Why are words so important to so many Jews? Novelist Amos Oz and historian Fania Oz-Salzberger roam the gamut of Jewish history to explain the integral relationship of Jews and words. Through a blend of storytelling and scholarship, conversation and argument, father and daughter tell the tales behind Judaism’s most enduring names, adages, disputes, texts, and quips. These words, they argue, compose the chain connecting Abraham with the Jews of every subsequent generation.Framing the discussion within such topics as continuity, women, timelessness, and individualism, Oz and Oz-Salzberger deftly engage Jewish personalities across the ages, from the unnamed, possibly female author of the Song of Songs through obscure Talmudists to contemporary writers. They suggest that Jewish continuity, even Jewish uniqueness, depends not on central places, monuments, heroic personalities, or rituals but rather on written words and an ongoing debate between the generations. Full of learning, lyricism, and humor, Jews and Words offers an extraordinary tour of the words at the heart of Jewish culture and extends a hand to the reader, any reader, to join the conversation.

Despite thousands of books devoted to the origins of Christianity, there has never been a complete and factual history of the religion from the secular point of view. This volume provides a coherent, real-life account, without all the theological baggage.

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.

"In Crossroads to Islam, Yehuda Nevo and Judith Koren offer a controversial exploration of the early history of Islam, presenting a revolutionary theory of the origins and development of the Islamic state and religion from the early 7th to the mid-8th century C.E. Many Western scholars recognize the difficulties of accepting the validity, as historical evidence, of the huge body of Muslim literature, with its detailed account of the rise of Islam in the Arabian Peninsula and the subsequent, religiously inspired invasion of the settled lands beyond; for this literature only started to be written 150 years after the period it purports to describe. But until now, there was little with which to replace it. Nevo and Koren examine in detail the available contemporary evidence, most of which has not been seriously taken into account by most historians of early Islam. It includes official documents and inscriptions of the early Arab State; archaeological excavations and artifacts; legends on coins; and hundreds of Arabic rock inscriptions." "Based on their analysis of this evidence. Nevo and Koren outline a rethinking of the early history of Islam. They argue that the Byzantine Empire withdrew before the Arab Takeover; that the resulting power vacuum led to competition among local Arab chiefs to widen their sphere of control; and that Mu'awiyah was the first historical caliph. They document the evidence that the Arabs were initially pagan and trace the development of Islam from a simple "Indeterminate Monotheism," adopted by Mu'awiyah, to the Muslim faith of the late 2nd century A.H. ("after the bijra": the Muslim era, which counts from 622 C.E., year Muhammad fled to Madinah according to the Muslim sources), in which period they also place the canonization of the Qur'an. The origin of the Arab Prophet, introduced by the caliph 'Abd al-Malik around 690 C.E., is another central issue addressed by the authors' new theory."--Jacket

The question of the origins of Christianity is a theme still discussed in historical research. This book investigates the relations between the Rabbinic Judaism and the Primitive Christianity. It studies the factors of influences, the polemics in the texts and factors of mutual conceptions between two new movements: Rabbinical Judaism and Primitive Christianity. Finally it offers an analysis of the perception of Christianity in the corpus of talmudic literature. La question des origines du christianisme est un thème encore débattu par la recherche historique. Cet ouvrage choisi dexplorer les relations entre le judaïsme rabbinique et le christianisme primitif. Il étudie les facteurs dinfluences, les polémiques dont témoignent les textes et les emprunts réciproques entre les deux mouvements naissant : le judaïsme rabbinique et le christiansime primitif. Il propose également une analyse sur la perception du christianisme à loeuvre dans la littérature talmudique.