Thirteen foremost scholars describe the views of death, life after death, resurrection, and the world-to-come set forth in the literary evidence for late antique Judaism. The volume covers the vie w of Scripture as a whole as against other Israelite writings; distinct parts of Scripture such as Psalms and the Wisdom literature; apocalyptic and the non-apocalyptic pseudepigraphic literature, Philo; Josephus; the Dead Sea Scrolls; earliest Christianity (the Gospels in particular); the Rabbinic sources; the Palestinian Targums to the Pentateuch; and, out of material culture, the inscriptional evidence. The result is both to highlight the range of available perspectives on this important issue and to illuminate a central problem in the study of Judaism in late antiquity, phrased neatly as "One Judaism or many?" Here we place on display indicative components of Judaism in their full diversity, leaving it for readers to determine whether the notion of a single, coherent religion falls under the weight of a mass of documentary contradictions or whether an inner harmony shines forth from a repertoire of largely shared and only superficially-diverse data.

America's foremost scholar on formative Judaism examines the issue of gender as it appears in the corpus of rabbinic literature and arrives at some provocative conclusions. While the structure of Judaism based on the dual Torah is clearly masculine in orientation, the substructure--the religious system that shapes its values and perception--is androgynous, an individual conjunction of genders. In fact, the higher values, as defined by the relevant writings, prove to be feminine.

Here is a sustained criticism of the "rather facile use" of rabbinic literature by New Testament scholarship. In particular, Neusner addresses the writings of Helmut Koester, Samuel Sandmel, Reginald Fuller, Harvey Falk, Geza Vermes, E.P. Sanders, S.J.D. Cohen, Morton Smith, John P. Meier, and Brad H. Young. The book begins with a study of the characteristics of rabbinic literature and a demonstration of why this literature cannot be easily used for the kind of history New Testament scholarship proposes to produce. Then follow critiques of the writings by various New Testament scholars and the differences between Professor Neusner and his critics. A concluding section pays tribute to the New Testament field for all it has taught the author.

The twelve articles in this book (five of them by editor Jacob Neusner) explore the background developments and motivating forces for what Neusner calls the "re-invention" of history in the fourth and fifth centuries CE. The Christianization of the Roman empire under Constantine is seen as the impetus for reexamination within both Christianity and Judaism of their historical foundations. History then became a "mode of religious-theological discourse" for the respective communities of faith. The other contributors to the volume are: Burton Mack, Glenn Chestnut, Arnaldo Momigliano, Nahum Glatzer, and William Scott Green.

Jacob Neusner is Research Professor of Religion and Theology at Bard College and Senior Fellow of the Institute of Advanced Theology at Bard. He has published more than 900 books and unnumbered articles, both scholarly and academic and popular and journalistic, and is the most published humanities scholar in the world. He has been awarded nine honorary degrees, including seven US and European honorary doctorates. He received his AB from Harvard College in 1953, his PhD from Columbia University and Union Theological Seminary in 1961, and rabbinical ordination and the degree of Master of Hebrew Letters from the Jewish Theological Seminary of America in 1960. Neusner is editor of the 'Encyclopedia of Judaism' (Brill, 1999. I-III) and its Supplements; Chair of the Editorial Board of 'The Review of Rabbinic Judaism, ' and Editor in Chief of 'The Brill Reference Library of Judaism', both published by E. J. Brill, Leiden, The Netherlands. He is editor of 'Studies in Judaism', University Press of America. Neusner resides with his wife in Rhinebeck, New York. They have a daughter, three sons and three daughters-in-law, six granddaughters and two grandsons.