The biblical tale of Noah and the Flood has been interpreted in many different ways through the ages, mirroring the many changes in Western beliefs and values. In this masterly and beautifully illustrated book, Norman Cohn, the author of The Pursuit of the Millennium and Cosmos, Chaos and the World to Come, explores the origins, development, and varying interpretations of this ancient story and assesses its impact on the history of ideas. The roots of the Flood story, Cohn explains, lie in Mesopotamian mythology. But its meaning was totally transformed by the authors of Genesis so that it became a message of hope for Jews and later a prefiguring of salvation for Christians. Cohn then shows how, under the impact of the scientific revolution of the seventeenth century, the story came to be understood in a new way. Between the seventeenth and the nineteenth centuries it was closely associated with the development of scientific geology, which it both helped and hindered. From the late eighteenth century until the present day the story of Noah's Flood has been involved also in the conflict between traditional religious beliefs and science and the attempts to harmonize the two. Cohn describes how, while geological and palaeontological discoveries were calling the historicity of the Flood into question, fundamentalists have continued to champion it, even to the extent of searching for the landing site of the ark. Finally, he considers how, in the course of the present century, the story has been interpreted as a solar myth, a lunar myth, a fertility myth, and even (psychoanalytically) as an expression of male resentment against women. Wide ranging and compellingly narrated, the book includesintriguing accounts of the scholars and theologians who endorsed or rejected the Flood story and contributed to its powerful resonance over two thousand years.

This collection of essays explores the divergent, as well as complementary trends, in reading the Hebrew Bible in the pre-modern world. It does so by focusing on a variety of Jewish and Christian exegetical, literary and visual texts. The first part of this volume focuses on aspects of interpretation, performance and image in Christian readings of the Hebrew Bible, as evident in translations of the Bible, sermons, plays, treatises and paintings. The second part focuses on the Jewish understanding of Scripture in the Middle Ages, as evident in the running commentary on the books of the Pentateuch as well as in illuminated manuscripts and mystical texts. Together, they provide a forum of interdisciplinary scholarship that demonstrates the Bible’s multivalent presence.--

Is the Bible actually a love story between a deity and a people? And what does this love story have to do with the modern world? In With All Thine Heart distinguished cultural critic Ilan Stavans speaks to freelance writer Mordecai Drache about love in the Bible. Presented in an engaging, conversational format and touched with striking artwork, the textured dialogue between Stavans and Drache is meant to show how the Bible is a multidimensional text and one that, when considered over the course of history, still has the power to shape our world. The theme of love provides the connective tissue that binds this work. Addressing a wide range of topics, from biblical archaeology and fundamentalism to Hollywood movies, lexicography, and the act of praying, With All Thine Heart suggests that the Hebrew Bible is a novel worth decoding patiently, such as one does with classics like Don Quixote de la Mancha, In Search of Lost Time, and Anna Karenina. Similar to the protagonists in these tales, biblical characters, although not shaped with the artistic nuance of modern literature, allow for astonishing insight. This exploration of love through the pages of the Bible--organized chronologically from Genesis to Exodus and followed by insightful meditations on the Song of Songs and the Book of Job--is a delightful intellectual and spiritual treat . . . Shema Ysrael!

Analyzes the views of Jewish philosophers on the problem of evil and suffering of innocents, stressing their philosophical, not merely religious, responses to the problem. In ch. 10 (pp. 185-219), "The Holocaust", the views of post-Holocaust thinkers Elie Wiesel, Richard Rubenstein, Emil Fackenheim, Arthur Cohen, Eliezer Berkovits, and Ignaz Maybaum are examined, as well as some Christian reactions to the Holocaust. Traditional Jewish thought regards God as very remote from the human world; He gave human beings the Law and freedom of choice, but refrains from intervening in human matters. However, the enormity of the Holocaust in comparison to other Jewish disasters presents a serious problem - why did He not intervene in this special case? The philosophers answer basic questions - such as, does God intervene in history at all; where was He during the Holocaust; does He understand our sufferings; did He partake in the tragedy, and if so, what were His intentions - in different ways. They all insist, however, that we must not abandon Judaism. Criticizes weak aspects of each explanation.

How well integrated were Jews in the Mediterranean society controlled by ancient Rome? The Torah's laws seem to constitute a rejection of the reciprocity-based social dependency and emphasis on honor that were customary in the ancient Mediterranean world. But were Jews really a people apart, and outside of this broadly shared culture? Were the Jews a Mediterranean Society? argues that Jewish social relations in antiquity were animated by a core tension between biblical solidarity and exchange-based social values such as patronage, vassalage, formal friendship, and debt slavery. Seth Schwartz's examinations of the Wisdom of Ben Sira, the writings of Josephus, and the Palestinian Talmud reveal that Jews were more deeply implicated in Roman and Mediterranean bonds of reciprocity and honor than is commonly assumed. Schwartz demonstrates how Ben Sira juxtaposes exhortations to biblical piety with hard-headed and seemingly contradictory advice about coping with the dangers of social relations with non-Jews; how Josephus describes Jews as essentially countercultural; yet how the Talmudic rabbis assume Jews have completely internalized Roman norms at the same time as the rabbis seek to arouse resistance to those norms, even if it is only symbolic. Were the Jews a Mediterranean Society? is the first comprehensive exploration of Jewish social integration in the Roman world, one that poses challenging new questions about the very nature of Mediterranean culture.

During the formative age of Judaism, the first seven centuries CE, the great rabbis thought deeply about beginnings in light of endings. They imposed upon their sequential reading of each passage the accumulated results of their reflection about all passages. Thus, they encompassed Scripture, so as to describe the world as God had intended it to be.This act of intellect resulted in two distinct, ahistorical media of thought and expression, the Halakhah, law, and Aggadah, lore. The author provides three systematic accounts of the Halakhic reading, and two Aggadic accounts. The Halakhic accounts cover [1] Work and Rest, [2] Ownership and Possession, Eden and the Land, and [3] Ownership and Possession in the Household. The Aggadic accounts pertain to [1] the Six Days of Creation, and [2] Adam and Eve.

Through exploring the particular importance of the fraternal relationship among the dynasties of the Hellenistic world in Thy Brother's Blood, Dr. Benjamin Scolnic demonstrates how adherence to or rejection of the "morality of kinship" literally changed the world. This in-depth book reviews fraternal relationships in the Bible and Greek and Roman mythology to create models for the falls of the Attalids of Pergamon and the Antigonids of Macedonia. The ancient writers from Rome to Jerusalem valued fraternal bonds and used fratricide as the symbol for internal dissension within nations. Using a focalized approach, Dr. Scolnic cautions that historians sometimes were so consumed with the metaphor of fraternity that they ignored the historical realities. He demonstrates this by providing a historical and moral context for the fall of one Judean dynasty, the Zadokite high priests, and for the rise and fall of the Hasmonaean dynasty, known to the world as the Maccabees.

Israel Knohl offers a new perspective on the history and theology of the Priestly source of the Pentateuch. By means of an analysis of specific texts--for example, those that deal with the Sabbath and the Festivals--Knohl demonstrates the existence of two separate Priestly sources, loosely speaking, the two sources that we have referred to as P and the Holiness Code. The "Holiness School" is shown to have been active subsequent to the school that produced the Priestly Torah and, in fact, to have been responsible for the great enterprise of editing the Torah. Knohl examines the conceptions of divinity and ritual reflected in Priestly thought and legislation in ancient Israel and the changes revealed in these conceptions over time. The priesthood appears as an elite group that was closeted within the walls of the "Sanctuary of Silence," drawn toward the hidden, noble divinity ensconced within its shrine. The later stratum of Priestly writings expresses a desire to transcend the limits of the temple and go out into the broad avenues of the nation, even at the price of surrendering the loftiness of earlier faith and practice. The conclusion describes the changes that occurred in the priests' world view as an attempt to come to terms with the socioreligious crisis that had brought about a disjunction between ritual and ethics. In response to this crisis, the priests developed a wider conception of holiness, one that integrates ethics and ritual in one sphere. This is a reprint of the 1995 Fortress Press edition.

Do Old Testament poetry and narrative, wisdom-writing and prophecy work on us in the same way as do nonbiblical literary texts? Competent readers over the centuries have arrived at conflicting answers to this question. Some (from Longinus on) have maintained that biblical books offer examples of supreme literary art; others have passionately rejected this approach, insisting that beauty and pleasure are not the Bible's business. Poetry with a Purpose argues that, paradoxically, both views are right. Biblical poetics is marked by an unusual tension between aesthetic and nonaesthetic (even anti-aesthetic) modes of discourse. To understand this dialectic is to understand something quite fundamental about biblical texts and, more particularly, about the nature of the contract that governs their reading. The text summons the reader to respond to a familiar form but at the same instant undermines that response, deconstructs that form. The book of Ester, for example, displays the conventions of the Persian epic tradition, but its style is subtly challenged by the text itself. Similarly, the book of Job might seem to conform to the classical concept of tragedy but ultimately presents a uniquely biblical version of the form. While the prophets use the language of myth, they will often explode or "demythologize" their own language, affirming purposed at variance with the world of myth. Harold Fisch applies his remarkably fruitful thesis to a number of biblical texts and modes, among them biblical pastoral, the Song of Songs, Psalms, Hosea, and Ecclesiastes. Equally at home in biblical studies and in general literature and theory, the author has produced a highly original work of unusual range and scholarship.

These essays represent a multidisciplinary approach to the study of religion and, especially, Judaism. Setting aside common scholarly concerns with source criticism and history of interpretation, Shimon Levy argues that in Numbers 11 the redactor has forged diverse elements into a unity. Observing that much of what is said about Second Commonwealth Judaic culture is speculative, Jack Lightstone calls for radical revision of accepted portrayals of the period. Ira Robinson's study of al-Kirkisani's effort to differentiate magic and miracle while demonstrating the rationality of belief in miracle locates his thoughts in the context of Rabbinic and Muslim treatments of the subject. While historians of modern Judaism have acknowledged in the influence of Kant and Hegel, Rousseau, contends Michel Despland, is often overlooked; he opened the way for changes in social and religious life. In Walter Benjamin's philosophy of history Charles Davis finds a significant combining of elements from Kabbalistic and Marxist thought. Michael Oppenheim finds a common core of concerns addressed by modern Jewish philosophers: a struggle with modernity, identification with Jewish thought and values, and commitment to their Jewish communities. Gershon Hundert's "Reflections on the 'Whig' Interpretation of Jewish History" argues--vis-à-vis the Jerusalem school of Zionist historians--that the responsibility of national historians to their community can be fulfilled only by repudiating ideologies that may stand in the way of the search for truth. Howard Joseph's survey of teh extensive literature on the Holocaust indicates the options the authors find most worthy of continued focus. Jerome Eckstein critically examines one of the few published pieces by Joseph Soloveitchik, who combines the Talmudic genius of the Lithuanian Yeshiva world with mastery of the Western intellectual tradition. B. Barry Levy's study of the Artscroll series of translations of and commentaries on biblical literature examines the assumptions and methodology of the series and the hidden agenda that emerges. Frederick Bird's comparison of charity ethics in Judaism and Christianity draws attention to the imprint on these ethics of the formative period of each religion. The volume will be of interest to student of the Bible, Judaism, and Christianity.

What are the origin and meaning of the words "greed is idolatry" found in Ephesians 5:5 and Colossians 3:5? In what sense are the greedy guilty of idolatry? Many different answers have been given to this question throughout the history of interpretation. In fact, a consensus exists on only one score - that the expression serves to vilify greed. Brian Rosner takes on the challenge of interpretation by tackling the phrase as a metaphor, structuring his argument around an intriguing comparison to mountain climbing. From this vantage point, he offers a history of interpretation of the phrase, including a study of the origin of the concept of idolatrous greed in biblical and Jewish sources. Rosner concludes that the comparison of greed with idolatry teaches that to desire to acquire and keep for oneself more money and material things is an attack on God's exclusive right to human love, trust, and obedience. With this work comes an understanding of familiar terms - "greed," "idolatry," and even "God"--Challenging both the church as a whole and individual believers to consider the far-ranging implications of our materialistic world. --From publisher's description.

In the years between 1929 and 1939, when Itzik Manger wrote most of the poetry and fiction that made him famous, his name among Yiddish readers was a household word. Called the Shelley of Yiddish, he was characterized as being "drunk with talent." This book -- the first full-length anthology of Manger's work -- displays the full range of his genius in poetry, fiction, and criticism. The book begins with an extensive historical, biographical, and literary-critical introduction to Manger's work. There are then excerpts from a novel, The Book of Paradise, three short stories, autobiographical essays, critical essays, and finally, Manger's magnificent poetry -- ballads, bible poems, personal lyrics, and the Megilla Songs. These works, which have the patina of myths acquired ages ago, also offer modern psychological insight and irrepressible humor. With Manger we make the leap into the Jewish twentieth century, as he recreates the past in all its layered expressiveness and interprets it with modernist sensibilities.

"In this volume, Israel Finkelstein studies the world of ancient Israel, including the time-frame for the composition of historiographic texts in the Bible. He discusses key questions such as historical realities behind North Israelite traditions, the impact of Israel on late monarchic Jerusalem, the scope of composition of texts in the Persian period, and the legitimacy needs of the Hasmoneans."

Contrary to the Christians, the Muslims did not consider the Bible as a holy text, therefore their polemics against the Jews took the form of Bible criticism. The main arguments used by Muslim thinkers against Judaism was that the Jews falsified God's word, or failed to transmit it properly, or misinterpreted the Bible, or that the Bible had been abrogated by God. The most prominent Muslim writers who developed these themes in the medieval period were Ibn Hazm and the Jewish apostate Samau'al al-Maghribi in the West of the Arab world, and Ibn Qayyim al-Djawziyya in the East. The first two considered, in particular, that it was Ezra ('Uzayr) who deliberately distorted the text of the Bible. Contends that the Muslim critics of the Bible based their arguments greatly on pre-Islamic sources (such as pagan, gnostic, Christian, and anti-Christian writings), and that they, in turn, were the source of early modern European Bible criticism.

This is a study of the ancient Jewish and Christian apocalypses involving ascent into heaven, which have received little scholarly attention in comparison to apocalypses concerned primarily with the end of the world. Recent developments like the publication of the Aramaic Enoch fragments from Qumran and interest in questions of genre in the study of the apocalypses make this a particularly appropriate time to undertake this study. Martha Himmelfarb places the apocalypses in relation to both their biblical antecedents and their context in the Greco-Roman world. Her analysis emphasizes the emergence of the understanding of heaven as temple in the Book of the Watchers, the earliest of these apocalypses, and the way in which this understanding affects the depiction of the culmination of ascent, the hero's achievement of a place among the angels, in the ascent apocalypses generally. It also considers the place of secrets of nature and primeval history in these works. Finally, it offers an interpretation of the pseudepigraphy of the apocalypses and their function.