Download or read book Conflicting Attitudes to Conversion in Judaism Past and Present written by Isaac Sassoon and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2017-11-30 with total page 290 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Evidence suggests that conversion originated during the Babylonian Exile. Around the same time, biological genealogy was gaining popularity, especially among priests whose legitimacy was becoming increasingly defined by 'pure' pedigree. When the biological, or ethnic, criterion is extended to the definition of Jewishness, as it seems to have been by Ezra, the possibility of conversion is all but precluded. The Rabbis did not reject the primacy of genealogy, yet were also heirs to a strong pro-conversion tradition. In this book, Isaac Sassoon confronts the tensions and paradoxes apparent in rabbinic discussions of conversion, and argues that they resulted from irresolution between the two conflicting traditions. He also contends that attitudes to conversion can impact not only one's conception of Judaism but also on one's faith, as seems to be demonstrated by authors cited in the book whose espousal of a narrowly ethnic view of Judaism allows for a nepotistic theology.
Download or read book Conflicting Attitudes to Conversion in Judaism Past and Present written by I. S. D. Sassoon and published by . This book was released on 2018 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Hillel and Shammai -- Philologizing 'ger' -- Metaphoric blood -- Ethnicity's apotheosis -- A hackneyed myth -- David's sons -- Priesthood -- A post-exilic Passover -- Priesthoods under the microscope -- Moses the first-born -- Were converts a caste apart? -- Holiness and haughtiness -- Seed of doubt -- Rites of passage -- A quirky blockbuster -- Maimonides -- Warder Cresson -- Canaanites redux
Download or read book Bastards and Believers written by Theodor Dunkelgrun and published by University of Pennsylvania Press. This book was released on 2020-04-03 with total page 368 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A formidable collection of studies on religious conversion and converts in Jewish history Theodor Dunkelgrün and Pawel Maciejko observe that the term "conversion" is profoundly polysemous. It can refer to Jews who turn to religions other than Judaism and non-Jews who tie their fates to that of Jewish people. It can be used to talk about Christians becoming Muslim (or vice versa), Christians "born again," or premodern efforts to Christianize (or Islamize) indigenous populations of Asia, Africa, and the Americas. It can even describe how modern, secular people discover spiritual creeds and join religious communities. Viewing Jewish history from the perspective of conversion across a broad chronological and conceptual frame, Bastards and Believers highlights how the concepts of the convert and of conversion have histories of their own. The volume begins with Sara Japhet's study of conversion in the Hebrew Bible and ends with Netanel Fisher's essay on conversion to Judaism in contemporary Israel. In between, Andrew S. Jacobs writes about the allure of becoming an "other" in late Antiquity; Ephraim Kanarfogel considers Rabbinic attitudes and approaches toward conversion to Judaism in the Middles Ages; and Paola Tartakoff ponders the relationship between conversion and poverty in medieval Iberia. Three case studies, by Javier Castaño, Claude Stuczynski, and Anne Oravetz Albert, focus on different aspects of the experience of Spanish-Portuguese conversos. Michela Andreatta and Sarah Gracombe discuss conversion narratives; and Elliott Horowitz and Ellie Shainker analyze Eastern European converts' encounters with missionaries of different persuasions. Despite the differences between periods, contexts, and sources, two fundamental and mutually exclusive notions of human life thread the essays together: the conviction that one can choose one's destiny and the conviction that one cannot escapes one's past. The history of converts presented by Bastards and Believers speaks to the possibility, or impossibility, of changing one's life. Contributors: Michela Andreatta, Javier Castaño, Theodor Dunkelgrün, Netanel Fisher, Sarah Gracombe, Elliott Horowitz, Andrew S. Jacobs, Sara Japhet, Ephraim Kanarfogel, Pawel Maciejko, Anne Oravetz Albert, Ellie Shainker, Claude Stuczynski, Paola Tartakoff.
Download or read book Forced Conversion in Christianity Judaism and Islam written by Mercedes García-Arenal and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2019-10-21 with total page 432 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Forced Conversion in Christianity, Judaism and Islam explores the legal and theological grounds through which Christians, Jews, and Muslims sanctioned and reacted to forcible conversion in premodern Iberia and related settings.
Download or read book Covenant and the Jewish Conversion Question written by Benji Levy and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on 2021-09-24 with total page 297 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Covenant and the Jewish Conversion Question reevaluates conversion and Jewish identity through the lens of Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik’s dual conception of the Covenants of Fate and Destiny. By studying an array of key rabbinic texts through this lens, the book explores the boundaries and interplay between these biblical covenants through apostasy, holiness and the key elements relating to conversion law. This understanding provides a relevant framing device to deal with the conversion and Jewish identity crises faced in the State of Israel and beyond.
Download or read book The Authority of the Divine Law written by Yosef Bronstein and published by Academic Studies PRess. This book was released on 2024-04-02 with total page 334 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Many Jewish groups of late antiquity assumed that they were obligated to observe the Divine Law. This book attempts to study the various rationales offered by these groups to explain the authority that the Divine Law had over them. Second Temple groups tended to look towards philosophy or metaphysics to justify the Divine Law’s authority. The tannaim, though, formulated legal arguments that obligate Israel to observe the Divine Law. While this turn towards legalism is pan-tannaitic, two distinct legal arguments can be identified in tannaitic literature. These specific arguments about the Divine Law’s authority, link to a set of issues regarding the tannaim’s conception of Divine Law and of Israel’s election.
Download or read book Preposterous Poetics written by Simon Goldhill and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2020-09-17 with total page 592 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How does literary form change as Christianity and rabbinic Judaism take shape? What is the impact of literary tradition and the new pressures of religious thinking? Tracing a journey over the first millennium that includes works in Latin, Greek, Hebrew and Aramaic, this book changes our understanding of late antiquity and how its literary productions make a significant contribution to the cultural changes that have shaped western Europe.
Download or read book A Principled Constitution written by Steven D. Smith and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2022-09-02 with total page 123 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Is the United States Constitution the embodiment of certain principles? The four authors of this book for a variety of reasons, and with somewhat different emphases, believe the answer is no. Those who authored the Constitution no doubt all believed in liberty, equality, and, with caveats, republican self-government values, or if you will, principles. But they had different conceptions of those principles and what those principles entailed for constituting a government. Although the Constitution they created reflected, in some sense, their principles, the Constitution itself was a specific list of do’s and don’ts that its creators hoped would gain the allegiance of the newly independent and sovereign states. And, for somewhat different reasons, the authors of this book believe that was a good thing.
Download or read book Christianity and Rabbinic Judaism written by Jonas Alexis and published by WestBow Press. This book was released on 2013-01-10 with total page 643 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Our way must be: never knowingly support lies! Having understood where the lies beginstep back from that gangrenous edge! Let us not glue back the flaking scale of the Ideology, not gather back its crumbling bones, nor patch together its decomposing garb, and we will be amazed how swiftly and helplessly the lies will fall away, and that which is destined to be naked will be exposed as such to the world. Alexander Solzhenitsyn Enlightenment writer Voltaire was amazed that twelve fishermen, some of them unlettered, from an obscure place in the world called Galilee, challenged an empire through self-denial and patience and eventually established Christianity. He seriously thought that twelve philosophers or intellectuals, himself included, would do the opposite and crush Christianity. Voltaires self-appointed cheerleaders such as Diderot, Helvitius, dHolbach, DAlembert, Lametrie, and Baron Cloots, among others, tried to do just that and wrote volumes of work trying to tear down the basis of Christianity and erect an edifice of their own. Diderot in particular declared, I would sacrifice myself, perhaps, if I could annihilate forever the notion of God. Cloots wrote, We shall see the heavenly royalty condemned by the revolutionary tribunal of victorious Reason. Lametrie produced Man: A Machine, and an entire French encyclopedia was written between 1751 and 1772 by those philosophers because Christianity, to a large degree, had to go. Voltaire would send letters to his disciples and friends saying, crasez linfme. Rousseau, of course, was a disciple of Voltaire and declared that Voltaires work inspired me. The French Revolution failed. Yet like all significant revolutions before and after that period, the French Revolution indirectly had a theological root which was then a categorical and metaphysical rejection of Logos. That theological substratum has jumped from one era to the next and had and still has historical, political, economic, and spiritual ramifications. This book is about the historical and theological struggle of that conflict, which had its inception at the foot of the cross.
Download or read book The Rabbinic Conversion of Judaism written by Moshe Lavee and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2017-11-20 with total page 335 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this volume, Moshe Lavee offers an account of crucial internal developments in the rabbinic corpus, and shows how the Babylonian Talmud dramatically challenged and extended the rabbinic model of conversion to Judaism. The history of conversion to Judaism has long fascinated Jews along a broad ideological continuum. This book demonstrates the rabbis in Babylonia further reworked former traditions about conversion in ever more stringent direction, shifting the focus of identity demarcation towards genealogy and bodily perspectives. By applying a reading-strategy that emphasizes late Babylonian literary developments, Lavee sheds critical light on a broader discourse regarding the nature and boundaries of Jewish identity.
Download or read book Religious Stories in Transformation Conflict Revision and Reception written by Alberdina Houtman and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2016-10-18 with total page 498 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Religious Stories in Transformation: Conflict, Revision and Reception, the editors present a collection of essays that reveal both the many similarities and the poignant differences between ancient myths in Judaism, Christianity, Islam, and modern secular culture and how these stories were incorporated and adapted over time. This rich multidisciplinary research demonstrates not only how stories in different religions and cultures are interesting in their own right, but also that the process of transformation in particular deserves scholarly interest. It is through the changes in the stories that the particular identity of each religion comes to the fore most strikingly.
Download or read book Pledges of Jewish Allegiance written by David Ellenson and published by Stanford University Press. This book was released on 2012-01-18 with total page 218 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Since the late 1700s, when the Jewish community ceased to be a semiautonomous political unit in Western Europe and the United States and individual Jews became integrated—culturally, socially, and politically—into broader society, questions surrounding Jewish status and identity have occupied a prominent and contentious place in Jewish legal discourse. This book examines a wide array of legal opinions written by nineteenth- and twentieth-century orthodox rabbis in Europe, the United States, and Israel. It argues that these rabbis' divergent positions—based on the same legal precedents—demonstrate that they were doing more than delivering legal opinions. Instead, they were crafting public policy for Jewish society in response to Jews' social and political interactions as equals with the non-Jewish persons in whose midst they dwelled. Pledges of Jewish Allegiance prefaces its analysis of modern opinions with a discussion of the classical Jewish sources upon which they draw.
Download or read book Vienna and the Jews 1867 1938 written by Steven Beller and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 1989 with total page 288 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book studies the role played by Jews in the explosion of cultural innovation in Vienna at the turn of the century, which had its roots in the years following the Ausgleich of 1867 and its demise in the sweeping events of the 1930s. The author shows that, in terms of personnel, Jews were predominant throughout most of Viennese high culture, and so any attempts to dismiss the "Jewish aspect" of the intelligentsia are refuted. The book goes on to explain this "Jewish aspect," dismissing any unitary, static model and adopting a historical approach that sees the "Jewishness" of Viennese modern culture as a result of the specific Jewish backgrounds of most of the leading cultural figures and their reactions to being Jewish.
Download or read book Edinburgh Companion to Modern Jewish Fiction written by David Brauner and published by Edinburgh University Press. This book was released on 2015-06-07 with total page 610 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Provides critical overviews of the main writers and key themes of Anglophone Jewish fictionThis collection of essays represents a new departure for, and a potentially (re)defining moment in, literary Jewish Studies. It is the first volume to bring together essays covering a wide range of American, British, South African, Canadian and Australian Jewish fiction. Moreover, it complicates all these terms, emphasising the porousness between different national traditions and moving beyond traditional definitions of Jewishness. For the sake of structural clarity, the volume is divided into three parts American Jewish Fiction British Jewish Fiction and International and Transnational Anglophone Jewish Fiction but many of the essays cross over these boundaries and speak to each other implicitly, as well as, on occasion, explicitly. Extending and redefining the canon of modern Jewish fiction, the volume juxtaposes major authors with more marginal figures, revising and recuperating individual reputations, rediscovering forgotten and discovering new work, and in the process remapping the whole terrain. This volume opens windows onto vistas that previously had been obscured and opens doors for the next generation of studies that could not proceed without a wide-ranging, visionary empiricism grounding their work. The Edinburgh Companion is a paradigm-changing event, and nothing in Jewish literary studies that follows can fail to pay close attention to it. Key Features:Highlights the rich diversity of the field and identifies its key themes, including immigration, the Diaspora, the Holocaust, Judaism, assimilation, antisemitism and ZionismAnalyses the main trends in Anglophone Jewish fiction and situates them in historical contextDiscusses the place of Anglophone Jewish fiction in relation to critical debates concerning transatlanticism and transnationalism; ethnicity and identity politics; postcolonial studies, feminist studies and Jewish Studies. With a preface by Mark Shechner, the volume contains 28 essays by contributors including Vicki Aarons (Trinity University, Texas), Debra Shostak (Wooster College, Ohio), Ira Nadel (University of British Columbia), Efraim Sicher (Ben-Gurion University, Phyllis Lassner (Northwestern University), Sue Vice (University of Sheffield), Lori Harrison-Kahan (Boston College), Ruth Gilbert (University of Winchester), Beate Neumeier (University of Cologne) andSandra Singer (University of Guelph).David Brauner is Professor of Contemporary Literature at The University of Reading.Axel Sta er is Reader in Comparative Literature at the University of Kent, Canterbury.
Download or read book Religions of America written by Leo Rosten and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 1975-06-15 with total page 678 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Examines religion in the United States today, with nineteen essays in the first section that discuss religious creeds from the major established groups to cults, and an almanac in the second section with statistics, opinion polls, documents, and sociological resumes.
Download or read book Conversion to Judaism written by Joseph R. Rosenbloom and published by . This book was released on 1978 with total page 200 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Jews and Muslims Made Visible in Christian Iberia and Beyond 14th to 18th Centuries written by and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2019-05-06 with total page 404 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume aims to show through various case studies how the interrelations between Jews, Muslims and Christians in Iberia were negotiated in the field of images, objects and architecture during the Later Middle Ages and Early Modernity.
