Scribal Culture and the Making of the Hebrew Bible

Scribal Culture and the Making of the Hebrew Bible
Author: Karel van der Toorn
Publisher: Harvard University Press
Total Pages: 414
Release: 2009-04-15
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 0674032543

We think of the Hebrew Bible as the Book--and yet it was produced by a largely nonliterate culture in which writing, editing, copying, interpretation, and public reading were the work of a professional elite. The scribes of ancient Israel are indeed the main figures behind the Hebrew Bible, and in this book Karel van der Toorn tells their story for the first time. His book considers the Bible in very specific historical terms, as the output of the scribal workshop of the Second Temple active in the period 500-200 BCE. Drawing comparisons with the scribal practices of ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia, van der Toorn clearly details the methods, the assumptions, and the material means of production that gave rise to biblical texts; then he brings his observations to bear on two important texts, Deuteronomy and Jeremiah. Traditionally seen as the copycats of antiquity, the scribes emerge here as the literate elite who held the key to the production as well as the transmission of texts. Van der Toorn's account of scribal culture opens a new perspective on the origins of the Hebrew Bible, revealing how the individual books of the Bible and the authors associated with them were products of the social and intellectual world of the scribes. By taking us inside that world, this book yields a new and arresting appreciation of the Hebrew Scriptures.

View of the Hebrews

View of the Hebrews
Author: Ethan Smith
Publisher: Left of Brain Onboarding Pty Limited
Total Pages: 130
Release: 2021-11-03
Genre:
ISBN: 9781396322228

In the nineteenth century, it was a common belief that Native Americans were the descendants of the Ten Lost Tribes of Israel. Ethan Smith wrote on this topic, and in so doing, challenged the dismissal of the Indigenous Americans by European settlers. Smith used biblical scripture, similarities in the Hebrew and Native American languages and their name for God, and other points of evidence to prove the connection between Israel and the First Nations. From there he showed how the reunited Hebrew tribes would be restored to Zion before the end of the world. Perhaps the most fascinating aspect of Smith's book is that it is said to have influenced the Book of Mormon, which was published about seven years after later. As a child, Smith moved away from religion after his parents died but found his way back before he turned 20 and worked in the ministry until his death. Smith wrote several books while serving in the ministry in which he explored prophecies and baptism, among other subjects. But this book remains one of the most controversial of all his publications.

In Search of the Hebrew People

In Search of the Hebrew People
Author: Ofri Ilany
Publisher: Indiana University Press
Total Pages: 196
Release: 2018-04
Genre: History
ISBN: 0253033853

1. Troglodytes, Hottentots, and Hebrews: the Bible and the genesis of German ethnography -- 2. The law and the people: Mosaic Law and the German Enlightenment -- 3. The eighteenth-century polemic on the extermination of the Canaanites -- 4. "Is Judah indeed the Teutonic fatherland?" the Hebrew model and the birth of German national culture -- 5. "Lovers of Hebrew poetry": the battle over the Bible's relevance at the turn of the nineteenth century

Hebrews between Cultures

Hebrews between Cultures
Author: Meir Sternberg
Publisher: Indiana University Press
Total Pages: 924
Release: 1999-04-22
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 9780253113283

The Poetics of Biblical Narrative, Sternberg's last book, established a new level of sophistication for biblical analysis. In Hebrews between Cultures, he shifts his focus from individual identity to the group, in this case the Hebrews. Sternberg's analysis of the development in the Bible of the Hebrew identity (and alternate identities) is brilliant, challenging, intellectually rigorous and unusual, and almost always unexpected and dramatic.

The Hebrew Book in Early Modern Italy

The Hebrew Book in Early Modern Italy
Author: Joseph R. Hacker
Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press
Total Pages: 334
Release: 2011-08-19
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 081220509X

The rise of printing had major effects on culture and society in the early modern period, and the presence of this new technology—and the relatively rapid embrace of it among early modern Jews—certainly had an effect on many aspects of Jewish culture. One major change that print seems to have brought to the Jewish communities of Christian Europe, particularly in Italy, was greater interaction between Jews and Christians in the production and dissemination of books. Starting in the early sixteenth century, the locus of production for Jewish books in many places in Italy was in Christian-owned print shops, with Jews and Christians collaborating on the editorial and technical processes of book production. As this Jewish-Christian collaboration often took place under conditions of control by Christians (for example, the involvement of Christian typesetters and printers, expurgation and censorship of Hebrew texts, and state control of Hebrew printing), its study opens up an important set of questions about the role that Christians played in shaping Jewish culture. Presenting new research by an international group of scholars, this book represents a step toward a fuller understanding of Jewish book history. Individual essays focus on a range of issues related to the production and dissemination of Hebrew books as well as their audiences. Topics include the activities of scribes and printers, the creation of new types of literature and the transformation of canonical works in the era of print, the external and internal censorship of Hebrew books, and the reading interests of Jews. An introduction summarizes the state of scholarship in the field and offers an overview of the transition from manuscript to print in this period.

Crossing Borders

Crossing Borders
Author: Piet van Boxel
Publisher:
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2009
Genre: City planning
ISBN: 9781851243136

This book tells the largely unfamiliar story of intellectual transmission, cultural exchange and practical cooperation, social interaction, and religious toleration between Jews and non-Jews in the Muslim as well as Christian world during the late Middle Ages. The story is composed of ten narratives, each of which brings to light a different aspect of Jewish life in a non-Jewish medieval society. The book is beautifully illustrated with images from the Hebrew holdings at the Bodleian Library, one of the largest and most important collections of Hebrew manuscripts worldwide. They range from Christian codex fragments as early as the 3rd century to a copy of Moses Maimonides' Mishneh Torah signed by Maimonides himself.

Obstinate Hebrews

Obstinate Hebrews
Author: Ronald Schechter
Publisher: Univ of California Press
Total Pages: 346
Release: 2003-04-14
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 0520235576

Annotation A path-breaking study of the Jews in France from the time of the philosophies through the Revolution and up to Napoleon. Examines how Jews were thought of during this time, by both French writers and the Jews themselves.

Selected Issues in the Modern Intercultural Contacts between Arabic and Hebrew Cultures

Selected Issues in the Modern Intercultural Contacts between Arabic and Hebrew Cultures
Author: Mahmoud Kayyal
Publisher: BRILL
Total Pages: 200
Release: 2016-10-05
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 900433226X

In his book Selected Issues in the Modern Intercultural Contacts between Arabic and Hebrew Cultures, Mahmoud Kayyal examines the modern intercultural contacts between Arabic and Hebrew cultures from postcolonial perspectives. An aggressive relationship exists between the two cultures that stems from the combination of Hebrew culture’s representation of neo-colonial Western culture and the majority-minority relations between Jews and Arabs within Israel. By focusing on specific issues in these intercultural contacts, especially translation activity between the two languages, Hebrew linguistic interference in the Palestinian literature, and Hebrew writings of Palestinian authors, Kayyal reveals the ongoing struggle between the Zionist orientation and the subversive forces that attempt to undermine the Zionist narrative, and to preserve the Palestinian narrative.