Recent years have seen an increased interest in Jewish life, its culture, and its celebrations. There are many new students of Judaism, often potential converts or members of interfaith families who are seeking to learn more about the religion and its rituals. Unfortunately, many of the existing texts that examine the Jewish holidays are written ......
An Inner-Biblical Interpretation of Ezekiel's Recognition Formula
The recognition formula, “you/they shall know that I am Yahweh,” is repeated more than seventy times in the book of Ezekiel. And yet, surprisingly, this refrain has not been analyzed in detail in recent research. In this study, John F. Evans attempts to uncover the literary and theological intent of the recognition formula in ......
Piety, Gender, and Resistance in the Ultra-Orthodox World
The ultra-Orthodox yeshiva, or Jewish seminary, is a space reserved for men, and for a focus on religious ideals. This book uncovers evidence that firmly religious and pious young men of this community are seeking to change their institutions to incorporate several key dimensions of the secular world.
This volume charts the shifting boundaries of Judaism from antiquity to the modern period in order to bring clarity to what scholars mean when they claim that ancient texts or groups are "within Judaism," as well as exploring how rabbinic Jews, Christians, and Muslims have negotiated and renegotiated what Judaism is and is not in order to form ......
In Willy, a father and son grapple with each other, and, in the process, a richly compact narrative emerges: a rebellious son leaves his ancestral home to find adventure among strangers and lose tradition and family along the way. Their respective stories define what is lost and what is gained in the immigrant passage to the new world.
Recovering the Lost Jewishness of Christianity with the Gospel of Mark
Presents the story of identity rediscovered. Narrating biblical scholarship as a story of family strife, this book recounts how early Christians dissociated from their Jewish origins and reflects on the spiritual loss suffered by Christianity because of this division.
Commentary Approaches to Cursing Psalms and their Relevance for Liturgy
Psalms that seem to vindicate vengeance and violence are generally omitted from liturgy, as exemplified in most breviaries used by worshipping communities around the world. Although seldom read, the so-called cursing psalms are known to many as their imprecatory passages pose challenges for readers who wish to use the entire Book of Psalms as ......
Portrayals of the Holocaust in literature, paintings, and architecture have aroused many ethical debates. How can we admire, much less enjoy, art that deals with such a horrific event? Does finding beauty in Holocaust representation amount to a betrayal of its victims? Brett Ashley Kaplan's Unwanted Beauty meets these difficult questions directly, ......
Understanding Zionism introduces the rise and development of the Zionist movement, its various streams, and the impact of Zionism on government and society in Israel. The book examines special topics, such as the phenomenon of Christian Zionism, movements of opposition to Zionism, and frameworks regarding the future direction(s) of Zionism.
Resisting binary understandings of the human experience, Trauma Talks in the Hebrew Bible calls to attention the fluidity and polyvalency in the Hebrew Bible. Alexiana Fry argues for a more holistic approach in studying texts embracing both the bodies of the past, and our own bodies.
This study of Jewish life in the High Middle Ages sheds light on the origins of modernity, including Jewish-Gentile relations, the Jewish role in early capitalism, the beginnings of Haskala (Englightenment) and of Hasidism.
The fourth in the five-volume Torah Encounters series, Numbers offers Torah commentary and discussion guides for each Torah portion. It shares observations drawing from each parasha and from historical and contemporary commentators and Rabbi Pressman. A wonderful resource for clergy, personal study, or adult or high school Hebrew education.
The third in the five-volume Torah Encounters series, Leviticus offers Torah commentary and discussion guides for each Torah portion. It shares observations drawing from each parasha and from historical and contemporary commentators and Rabbi Pressman. A wonderful resource for clergy, personal study, or adult or high school Hebrew education.
Examines the meaning of Jewish politics in Israel In one of the first books to ask head-on what it means for Israel to be a Jewish state, Yaacov Yadgar delves into what the designation "Jewish" amounts to in the context of the sovereign nation-state, and what it means for the politics of the state to be identified as Jewish. The volume ......
The Expression of Tense, Aspect, and Modality in Biblical Hebrew
In this book John Cook interacts with the range of approaches to the perennial questions on the Biblical Hebrew verb in a fair-minded approach. Some of his answers may appear deceptively traditional, such as his perfective-imperfective identification of the qatal–yiqtol opposition. However, his approach is distinguished from the ......
The Expression of Tense, Aspect, and Modality in Biblical Hebrew
In this book John Cook interacts with the range of approaches to the perennial questions on the Biblical Hebrew verb in a fair-minded approach. Some of his answers may appear deceptively traditional, such as his perfective-imperfective identification of the qatal–yiqtol opposition. However, his approach is distinguished from the ......
Universal Principles of Healing Prayer & the Jewish Mystics
This wonderful book by a Rabbi and a Catholic shows how to evoke and experience directly the healing force in the universe known variously as: God, the ineffable, that-which-is, life force, ch'i, etc. It draws on universal principles of physical healing that are part of, yet transcend all religions. Rabbi Douglas Goldhamer and Catholic ......
Jewish Anti-Roman Resistance and the Crosses at Golgotha
The Gospel reports about several men crucified under Pilate seem to have a reliable core. Taking seriously into account the collective nature of that execution, this book carries out a bold reconstruction of Jesus of Nazareth's story in the framework of Jewish anti-Roman resistance, thereby making sense of that crucifixion.
A complement to the author's earlier Overtures to Biblical Theology study on prayer, this volume addresses the topic of worship as articulated in the first five books of the Bible. Rather than a history of Israelite religion, Balentine's volume examines the "vision" of worship expounded in the Torah in relation to priesthood, creation, liturgy, ......
Emphasizes on the role and character of the Torah's transcendent God, as its central protagonist. This book provides a text that uses theistic means appropriate to its time to inspire people toward their worthiest human purposes. It offers insights into the wide-ranging legal code of "Genesis", "Exodus", "Numbers", "Deuteronomy", and "Leviticus".
This book collects narratives of Bulgarian Jews who survived the Holocaust. Through eye-witness testimonies, archival documents, photographs, and researchers' investigations, the stories counter official accounts and corroborate war crimes.
During the past two generations, Jewish public thought and discourse has differed dramatically from that of the era between the Emancipation and the Second World War. The chasm of the Holocaust and the watershed establishment of a Jewish state has radically changed the Jewish intellectual landscape. With their two largest concentrations in ......
Religion and Reproductive Politics in the Promised Land
An intimate account of Orthodox family planning amid shifting state policies in Israel In recent years, Israeli state policies have attempted to dissuade Orthodox Jews from creating large families, an objective that flies in the face of traditional practices in their community. As state desires to cultivate a high-income, tech-centered nation ......
Religion and Reproductive Politics in the Promised Land
An intimate account of Orthodox family planning amid shifting state policies in Israel In recent years, Israeli state policies have attempted to dissuade Orthodox Jews from creating large families, an objective that flies in the face of traditional practices in their community. As state desires to cultivate a high-income, tech-centered nation ......
Reconsidering the Identity of the Ancient Israelite Deity
In this book, the original nature of the ancient Israelite god, Yahweh, is reconsidered. Daniel Sarlo challenges the current belief that Yahweh was initially a storm god by examining the relevant biblical texts and comparing them with Ancient Near Eastern texts, ultimately arguing that Yahweh was a solar deity.
An Introduction to Israelite and Jewish Wisdom Literature
The notion of a distinct "wisdom tradition" in ancient Israel has a long history - but does it have a basis in the evidence? The author argues for a redefinition of the wisdom literature as a loosely cohering collection of books aimed at educating scribal apprentices in moral instruction and the art of living.
Though New Testament scholars have written extensively on the Roman Empire over the past few decades, the topic of the military has been conspicuously neglected. This book fills this void with a detailed analysis of the military in early Roman Palestine and the depiction of the military in the New Testament.
