Jacob Neusner, a noted scholar and prolific author on Jewish literature, history, and religion, believes that Jews and Christians do well to seek in their encounter with the teachings of the living God, the wisdom, imagination, and insight of the ages. "In this book," he writes in the Preface, "I want to contribute some modest measure of my own faith, Judaism, as that faith may add to the faith of our Christian neighbors, for all of us now dwell together in the new catacomb, the darkness of disdain for our common faith in one God, creator of heaven and earth, judge of all humankind. This is a book of religious faith."

"While every history of ancient Judaism and Christianity gives a detailed picture of the Pharisees, none systematically and critically analyzes the traits and tendencies of the discrete sources combined to form such an account. Consequently, we have many theories but few facts, sophisticated theologies but uncritical, naive histories of Pharisaism which yield heated arguments unillumined by disciplined, reasoned understanding. Progress in the study of the growth of Pharisaic Judaism before 70 A.D. will depend upon the accumulation of detailed knowledge and a determined effort to cease theorizing about the age. We must honestly attempt to understand not only what was going on in the first century, but also - and most crucially - how and whether we know anything at all about what was going on. "Here you are invited to share the painful task of assessing difficult sources and criticizing the nature of extant information about the Pharisees before 70 A.D.. At the outset, you may learn more than you wanted to know about the Pharisees, but the real reward of your labor ought to be mature skepticism about the nature of historical knowledge." from the Preface

About the Author Jacob Neusner is Research Professor of Religion and Theology Bard College Annandale-on-Hudson, NY.

"The book is carefully organized and provides a clear, well-structured, and lucid expression of its theses." -- Dr. Marvin Fox, Department of Near Eastern and Judaic Studies, Brandeis University The Mishnah is the first canonical writing of Judaism after the Hebrew Scriptures of ancient Israel (the Old Testament) and the foundation of the two Talmuds and of all Judaism thereafter. According to eminent religion scholar Jacob Neusner, the key to understanding the Mishnah is to read it as philosophy, in accord with the generally accepted understanding of philosophy in its time and place. In Judaism as Philosophy, Neusner studies a large sample of evidence, meticulously translated and carefully explained, and identifies the philosophical side of the Mishnah's system, method, and message alike. The philosophical tradition in which the Mishnah takes its place, Neusner explains, utilizes the Aristotelian method of hierarchical classification to demonstrate the proposition (important to Middle Platonism and profoundly expressed by Plotinus) that many things really form a single thing: many species, a single genus; many genera, an encompassing, well-crafted and cogent whole. Through the systematic and orderly hierarchical classification of the things of nature, the framers of the Mishnah illustrate the ultimate unity of all being emanating from the One on high. Arguing that the document's writers chose a legal form for a philosophical proposition, this book completely changes a centuries-old way of reading the Mishnah. Judaism emerges as a sustained demonstration of the unity of all being under one God. "What is the next phase in this ongoing history of the formation of Judaism in theclassical period[?]... The analysis of the philosophical character of the Mishnah places into perspective what I believe to be the character of the first phase, and therefore points toward the development of the second and third phases, of the Judaism of the Dual Torah. The entire characterization of the first phase of the Judaism of the Dual Torah, that is, the system attested by the Mishnah in particular, rests upon the results of this book and its two companions, on economics and politics respectively."--from the Preface

Distinguished historian of Judaism Jacob Neusner here ventures for the first time into constructive theology. Taking the everyday life of contemporary Judaism as his beginning, Neusner asks when in the life of the living faith of the Torah does Israel, the holy community, meet God? Where does the meeting take place? What is the medium of the encounter? In his attempt to answer these questions, Neusner sets forth the character and the form of the Torah as sung theology. Israel, the holy community, meets God in the synagogue, while at prayer, and in the yeshiva, when studying the Torah—at the moment in each setting when the Torah is received. In both circumstances people do not read but sing out its words. With the written part of the Torah sung in the synagogue, and the oral part declaimed in centers of sacred learning, music provides the medium for Judaism's theological voice. Neusner identifies a reciprocal exchange between the holy community Israel and God: Israel sings to God when the Torah is studied, and God sings to Israel when the Torah is declaimed. Through the metaphor of music, Neusner offers an account of how he believes those faithful to the Torah meet God in the Torah, and how they should listen to the melody of God's self-revelation. The result is an original theological reflection that will interest all students of Judaism.

Neusner introduces the reader to selections from all the documents of the Torah and Scripture that define the canon of Judaism in its formative stage.

The latest in Jacob Neusner's informative series on the theology and hermeneutics of Rabbinical Judaism, The Emergence of Judaism offers insight into the development of Judaism in antiquity. Based on the author's lectures, this volume focuses on the social setting of Judaism, the Babylonian Talmud, and the Bavli.

The Idea of Purity in Ancient Judaism

"The Theology of the Oral Torah demonstrates the cogency and inner rationality of the classical statement of Judaism in the Oral Torah, bringing a theological assessment to bear on the whole of rabbinic literature. Jacob Neusner shows how the proposition that God is One and all-powerful but also merciful and just defines the system and structure of rabbinic Judaism ; He argues that in working this proposition out in rich detail the classical texts generate the central rabbinic problem: how can the conflicting traits inherent in the proposition be resolved?"--Jacket

Text: English, Hebrew (translation)

This book introduces Midrash both in general and through many examples of the kinds of Midrash that flourished among ancient Judaism. Neusner, as a preeminent authority on the subject, lays special emphasis upon the exegesis of Scripture produced by the Judaism of the dual Torah, oral and written.

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"A philosopher, rabbi, religious historian, and Gnostic, Jacob Taubes was for many years a correspondent and interlocutor of Carl Schmitt (1888-1985), a German jurist, philosopher, political theorist, law professor--and self-professed Nazi. Despite their unlikely association, Taubes and Schmitt shared an abiding interest in the fundamental problems of political theology, believing the great challenges of modern political theory were ancient in pedigree and, in many cases, anticipated the works of Judeo-Christian eschatologists. In this collection of Taubes's writings on Schmitt, the two intellectuals work through ideas of the apocalypse and other central concepts of political theology. Taubes acknowledges Schmitt's reservations about the weakness of liberal democracy yet distances himself from his prescription to rectify it, arguing the apocalyptic worldview requires less of a rigid hierarchical social ordering than a community committed to the importance of decision making. In these writings, a sharper and more nuanced portrait of Schmitt's thought emerges, as well as a more complicated understanding of Taubes, who has shaped the work of Giorgio Agamben, Peter Sloterdijk, and other major twentieth-century theorists."--Publisher's website.

Jacqueline de Jong published the first issue of The Situationist Times in August 1962, a few months after leaving the Situationist International. That year saw the escalation of the longstanding friction between the artistic and political factions of the Situationists, resulting in the expulsion of the former. As de Jong remained impartial, key contributors to The Situationist Times included Debord, Asger Jorn, Gruppe SPUR and others from both sides of the skirmish. De Jong was determined to produce a completely free magazine. The six issues of The Situationist Times published between 1962–1967 are an extraordinary marriage of political polemic and visual art. The first two issues were coedited by Noël Arnaud, editor of the solitary issue of Surrealiste Revolutionnaire. The second issue saw the first experiments with typography and multiple-colored paper stocks. Issue three was the first produced with de Jong solely at the helm. Her editorial style produced a range of contributors, from architects (Aldo Van Eyck, David Georges Emmerich) to an art historian (Hans Jaffe) to astrophysicists (Jayant Narlikar, Fred Hoyle) to a composer (Peter Schat). As the publication went on, the emphasis became more visual (issue three had “situlogical” patterns, issue four had labyrinths, issue five featured topology). The set also includes a seventh volume with commentary, essays, photography and ephemera.

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