The Flourishing of Jewish Sects in the Maccabean Era

The Flourishing of Jewish Sects in the Maccabean Era
Author: Albert I. Baumgarten
Publisher: BRILL
Total Pages: 266
Release: 1997
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 9789004107519

This volume asks why Jewish groups - Sadducees, Pharisees, Essenes and the Dead Sea Scroll sect - flourished during the Maccabean era. The objective is to discover the connections between context and consequence, which will explain why sectarianism was so prominent then.

The Flourishing of Jewish Sects in the Maccabean Era: An Interpretation

The Flourishing of Jewish Sects in the Maccabean Era: An Interpretation
Author: Albert I. Baumgartner
Publisher: BRILL
Total Pages: 255
Release: 2021-12-06
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 9004497994

This volume asks why Jewish groups - Sadducees, Pharisees, Essenes and the Dead Sea Scroll sect - flourished during the Maccabean era. It argues that such a result is uncommon, requiring special explanation. In the introduction, sectarianism is defined and its varieties in Second Temple Judaism assessed. Among the causes of the known results suggested are the encounter with an outside culture that seemed to be weakening the external national perimeter, the impact of expanded literacy, the move to the city from the farm, as well as eschatological hope aroused by Maccabean victory. In proposing these conclusions, full advantage is taken of recently published Qumran sources, such as 4QMMT. The objective is to discover the connection between context and consequence, which will explain why sectarianism was so prominent at that time.

Self, Soul and Body in Religious Experience

Self, Soul and Body in Religious Experience
Author: Albert I. Baumgartner
Publisher: BRILL
Total Pages: 456
Release: 2018-11-13
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 9004379002

The papers in this volume were delivered at the first international colloquium by the Jacob Taubes Minerva Center for Religious Anthropology at Bar Ilan University, held in February 1995. Concepts of Self, Soul and Body are so close to the physiological layers of life that we may imagine them to be biological as well; but in fact, they are social constructs, and a source of fundamental metaphors for the classification of experience. They thus help organize the world, at the same time as they express basic human identity. They vary from culture to culture and can productively be compared and contrasted from one setting to another. We intend these papers to be a test case of the benefit to be gained from attention to Religious Anthropology.

Sects and Sectarianism in Jewish History

Sects and Sectarianism in Jewish History
Author: Sacha Stern
Publisher: BRILL
Total Pages: 327
Release: 2011-04-21
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 9004206485

Several Jewish groups from Antiquity until today have been traditionally identified as ‘sects’ or as ‘sectarian’, most famously the Qumran community and the Qaraites. This volume questions the appropriateness of this interpretation of social and religious movements in Jewish history.

From the Maccabees to the Mishnah, Third Edition

From the Maccabees to the Mishnah, Third Edition
Author: Shaye Cohen
Publisher: Westminster John Knox Press
Total Pages: 318
Release: 2014-11-22
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 1611645484

This is the third edition of Shaye J. D. Cohen's important and seminal work on the history and development of Judaism between 164 BCE to 300 CE. Cohen's synthesis of religion, literature, and history offers deep insight into the nature of Judaism at this key period, including the relationship between Jews and Gentiles, the function of Jewish religion in the larger community, and the development of normative Judaism and other Jewish sects. Cohen offers students more than just history, but an understanding of the social and cultural context of Judaism as it developed into the formative period of rabbinic Judaism. This new edition includes a brand-new chapter on the parting of ways between Jews and Christians in the second century CE. From the Maccabees to the Mishnah remains the clearest introduction to the era that shaped Judaism and provided the context for early Christianity.

The Books of the Maccabees: History, Theology, Ideology

The Books of the Maccabees: History, Theology, Ideology
Author: Géza Xeravits
Publisher: BRILL
Total Pages: 263
Release: 2007
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 900415700X

The volume contains essays on various problems of the early Jewish works: the Books of the Maccabees. Authors include renowned international specialists in the literature and thinking of early Judaism.

The Maccabean Martyrs as Saviours of the Jewish People

The Maccabean Martyrs as Saviours of the Jewish People
Author: Jan Willem van Henten
Publisher: BRILL
Total Pages: 360
Release: 2021-11-22
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 9004497544

This volume deals with the presentation of the so-called Maccabean martyrs and the elder Razis in 2 and 4 Maccabees, discussing the religious, the political as well as the philosophical aspects of noble death in these writings. It argues that the theme of martyrdom is a very important part of the self-image of the Jews as presented by the authors of both works. Eleazar, the anonymous mother with her seven sons and Razis should, therefore, be considered heroes of the Jewish people. The first part of the book discusses the sources and the second part deals with the descriptions of noble death. This section of the book also offers extensive discussions of related non-Jewish traditions which highlight the political-patriotic dimension of noble death as described in 2 and 4 Maccabees.

1 Maccabees

1 Maccabees
Author: Daniel R. Schwartz
Publisher: Yale University Press
Total Pages: 503
Release: 2022-01-01
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 0300159935

A new translation and commentary on I Maccabees that offers a fresh interpretation of the author's values and purpose First Maccabees, composed in the second century BCE, chronicles four decades of clashes between Hellenistic Syria and Judea, from Antiochus Epiphanes's ascent to the throne in 175 BCE to the Hasmoneans' establishment of an independent Judean state, ruled by Simon and his sons. In this volume, Daniel R. Schwartz provides a new translation of the Greek text and analyzes its historical significance. In dialogue with contemporary scholarship, the introduction surveys the work's themes, sources, and transmission, while the commentary addresses textual details and issues of historical reconstruction, often devoting special attention to the lost Hebrew original and its associations. Schwartz demonstrates that 1 Maccabees, despite its Hebraic biblical style and its survival within the Christian canon, deviates from biblical and Judaic works by marginalizing God, evincing scorn for martyrs, and ascribing to human power and valor crucial historical roles. This all fits its mandate: justification of the Hasmonean dynasty, especially the Simonides.

Sectarianism in Early Judaism

Sectarianism in Early Judaism
Author: David J. Chalcraft
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 304
Release: 2014-12-05
Genre: History
ISBN: 1317491386

'Sectarianism in Early Judaism' applies recent developments in sociological analysis to sect formation and development in early Judaism. The essays examine sectarianism in a wide range of different forms: the many layers of redaction in religious texts; the development arcs of sectarian groups; the role of sectarianism across Jewish history as well as in the time of the Second Temple; and the relations within and between sects and between sects and wider society. The book aims to establish a conceptual framework for the analysis of sects and, in doing so, makes particular use of the work of Max Weber and Bryan Wilson, exploring the limits of their typologies and sociological theories.

Christian Identity in the Jewish and Graeco-Roman World

Christian Identity in the Jewish and Graeco-Roman World
Author: Judith Lieu
Publisher: OUP Oxford
Total Pages: 380
Release: 2004-05-27
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 0191532347

'I am a Christian' is the confession of the martyrs of early Christian texts and, no doubt, of many others; but what did this confession mean, and how was early Christian identity constructed? This innovative study sets the emergence of Christian identity in the first two centuries, as it is constructed by the broad range of surviving literature, within the wider context of Jewish and Graeco-Roman identity. It uses a number of models from contemporary constructionist views of identity formation to explore how what comes to be seen as 'Christian' literature creates a sense of what to be 'a Christian' means, and traces both continuities and discontinuities with the ways in which Jewish and Graeco-Roman identity were also being constructed through their texts. It seeks to acknowledge the centrality of texts in shaping early Christianity, historically as well as in our perception of it, while also exploring how we might move from those texts to the individuals and communities who preserved them. Such an approach challenges more traditional emphases on the development of institutions, whether structures or credal and ethical formulations, which often fail to recognize the rhetorical function of the texts on which they draw, and the uncertainties of how well these reflect the actual practice and experience of individuals and communities. While building on recent recognition of the diversity of early Christianity, the book goes on to explore the question whether it is possible to speak of a distinctive Christian identity across both the range of early texts and as a pressing historical and theological question in the contemporary world.