twelve Imams. This article, after explaining the concept of Judges in Judaism, will deal with the concept of al-Asbât in Sunni sources. After that it will explain the meaning of al-Asbât generally in Shia thought. Then it will touch upon the similarity of the Judges with the concept of Twelve Imams which has handled for the first time by Sheikh Galum in Shia thought. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Discussions of 4QMMT have often focused on whether the epilogue refers to a tripartite canon comprising the Books of Moses, the prophets, and David. Recent scholarship has tended to doubt the possible reference to a Davidic corpus but has nonetheless persisted in the assumption that the Book of Moses ( ספר מושה ) refers to the canonical five-book Torah. In this article I reexamine the use of the term ספר מושה in 4QMMT and other Second Temple-period sources and argue that the expression had a narrower scope, specifically denoting the Book of Deuteronomy. By recognizing the restricted nature of the ספר מושה in MMT, we are better able to appreciate early Jewish conceptions of Scripture and the important place of Deuteronomy in the rhetoric of the epilogue. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article is an attempt to answer the question why Wednesday has the status of a holy day in Yezidism. Wednesday can be seen as a commemoration of the fourth day of creation, when the life on earth began and the Peacock Angel became its ruler. The article points to the Yezidi worship of the Moon and the Sun and related angels (Melek Fakhradin and Melek Sheikh Shams) and connects it with the Pythagorean concept concerning the movement of the planets and the Music of the Spheres. Two sacred Yezidi instruments, def and shibab, appear as allegories of celestial bodies in the Yezidi sacred hymns in the cosmogonic context of the creation of the macrocosm and microcosm (Adam). The article also points out the meaning of Wednesday in Judaism as the day when God created the sun, moon and stars and briefly discusses relationships with planet worship in Harran, Zoroastrianism and Mandaeism, especially in the context of the Yezidi Çarşemiya Sor festival which takes place on the first Wednesday of the month of Nisan. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article argues that the opening of Genesis Rabbah 1 can be read productively in conversation with Christian controversies which raged from the middle of the third century to the fourth century. In rabbinic literature, it is not until the Amoraic period, in Palestine, that Proverbs 8 began to be employed as a proof of Torah's pre-existence. This is precisely the same time that Christians engaged in heated debate as to the pre-existence of the Son, also based on Proverbs 8, not least in Palestine. By way of a broad reading of the christological controversies of this era, and a close reading of the exegesis of Proverbs 8 in Genesis Rabbah 1, the obscure debate partners of Genesis Rabbah 1 come to light: Christians who were debating the pre-existence of Wisdom. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article aims to understand the concept of work in the teachings of Rabbi Avraham Yitzchak Hacohen Kook (1865–1935). As the person who had the maximum impact on the religious Zionist sector, with its guiding principle of Torah va'avodah, meaning Torah and work, it is necessary to clarify his attitude towards work. Did he perceive work as a necessity, a part of one's duty to support the members of the household, or perhaps also as an ideological value, part of a worldview that combines religious values with extra-religious values, or then again maybe he perceived work as a religious value? This article shows that R. Kook's positive attitude towards work differs from traditional perspectives on work because of a pantheistic influence. Pantheism made him redefine the boundaries of Torah and include work and materiality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It is a fact that after believing in Allah belief in prophet hood is an essential part the chain of prophet hood has continued in every period but crown of finality of prophet hood has been bestowed up on the Prophet Muhammad(peace and blessing of Allah be up on him ) It is a clear fact that all heavenly religions,especially Islamic sharia, has adopted the path of moderateness and everything has been given its due place .Quran and all the revealed books like Torah the Gospel the Psalm and other scriptures have been the belief of prophet hood in the mind of human being with great temperance and frugality but without extremism and alteration unlike the Jews who called the Jesus as an illegitimate child .Christian made him the son of God. This is extreme and against the path of moderateness besides every prophet used to intimate about three things, 1:that he attests all those prophets sent and the books revealed before him .2: that all the prophets were given two qualities”(a) the bearers of glad things and (b)a Warner .3: that every prophet used to give revelation about the arrival of a new prophet who will take care of this assignment particularly about prophet Muhammad (PBUH) all famous prophets had revealed .Prophet Ibrahim had prayed that “o my Lord” send a messenger amongst them” Prophet(pbuh) said that he is the prayers of his father Ibrahim who had prayed for him and that Allah had accepted his prayers. Similarly Prophet Moses had predicted that a prophet will be sent amongst your brothers likewise Prophet Christ had forecasted about the arrival of a prophet whose name will be Ahmad and will be the prophet for the entire humanity till the Dooms day. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Der Artikel untersucht Schnittmengen von Gender-Zuschreibungen und sozialen sowie religiös-kultischen Bestimmungen über Fremde in Rechtstexten der Tora. Er analysiert einerseits Texte, in denen es eine Leerstelle ist, ob Frauen in Schutzbestimmungen für den Fremden mitgemeint sind (z. B. Ex 22,20–23), und andererseits Tora-Texte über Fremde, die Frauen explizit erwähnen (Ex 21,7–11; Dtn 7,1–4).

The following exposition goes back to my lecture, ‘The Ways of YHWH and the Ways of the supplicant in the fifth and last Psalter of David’, at the convention, ‘The Torah in the psalms and the prophecy’, held at Munich on 13–14 July 2007. The first part of the lecture, which dealt with the composition of the fifth Psalter of David, has appeared in an excursus (on the concept of the fifth Psalter of David) in the psalm commentary by Erich Zenger and me (Author). It was for this reason that the second part, which dealt with the Way-motif in Psalm 119 in the fifth Psalter of David, was extended to the current subject of the article. Intradisciplinary and/or interdisciplinary implications: The psalms and the Torah belong to two different parts of the Hebrew canon. This means that the intertextual relations between them rest on the interdisciplinary relationship between the two corpuses. The connections between Psalm 119 and David’s fifth Psalter relate with the autonomous theologies of the fifth Psalter of David (Ps 138–145) and the final Hallel (Ps 146–150). Psalm 119 had both groups of psalms in front of it, and it respected the graduated psalm endings or rather the final redactions in both instances. The implication for the redaction study of the psalms is that Psalm 119 was specifically placed in its present position within the Psalter in its totality.

Torah primarily refers to the first section of the Tanakh–the first five books of the Hebrew Bible, but the term is sometimes also used in the general sense to also include both of Judaism's written law and oral law, encompassing the entire spectrum of authoritative Jewish religious teachings throughout history, including the Mishnah, the Talmud, the Midrash, and more. Although there are two Talmuds, they are not really separate. The Rabbis of Babylon had access to the Jerusalem Talmud while they were working on their text. But if there is dispute between the two Talmuds, the Babylonian Talmud is followed. Both because Babylonian Talmud is considered more authoritative and the Jerusalem Talmud is more difficult to study, Jewish students pouring over the Talmud in yeshiva are using chiefly the Babylonian Talmud. The Talmud is more than just an application of the details of the Jewish law as expounded in the Mishnah. It’s the encyclopedia of all Jewish existence. This article to a limited extent unpacks the terms Talmud, Midrash and Gemara.

In recent years, Israel has experienced an explosion of interest on the part of Modern Orthodox women in intense study of Talmud and Halakich texts, areas of male exclusivity for centuries. Since the institution of the first midrashah in 1976, both the number of women scholars and the quality of education has increased in a remarkable way and the greater erudition of women in both written and oral Torah is now a matter of fact. The debate on women’s right to study Torah originates from Talmud and it has been investigated from late antiquity until today. The texts define the roles of the Jewish women in the past and in the present within the realm of religious studies and raise the question what will be the effects of the women’s study of Torah on daily life and from a juridical perspective.

All Abrahamic religions have developed hypostatic and semi-divine perceptions of scripture. This article presents an integrated picture of a rich tradition developed in early kabbalah (twelfth–thirteenth century) that viewed the Torah as participating and identifying with the Godhead. Such presentation could serve scholars of religion as a valuable tool for future comparisons between the various perceptions of scripture and divine revelation. The participation of God and Torah can be divided into several axes: the identification of Torah with the Sefirot, the divine gradations or emanations according to kabbalah; Torah as the name of God; Torah as the icon and body of God; and the commandments as the substance of the Godhead. The article concludes by examining the mystical implications of this participation, particularly the notion of interpretation as eros in its broad sense, both as the “penetration” of a female Torah and as taking part in the creation of the world and of God, and the notion of unification with Torah and, through it, with the Godhead.

People of the Religious Zionist sector consist approximately 16% of the Jewish population in the state of Israel, as to 2018. Nevertheless, the measure of involvement of this sector in the Israeli society is far greater than its relative size. This sector views the Zionist ideology as part of its religious identity. This is one of the major origins of its high social involvement. This article would like to examine the theological significance of materiality in religious Zionism, and it will concentrate in Rabbi Haim David Halevi as a Case Study. The slogan of Bnei Akiva, the religious Zionist youth movement, is "Torah va'avoda" (Torah and work). Therefore, it is important to understand whether work is just a means or contains theological significance. R. Halevi (1924-1998) was a religious Zionist thinker and adjudicator, and the author of many books. He served for decades as the Chief Rabbi of the cities Rishon Lezion and Tel Aviv. The article shows that R. Halevi's attitude toward labor is ambivalent. On the one hand he thought that labor contains extremely important religious meanings, but on the other hand there are times that he declares that labor is just a means to provide ones physical needs. The article gives several explanations to understand these counteractions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The history of the people of God is tightly dependant on receiving the Law, as, by fulfilling it, Israel remained within the realm of knowing God. The institution of the monarchy was obliged to stay faithful to the law of God in order for the State of Israel to remain within God's favour. In that context, the king had a duty to his people to remain faithful to God, as embracing idolatry would have been a danger to the very religious, social and political stability of Israel. The Christian perspective of the early 1st century, marked by the political context of the rule of the Roman Empire, continues the Judaic paradigm as to the relation between the political and the religious authority, but adds certain nuances to it (Matt. 22:21; Rom. 13:1-7; 1 Pet. 2:13-17). For this very reason, the Leviathan proposed by Thomas Hobbes does not have a correspondence in the Jewish- Christian world. The birth of a political system based on society voluntarily renouncing its most basic rights, established by God in the Torah, only for an utopian peace with civil security blatantly contradicts the politics revealed by the Scriptures: christian doctrine requires abiding by political power and not showing an obedience that precedes spiritual corruption. That is why, for a better cooperation between State and Church, we propose here the Thesis of Orthodox vision of Theocracy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Tasavvur: Tekirdag Theology Journal / Tekirdag Ilahiyat Dergisi is the property of Namik Kemal University, Faculty of Theology and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

For years there has been a failure to show the relevance between the application of religious text within social work and the social sciences. This paper provides a functional framework on the reason for the separation between social sciences and religious studies and then uses the Genesis account of Noah and the flood to show how the two can be integrated for peacebuilding, reconciliation, and healing. The paper applies the Noah story to micro, mezzo, and macro applications of social work practice and concludes with a call for a deeper integration of religious text into social work practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Religion plays an important role in history due to its stipulating of limits on behaviors and organizing of practices in community. In this sense, Jewish precepts stand out in the shaping of Western culture and may be considered as a cultural and moral heritage. Hebrew society has a wealth of traditions, with its legal framework one of these. Our analysis thus adopts the perspective of history and the philosophy of law in order to examine the regulatory concepts of Jewish society, enshrined in the Torah and related to modern procedural standards, seeking to identify a general theory of procedure. In light of this challenge, the text has specifically sought the following: to demonstrate that Jewish norms are not only moral and religious; to identify which norms extracted from the Sacred Texts are similar to the norms and principles of Brazilian procedural law; to demonstrate the legal interpretations given to these biblical norms in the philosophical, legal, and religious field. The result is a bibliographic study that is exploratory and descriptive in its approach, with content analysis and use of the comparative method. The result obtained reveals that the norms present in the Pentateuch represent a proto general theory of procedure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As in previous Muslim states, the Ottoman community was a multi-lingual and multi-faith community. For this very reason followers of these religions wrote numerous texts (raddiyas) with the intention of criticizing one another. However, for many reasons, the raddiyas of the Ottoman period remained unstudied for a long period of time. Nevertheless, starting from the 2000s, anti-Jewish and anti-Christian raddiyas began to be subjected to studies by different academic circles. The subject of the present study is Risālah of the Andalusian Jew Abdulallām who lived in late 15th and the early 16th century. It was written after his conversion along with an explanation of the reason for his conversion, with the intention of demonstrating that the good tidings of the coming Prophet Muhammad were foretold in Jewish holy scriptures, and that Jewish claims of the everlastingness of their religion were unsound. In this article, in addition to the context where it was written, and the issues it dealt with, its translation and manuscript are presented. In addition to restating similar topics and related Bible texts in previously compiled raddiyas, Abdulallām both manifests new evidence and seems to effect subsequent anti-Jewish raddiya authors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Kaʻbu’l-Ahbâr’ın şahsiyeti ve rivâyetleri, isrâiliyât konusu nedeniyle ötedenberi tartışılmaktadır. İsrâiliyât, yahudi, hıristiyan ve/veya diğer kültürlerden İslâmiyete giren rivâyetler ve bunların etkileri olarak tanımlanmaktadır. Kaʻbu’l-Ahbâr semâvî kitaplardan ve özellikle de Tevrât’tan birçok nakillerde bulunmuş, Kur’ân-ı Kerîm ile Tevrât arasında çok sayıda mukayese yapmıştır. Kaʻbu’l-Ahbâr, Ehl-i Kitab’tan yaptığı iktibasları, kaynaklarına isnâd ederek veya kendi yorumları olarak etrafındakilere aktarmıştır. Kaʻb onları değişik kılıflara büründürmemiş; hüsnükabul görsün diye de asıl kaynaklarını gizleyerek, Müslümanlar nezdinde itibarlı kişilere isnâd etme gibi bir çaba içinde olmamıştır. Kaʻbu’l-Ahbâr’ın konumunu en iyi şekilde anlatacak ifade ‘kültür aktarıcısı’ olsa gerek. Zira o, önceki ümmetlerin dinî, ahlâkî, sosyal ve ilmî durumları hakkında çok önemli bilgileri kendi devrindeki -ve kitaplara kaydedildiği andan itibaren de sonraki insanlara- aktararak büyük bir kültür mirasının oluşmasına katkıda bulunmuştur. Bu açıdan bakıldığında Kaʻbu’l-Ahbâr’ın bilgi birikimi sadece klasik İslâm ilimleri açısından değil, aynı zamanda tarih, dinler tarihi, antropoloji açısından da büyük bir öneme sahiptir. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The book of Tobit, which is dated to the Hellenistic period, is often compared with the model of the pious and innocent sufferer in the book of Job which is assumed to be the product of a late Persian or early Hellenistic scribal idea. It has been argued that in many ways, the author of Tobit directly alluded to Job's texts and put its literary framework and themes into a new historical context, the Assyrian Diaspora. However, these literary works are quite dissimilar in how they use various Israelite and non-Israelite materials and they substantially reflect different thoughts and interests. In this article, I indicate how each book understands Jewish the literary tradition and suggest that both books reflect their own intellectual background. This will be discussed in relation to four areas: (1) suffering and theodicy; (2) dialogue; (3) retribution, law, and piety; and (4) election, eschatology, and the apocalyptic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper is devoted to the holy day of the Yezidis, Wednesday, and the Spring festival of Çar°emiya Sor. I propose an interpretation of the meaning of this day, pointing to the supposed relationship between the meaning of Wednesday and the description of 'fourth day' in the Old Testament tradition. I also show that the annual feast of Çar°emiya Sor, just like every Wednesday of the week, for the Yezidis commemorate the creation of the material world and subjecting it to the power of angels (especially to the Peacock Angel) and heavenly bodies. I rely mainly on the Yezidi sources and materials gathered during my own field research in Iraq and the South Caucasus. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The synagogue has become during the last two thousand years the main place where Jewish public liturgies are held. This article deals with the external and internal architectural aspects of synagogues and their use as religious and community space through the centuries. In addition to the architecture and organization of the synagogue space, the collective liturgical use of this type of place of worship is also addressed. The versatility and permanence of this institution are also addressed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Christians have begun to use the rabbinical literature to direct objections to Jewish religion from the thirteenth century on. This use is manifested in two ways. The first is to find evidence from the Jewish holy book literature in support of the Christian truths. The second is the effort to prove that the Jewish literature is invalid. Although Christians generally accept Jewish sacred texts, they call them "Old Testament" or "Old Torah". On the other hand, they call their sacred texts "New Testament" or "New Torah". It is possible to say that Christians are divided into two in general in their approach to Jewish scriptures. Some of them have attributed value to the Old Torah to some extent in terms of the origin and nature of the revelation. The others, conversely, point out the contradiction and some flaws in their content and stress that the Old Torah is invalid because the New Torah has arrived. However, according to general Christian belief, the New Torah, which came with Jesus Christ, is better than the Old Torah and perfects it by removing its shortcomings. Of course, for the Jews, this is not acceptable. This article deals with the answers given by the Jews to the Christian criticism of the Torah, and with the Jewish criticism of the Bible. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The following exposition goes back to my lecture, 'The Ways of YHWH and the Ways of the supplicant in the fifth and last Psalter of David', at the convention, 'The Torah in the psalms and the prophecy', held at Munich on 13–14 July 2007. The first part of the lecture, which dealt with the composition of the fifth Psalter of David, has appeared in an excursus (on the concept of the fifth Psalter of David) in the psalm commentary by Erich Zenger and me (Author). It was for this reason that the second part, which dealt with the Way-motif in Psalm 119 in the fifth Psalter of David, was extended to the current subject of the article. Intradisciplinary and/or interdisciplinary implications: The psalms and the Torah belong to two different parts of the Hebrew canon. This means that the intertextual relations between them rest on the interdisciplinary relationship between the two corpuses. The connections between Psalm 119 and David's fifth Psalter relate with the autonomous theologies of the fifth Psalter of David (Ps 138–145) and the final Hallel (Ps 146–150). Psalm 119 had both groups of psalms in front of it, and it respected the graduated psalm endings or rather the final redactions in both instances. The implication for the redaction study of the psalms is that Psalm 119 was specifically placed in its present position within the Psalter in its totality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]