Jewish Aramaic Poetry from Late Antiquity

Jewish Aramaic Poetry from Late Antiquity
Author: Laura Suzanne Lieber
Publisher: BRILL
Total Pages: 245
Release: 2018-04-10
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 9004365893

In Jewish Aramaic Poetry from Late Antiquity, Laura Suzanne Lieber offers annotated translations of sixty-nine poems written between the 4th and 7th century C.E. in the Land of Israel, along with commentaries and introductions. The poems celebrate a range of occasions from the ritual year and the life-cycle: Passover, Shavuot (Pentacost), the Ninth of Av, Purim, the New Moon of Nisan, the conclusion of the Torah, weddings, and funerals. Written in the vernacular of the Jews of living in Palestine after the Christianization of the Roman Empire, these works offer insight into lived Jewish experience during a pivotal age. The volume contextualizes the individual works so that readers from a range of backgrounds can appreciate the formal, linguistic, exegetical, theological, and performative creativity of these works. "Lieber has produced reliable renderings, as well as learned and helpful annotations, and has consistently expressed herself in clear and elegant fashion....Her volume is an important, scientific study in its own right, as well as a useful reference tool (if read alongside the Sokoloff-Yahalom edition), and certainly deserves a wide readership." - Stefan C. Reif, St John's College, Cambridge, UK, in: Journal of Jewish Studies 70.2 (2019) "Scholars of Judaism in late antiquity and the early Middle Ages will certainly appreciate Lieber’s effort in offering all of this textual material to them in conveniently accessible form. Almost every student of Judaism in those eras, regardless of academic specialty, is likely to find something of interest and value in the poems that she has translated." - Mose J. Bernstein, Yeshiva University, Speculum 95/3 (2020)

Studies in Aramaic Poetry (c. 100 B.C.E.-c. 600 C.E.)

Studies in Aramaic Poetry (c. 100 B.C.E.-c. 600 C.E.)
Author: Rodrigues Pereira
Publisher: BRILL
Total Pages: 466
Release: 2018-07-17
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 9004358641

The paucity of material, which has limited the study of Aramaic for too long, is gradually being alleviated. An ever growing body of well-edited texts is being made available to the scholarly world. These publications have provoked a number of important and penetrating linguistical and grammatical studies. Generally, however, corresponding literary studies of these texts are still lacking. The present work is an attempt to add a literary approach to the earlier analyses. The study deals with Aramaic poetry of the period between c. 100 B.C.E. and c. 600 C.E. The discussion of the textual material is organized in a number of levels, one superimposed upon the other. The basis is formed by a close exegetical and literary reading of the poems to elucidate essential elements of content, style and form. Particular attention is paid to structure and composi tion as a function of the content of the poems, and to the use made by the poets of stylistic devices as structural elements.

Genesis in Late Antique Poetry

Genesis in Late Antique Poetry
Author: Andrew Faulkner
Publisher: CUA Press
Total Pages: 250
Release: 2022-05-13
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 0813235561

The biblical book of Genesis stands nearly without parallel in the shared history of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. Because of its abiding importance to late antique theology and practical life across religious boundaries, it gave rise to a wide range of literary responses. The essays in this book study an array of Jewish and Christian responses to Genesis as they took shape in specific literary forms—the unique genres of late antique poetry. While late antique and early medieval Jews and Christians did not always agree in their interpretations of Genesis, they participated broadly in a shared culture of poetic production. Some of these poetic genres paralleled one another simply as distinct examples of metered speech, while others emerged in conversation and through mutual influence. Though late antique poems developed in a variety of languages and across religious boundaries, scholarly study of late antique poetry has tended to isolate the phenomenon according to language. As a corrective to this linguistic isolation, this book initiates a comparative conversation around the Jewish and Christian poetry that emerged in late antique Aramaic, Greek, Hebrew, Latin, and Syriac. Tending equally to exegetical content and literary form, the essays in this book sit at the intersection of a variety of scholarly conversations—around the history of biblical exegesis, the formation of late antique and early medieval literature and literary culture, and the comparative study of Judaism and Christianity.

Handbook of Jewish Literature from Late Antiquity, 135-700 CE

Handbook of Jewish Literature from Late Antiquity, 135-700 CE
Author: Fergus Millar
Publisher: OUP/British Academy
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2013-01-10
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 9780197265222

A clear account of all the Jewish literature produced in Late Antiquity in either Palestine or Babylonia, aiming above all to orientate students and interested non-specialists as regards what types of literature are involved and how access can be gained to texts and translations.

Jews, Christians, and the Roman Empire

Jews, Christians, and the Roman Empire
Author: Natalie B. Dohrmann
Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press
Total Pages: 401
Release: 2013-11
Genre: History
ISBN: 0812245334

This volume revisits issues of empire from the perspective of Jews, Christians, and other Romans in the third to sixth centuries. Through case studies, the contributors bring Jewish perspectives to bear on longstanding debates concerning Romanization, Christianization, and late antiquity.

The Poet and the World

The Poet and the World
Author: Joachim Yeshaya
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG
Total Pages: 348
Release: 2019-07-08
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 3110599236

A collection of seventeen essays on pre-modern Hebrew poetry in honor of Wout van Bekkum. The articles in this volume all seek to examine how the religious, cultural, and social context in which the poet functioned impacted on and is visible, either explicitly or more elliptically, in their poetical oeuvre. For this purposes a broad understanding of "world" has been accepted, including both the natural world and the constructed one (society, culture, language) as well as the spiritual and emotional world. History, a pillar of the man-made constructed world, has been used to determine the boundaries: from Late Antiquity to the Middle Ages, and—in instances where the topic connects to older traditions—to Early Modern Judaism, i.e. pre-modern Hebrew (and Aramaic) poetry. The articles in this volume, in the breadth of their temporal and spatial range and their multiplicity of approaches and methodologies, highlight the richness of contemporary scholarship on Hebrew poetry. The volume invites the reader to engage with this astonishing body of poetry, while providing a glimpse into the world of the payṭanim, and the cultures and societies from which they drew their ininspiration and to which they made such important contributions.

Classical Samaritan Poetry

Classical Samaritan Poetry
Author: Laura Suzanne Lieber
Publisher: PSU Department of English
Total Pages: 329
Release: 2022-01-20
Genre: Literary Collections
ISBN: 1646021908

This book introduces the evocative but largely unknown tradition of Samaritan religious poetry from late antiquity to a new audience. These verses provide a unique window into the Samaritan religious world during a formative period. Prepared by Laura Suzanne Lieber, this anthology presents annotated English translations of fifty-five Classical Samaritan poems. Lieber introduces each piece, placing it in context with Samaritan religious tradition, the geopolitical turmoil of Palestine in the fourth century CE, and the literary, liturgical, and performative conventions of the Eastern and Western Roman Empires, shared by Jews, Christians, and polytheists. These hymns, composed by three generations of poets—the priest Amram Dara; his son, Marqah; and Marqah’s son, Ninna, the last poet to write in Samaritan Aramaic in the period prior to the Muslim conquest—for recitation during the Samaritan Sabbath and festival liturgies remain a core element of Samaritan religious ritual to the present day. Shedding important new light on the Samaritans’ history and on the complicated connections between early Judaism, Christianity, the Samaritan community, and nascent Islam, this volume makes an important contribution to the reception of the history of the Hebrew Bible. It will appeal to a wide audience of students and scholars of the Hebrew Bible, the New Testament, early Judaism and early Christianity, and other religions of late antiquity.

Yannai on Genesis

Yannai on Genesis
Author: Laura S. Lieber
Publisher: Hebrew Union College Press
Total Pages: 817
Release: 2010-09-15
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 0878201041

Piyyut is the art of Hebrew or Aramaic poetry composed either in place of or as adornments to Jewish statutory prayers. Laura S. Lieber uses the piyyutim of a single poet, Yannai (ca. sixth century C.E.), to introduce readers to this important but largely unfamiliar body of writings. Yannai, the first Hebrew poet to sign his name to his works (by means of an acrostic), influenced Hebrew sacred poetry for centuries beyond his lifespan. He was the first to consistently use true end rhyme, and he was among the first to have written for the weekly service and festivals rather than just particular holidays. As literary works, his poems are as dazzling as they are complex, rich with sound and play, allusion and linguistic beauty. Lieber presents the Hebrew texts of Yannai's 31 extant piyyutim which embellish the Book of Genesis. She translates, annotates, and analyzes these complex poems, which display the poet's transformative treatments of some of the most familiar biblical narratives. She contextualizes these poems and teaches readers how to read and appreciate piyyut by studying Yannai's poetic language and the formal structures of the poems; his exegetical, cultural, and societal importance; and intriguing motifs in Yannai's worldview such as mysticism, holiness, Jewish-Christian relations, and the role of women. Lieber's groundbreaking study is an invitation to those with interests in areas such as liturgical studies, rabbinic literature and targum studies, the early synagogue and its art, Byzantine Christian culture and society, and the history of biblical interpretation to engage with these beautiful and neglected texts and include them in larger intellectual conversations.

The Routledge Handbook of Jews and Judaism in Late Antiquity

The Routledge Handbook of Jews and Judaism in Late Antiquity
Author: Catherine Hezser
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
Total Pages: 746
Release: 2024-01-24
Genre: History
ISBN: 1315280957

This volume focuses on the major issues and debates in the study of Jews and Judaism in late antiquity (third to seventh century C.E.), providing cutting-edge surveys of the state of scholarship, main topics and research questions, methodological approaches, and avenues for future research. Based on both Jewish and non-Jewish literary and material sources, this volume takes an interdisciplinary approach involving historians of ancient Judaism, scholars of rabbinic literature, archaeologists, epigraphers, art historians, and Byzantinists. Developments within Jewish society and culture are viewed within the respective regional, political, cultural, and socioeconomic contexts in which they took place. Special focus is given to the impact of the Christianization of the Roman Empire on Jews, from administrative, legal, social, and cultural points of view. The contributors examine how the confrontation with Christianity changed Jewish practices, perceptions, and organizational structures, such as, for example, the emergence of local Jewish communities around synagogues as central religious spaces. Special chapters are devoted to the eastern and western Jewish Diaspora in Late Antiquity, especially Sasanian Persia but also Roman Italy, Egypt, Syria and Arabia, North Africa, and Asia Minor, to provide a comprehensive assessment of the situation and life experiences of Jews and Judaism during this period. The Routledge Handbook of Jews and Judaism in Late Antiquity is a critical and methodologically sophisticated survey of current scholarship aimed primarily at students and scholars of Jewish Studies, Study of Religions, Patristics, Classics, Roman and Byzantine Studies, Iranology, History of Art, and Archaeology. It is a valuable resource for anyone interested in Judaism and Jewish history.

Talmuda de-Eretz Israel

Talmuda de-Eretz Israel
Author: Steven Fine
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG
Total Pages: 333
Release: 2014-07-28
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 1614518513

Talmuda de-Eretz Israel: Archaeology and the Rabbis in Late Antique Palestine brings together an international community of historians, literature scholars and archaeologists to explore how the integrated study of rabbinic texts and archaeology increases our understanding of both types of evidence, and of the complex culture which they together reflect. This volume reflects a growing consensus that rabbinic culture was an “embodied” culture, presenting a series of case studies that demonstrate the value of archaeology for the contextualization of rabbinic literature. It steers away from later twentieth-century trends, particularly in North America, that stressed disjunction between archaeology and rabbinic literature, and seeks a more holistic approach.