Studies in Medieval Jewish Intellectual and Social History

Studies in Medieval Jewish Intellectual and Social History
Author: David Engel
Publisher: BRILL
Total Pages: 343
Release: 2012-01-20
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 9004222332

Thirteen leading scholars offer a fresh look at four key topics in medieval Jewish studies: the history of Jewish communities in Western Christendom, Jewish-Christian interactions in medieval Europe, medieval Jewish Biblical exegesis and religious literature, and historical representations of medieval Jewry.

The Jews in Medieval Normandy

The Jews in Medieval Normandy
Author: Norman Golb
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 668
Release: 1998-05-04
Genre: History
ISBN: 9780521580328

This 1998 book is a comprehensive account of the high Hebraic culture developed by the Jews in Normandy during the Middle Ages, and in particular during the Anglo-Norman period. This culture has remained virtually unknown to the public and to the scholarly world throughout modern times, until a combination of recent manuscript discoveries and archaeological findings delineated this phenomenon for the first time. The book explores the origins of this remarkable community, beginning with topographical evidence pointing to the arrival of the Jews in Normandy as early as Roman and Gallo-Roman times, through autograph documentary testimony available in the Cairo Genizah manuscripts and early medieval Latin sources, finally using the rich manuscript evidence of twelfth- and early thirteenth-century writers which attest to the high cultural level attained by this community and to its social and political interaction with the Christian world of Anglo-Norman times and their aftermath.

Studies in Medieval Jewish History and Literature

Studies in Medieval Jewish History and Literature
Author: Isadore Twersky
Publisher:
Total Pages: 476
Release: 1979
Genre: History
ISBN:

critical edition and annotated translation of one of the classics of Jewish biblical interpretation. The collection will be indispensable to all students of Jewish history and culture.

The Jews of Medieval Islam

The Jews of Medieval Islam
Author: Daniel H. Frank
Publisher: BRILL
Total Pages: 382
Release: 1995
Genre: History
ISBN: 9789004104044

A collection of fifteen articles on the communal, social, and intellectual life of medieval Jewry in Islamic lands. This volume depicts a civilization unified in its languages and basic structures but diverse in its distinctive lical indentities and collective memories.

A Remembrance of His Wonders

A Remembrance of His Wonders
Author: David I. Shyovitz
Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press
Total Pages: 352
Release: 2017-06-13
Genre: History
ISBN: 0812249119

In A Remembrance of His Wonders, David I. Shyovitz uncovers the sophisticated ways in which medieval Ashkenazic Jews engaged with the workings and meaning of the natural world, and traces the porous boundaries between medieval science and mysticism, nature and the supernatural, and ultimately, Christians and Jews.

Creativity and Tradition

Creativity and Tradition
Author: Israel M. Ta-Shma
Publisher: Harvard University Press
Total Pages: 264
Release: 2006
Genre: Family & Relationships
ISBN:

This volume brings together 16 of Ta-Shma's outstanding studies (4 published here for the first time). These essays focus on leading rabbinic scholars and their writings as well as important issues of Jewish intellectual history, such as the nature of halakhah and aggadah; kabbalah and spirituality; childhood; and popular religion.

Locations of Knowledge in Medieval and Early Modern Europe

Locations of Knowledge in Medieval and Early Modern Europe
Author: Kocku von Stuckrad
Publisher: BRILL
Total Pages: 254
Release: 2010-03-08
Genre: History
ISBN: 9004184236

One characteristic of European history of religion is a two-fold pluralism—a pluralism of religious identities on the one hand, and a pluralism of various societal systems that interact with religious systems on the other. Addressing discourses of perfect knowledge in Western culture between 1200 and 1800, this book integrates the study of Western esotericism in a larger analytical framework of European history of religion. Viewed from a structuralist perspective, ‘esoteric discourse’ provides an analytical framework that helps to reveal genealogies of modern identities in a pluralistic competition of knowledge. Experiential philosophy, kabbalah, astrology, Hermeticism, philology, and early modern science are linked to knowledge claims that shaped the way in which Western culture defined itself.

Matthaeus Adversus Christianos

Matthaeus Adversus Christianos
Author: Christoph Ochs
Publisher: Mohr Siebeck
Total Pages: 448
Release: 2013
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 9783161526152

In this book, Christoph Ochs presents for the first time an extensive study of the use of the Gospel of Matthew in Jewish polemics. These often overlooked texts advance numerous exegetical arguments against Jesus' divinity, the incarnation, and the Trinity. Seven Jewish polemical key texts comprise the main sources for this inquiry: Qissat Mujadalat al-Usquf (c. 8/9th century) and Sefer Nestor ha-Komer (before 1170), Sefer Milhamot ha-Shem (c. 1170), Sefer Yosef ha-Meqanne (c. 13th century), Nizzahon Vetus (13-14th century), Even Bohan (late 14th century), Kelimmat ha-Goyim (c. 1397), and Hizzuq Emunah (c. 1594). Together with the relevant passages in the original Hebrew and in translation, each text is presented with a historical and exegetical introduction. Contemporary parallels are also discussed, but in less detail. The result is a compendium of arguments against the divinity of Jesus based on the Jewish interpretation of Matthew.

Polemical and Exegetical Polarities in Medieval Jewish Cultures

Polemical and Exegetical Polarities in Medieval Jewish Cultures
Author: Ehud Krinis
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG
Total Pages: 520
Release: 2021-10-25
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 3110702266

In his academic career, that by now spans six decades, Daniel J. Lasker distinguished himself by the wide range of his scholarly interests. In the field of Jewish theology and philosophy he contributed significantly to the study of Rabbinic as well as Karaite authors. In the field of Jewish polemics his studies explore Judeo-Arabic and Hebrew texts, analyzing them in the context of their Christian and Muslim backgrounds. His contributions refer to a wide variety of authors who lived from the 9th century to the 18th century and beyond, in the Muslim East, in Muslin and Christian parts of the Mediterranean Sea, and in west and east Europe. This Festschrift for Daniel J. Lasker consists of four parts. The first highlights his academic career and scholarly achievements. In the three other parts, colleagues and students of Daniel J. Lasker offer their own findings and insights in topics strongly connected to his studies, namely, intersections of Jewish theology and Biblical exegesis with the Islamic and Christian cultures, as well as Jewish-Muslim and Jewish-Christian relations. Thus, this wide-scoped and rich volume offers significant contributions to a variety of topics in Jewish Studies.

Medieval Jewish Philosophy and Its Literary Forms

Medieval Jewish Philosophy and Its Literary Forms
Author: Aaron W. Hughes
Publisher: Indiana University Press
Total Pages: 374
Release: 2019-07-11
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 0253042550

“This well-written, accessible [essay] collection demonstrates a maturation in Jewish studies and medieval philosophy” (Choice). Too often the study of philosophical texts is carried out in ways that do not pay significant attention to how the ideas contained within them are presented, articulated, and developed. This was not always the case. The contributors to this collected work consider Jewish philosophy in the medieval period, when new genres and forms of written expression were flourishing in the wake of renewed interest in ancient philosophy. Many medieval Jewish philosophers were highly accomplished poets, for example, and made conscious efforts to write in a poetic style. This volume turns attention to the connections that medieval Jewish thinkers made between the literary, the exegetical, the philosophical, and the mystical to shed light on the creativity and diversity of medieval thought. As they broaden the scope of what counts as medieval Jewish philosophy, the essays collected here consider questions about how an argument is formed, how text is put into the service of philosophy, and the social and intellectual environment in which philosophical texts were produced.