The Jewish Annotated Apocrypha

The Jewish Annotated Apocrypha
Author: Jonathan Klawans
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 704
Release: 2020-09-29
Genre: Bibles
ISBN: 0190262508

Building on the success of the Jewish Annotated New Testament (JANT) and the Jewish Study Bible (JSB), Oxford University Press now proceeds to complete the trilogy with the Jewish Annotated Apocrypha (JAA). The books of the Apocrypha were virtually all composed by Jewish writers in the Second Temple period. Excluded from the Hebrew Bible, these works were preserved by Christians. Yet no complete, standalone edition of these works has been produced in English with an emphasis on Jewish tradition or with an educated Jewish audience in mind. The JAA meets this need. The JAA differs from prior editions of the Apocrypha in a number of ways. First, as befits a Jewish Annotated Apocrypha, the volume excludes certain texts that are widely agreed to be of Christian origin. Second, it expands the scope of the volume to include Jubilees, an essential text for understanding ancient Judaism, and a book that merits inclusion in the volume by virtue of the fact that it was long considered part of the canon of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church (the text is also revered by Ethiopian Jews). Third, it has restructured the order of the books so that the sequencing follows the logic that governs the order of the books in the Jewish canon (Law, History, Prophecy, Wisdom and Poetry). Using the NRSV translation (plus Jubilees), each book of the Apocrypha is annotated by a recognized expert in the study of ancient Judaism. An Introduction by the editors guides readers though the making of the volume and its contents. Thematic essays by an impressive array of scholars provide helpful contexts, backgrounds and elaborations on key themes.

The Rabbinic Conversion of Judaism

The Rabbinic Conversion of Judaism
Author: Moshe Lavee
Publisher: BRILL
Total Pages: 335
Release: 2017-11-20
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 9004352058

In this volume, Moshe Lavee offers an account of crucial internal developments in the rabbinic corpus, and shows how the Babylonian Talmud dramatically challenged and extended the rabbinic model of conversion to Judaism. The history of conversion to Judaism has long fascinated Jews along a broad ideological continuum. This book demonstrates the rabbis in Babylonia further reworked former traditions about conversion in ever more stringent direction, shifting the focus of identity demarcation towards genealogy and bodily perspectives. By applying a reading-strategy that emphasizes late Babylonian literary developments, Lavee sheds critical light on a broader discourse regarding the nature and boundaries of Jewish identity.

The Commentary of Abraham Ibn Ezra on the Pentateuch: Leviticus

The Commentary of Abraham Ibn Ezra on the Pentateuch: Leviticus
Author: Abraham ben Meïr Ibn Ezra
Publisher: KTAV Publishing House, Inc.
Total Pages: 192
Release: 1986
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 9780881251098

Poet, Biblical commentator, grammarian, astronomer, mathematician--Abraham ibn Ezra was one of the most remarkable men of his time and one of the relatively few whose works have become the heritage of all those who wish to understand the Hebrew Bible properly. Ibn Ezra combined a passion for the plain sense of the verse with a reverence for the Rabbis as transmitters of reliable tradition. His most widely used works are his commentaries on the Torah, which are admired for their depth and penetration into the mysteries of the Hebrew language, the text of the Torah and the meaning of the mitzvot. Because of their many-faceted character and elusive language, his commentaries are often difficult to understand in their original Hebrew, and have thus inspired many super-commentaries. Here for the first time is an English translation of ibn Ezra's commentary on the Book of Leviticus, and the Book of Deuteronomy based on those super-commentaries, in a style which is both faithful to the original and yet enables those who wish to fathom his meaning to do so. An English rendering of Leviticus and Deuteronomy appears at the top of each page; the bottom of each page contains the translation of ibn Ezra's commentary. This volume includes and Appendix of astronomical units, and indices of Biblical and Talmudic references.

The Beginnings of Jewishness

The Beginnings of Jewishness
Author: Shaye J. D. Cohen
Publisher: Univ of California Press
Total Pages: 452
Release: 1999
Genre: Conversion
ISBN: 9780520211414

This book describes and explains the fluidity of the definition of Jewishness from c. 200 BCE to c. 200 CE.

Encyclopedia of Jewish Medical Ethics

Encyclopedia of Jewish Medical Ethics
Author: Fred Rosner
Publisher: Feldheim Publishers
Total Pages: 1290
Release: 2003
Genre: Law
ISBN: 9781583305928

Ethical issues in modern medicine are of great concern and interest to all physicians and health-care providers throughout the world, as well as to the public at large. Jewish scholars and ethicists have discussed medical ethics throughout Jewish history.

Exploring Mishnah's World(s)

Exploring Mishnah's World(s)
Author: Simcha Fishbane
Publisher: Springer Nature
Total Pages: 345
Release: 2020-11-07
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 3030535711

This book provides a new conceptual and methodological framework the social scientific study of Mishnah, as well as a series of case studies that apply social science perspectives to the analysis of Mishnah's evidence. The framework is one that takes full account of the historical and literary-historical issues that impinge upon the use of Mishnah for any scholarly purposes beyond philological study, including social scientific approaches to the materials. Based on the framework, each chapter undertakes, with appropriate methodological caveats, an avenue of inquiry open to the social scientist that brings to bear social scientific questions and modes of inquiry to Mishnaic evidence.

The Oxford Handbook of Religious Perspectives on Reproductive Ethics

The Oxford Handbook of Religious Perspectives on Reproductive Ethics
Author: Davis
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 593
Release: 2023
Genre: Education
ISBN: 0190633204

"As I write this introduction, the third season of the Israeli series, Schtisel, has arrived on Netflix, eagerly awaited by viewers around the world who would never have imagined how caught up they would get by this family drama of four generations of ultra-Orthodox Jews living in Jerusalem. One episode focuses on Ruchami and Hanina, a young couple who have been married for five years, but without children. It turns out that pregnancy and childbirth would threaten Ruchami's life. She is using an IUD, but she keeps threatening to have it removed, risking her life to become a mother. Finally, with great reluctance, Hanina visits the rebbe, the spiritual authority in their community, to discuss the possibility of using a surrogate. They are, says the rebbe, caught between two "non-ideal" situations: surrogacy, normally forbidden, is non-ideal, but so is Ruchami's unhappiness and the possibility that she might go ahead and take the risk, which is also forbidden"--

The Boundaries of Judaism

The Boundaries of Judaism
Author: Donniel Hartman
Publisher: A&C Black
Total Pages: 204
Release: 2007-11-27
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 0826496636

The factionalism and denominationalism of modern Jewry makes it supremely difficult to create a definition of the Jewish people. Aiming to take readers beyond the divisions that characterize modern Jewry, this book explores the ever contentious question of "who is a Jew."

Transforming Identity

Transforming Identity
Author: Abraham Sagi
Publisher: A&C Black
Total Pages: 320
Release: 2007-01-01
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 0826496725

Of all Judaic rituals, that of giyyur is arguably the most radical: it turns a Gentile into a Jew - once and for all and irrevocably. The very possibility of such a transformation is anomalous, according to Jewish tradition, which regards Jewishness as an ascriptive status entered through birth to a Jewish mother. This book provides a close reading of primary halakhic texts as a key to the explication of meaning within the Judaic tradition.