Download or read book Epigonism and the Dynamic of Jewish Culture written by Shlomo Berger and published by . This book was released on 2008 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The articles collected in this volume were originally presented at a summer colloquium in Oxford in 2004. The 'epigone' is generally believed to be an imitator, deprived of an independent, original talent. He necessarily follows in someone else's footsteps, a source of inspiration that can (or indeed must) be identified. The epigone can operate only after a certain span of time, during which he has studied his example and learned how to follow in his master's footsteps. An epigone is always influenced - be it consciously or unconsciously - by another person, or by the surrounding cultural climate. The epigone is, per definition, second rate. Furthermore, it is believed that the epigonic product cannot have an independent value. Its only value lies in demonstrating a condition in culture, a spirit of the area, a trend in the arts, philosophy or any other human occupation. Rather than continuing to view epigonism as a natural, if regrettable, part of the cultural process, an inevitable secondary stage within the development of any corpus, the essays in this volume approach the phenomenon from a perspective that is at once more neutral and more positive. They do so not by rehabilitating the quality of the epigone's output, but by redefining his role within the cultural process per se. In each of these contributions, epigones appear as the true carriers of, in this case Jewish, culture. Rather than mere witnesses or, at best, historical mirrors of primary, canonical, cultural codes and modes, they represent one of the dynamic forces within the development of a culture. For the epigone is not merely imitating, but also disseminating. It is not the isolated peaks of the cultural panorama that the articles in this book seek to map out, but the modest planes that allow us to travel the landscape in the first place.
Download or read book Epigonism and the Dynamic of Jewish Culture written by Shlomo Berger and published by . This book was released on 2008 with total page 308 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The articles collected in this volume were originally presented at a summer colloquium in Oxford in 2004. The 'epigone' is generally believed to be an imitator, deprived of an independent, original talent. He necessarily follows in someone else's footsteps, a source of inspiration that can (or indeed must) be identified. The epigone can operate only after a certain span of time, during which he has studied his example and learned how to follow in his master's footsteps. An epigone is always influenced - be it consciously or unconsciously - by another person, or by the surrounding cultural climate. The epigone is, per definition, second rate. Furthermore, it is believed that the epigonic product cannot have an independent value. Its only value lies in demonstrating a condition in culture, a spirit of the area, a trend in the arts, philosophy or any other human occupation. Rather than continuing to view epigonism as a natural, if regrettable, part of the cultural process, an inevitable secondary stage within the development of any corpus, the essays in this volume approach the phenomenon from a perspective that is at once more neutral and more positive. They do so not by rehabilitating the quality of the epigone's output, but by redefining his role within the cultural process per se. In each of these contributions, epigones appear as the true carriers of, in this case Jewish, culture. Rather than mere witnesses or, at best, historical mirrors of primary, canonical, cultural codes and modes, they represent one of the dynamic forces within the development of a culture. For the epigone is not merely imitating, but also disseminating. It is not the isolated peaks of the cultural panorama that the articles in this book seek to map out, but the modest planes that allow us to travel the landscape in the first place.
Download or read book Josephus in Modern Jewish Culture written by Andrea Schatz and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2019-05-20 with total page 372 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The contributions to this volume trace for the first time how the modern Jewish reception of Josephus, the ancient historian who witnessed and described the destruction of the Second Temple, took shape within different scholarly, religious, literary and political contexts across the Jewish world, from Amsterdam to Berlin, Vilna, Breslau, New York and Tel Aviv. The chapters show how the vagaries of his tumultuous life, spent between a small rebellious nation and the ruling circles of a vast empire, between Jewish and non-Jewish cultures, and between political action and historical reflection have been re-imagined by Jewish readers over the past three centuries in their attempts to make sense of their own times. "The project and this volume can encourage greater awareness of the complex origins of Josephus’ controversial reputation as a Jewish priest, diplomat in Rome, military leader of the first Jewish revolt against the Romans, as an advocate for surrender to imperial forces, as a witness to the Hurban, as a citizen of Rome, and as a historian....Recommended highly for all Jewish and academic libraries." - David B Levy, Touro College, NYC, in: Association of Jewish Libraries News and Review 1.2 (2019)
Download or read book Shared Identities written by Aaron W. Hughes and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2017-08-02 with total page 241 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Received opinion imagines Judaism and Islam as two distinct religions interacting in the centuries following the death of Muhammad in the early seventh century. Tradition describes the relations between the two groups using such tropes as "symbiosis." In this revisionist work, Aaron W. Hughes instead argues that various porous and marginal groups-neither fully Muslim nor fully Jewish-exploited a shared terminology to make sense of their social worlds in response to the rapid process of Islamicization. What emerged as normative rabbinic Judaism on the one hand, and Sunni and ShiEven the spread of rabbinic Judaism, especially at the hands of Saadya Gaon (882-942 CE), was articulated Islamically. In the so-called "Golden Age" that emerged in places like Muslim Spain and North Africa, this "Islamic" Judaism could still be found in the writings of luminaires such as Bahya ibn Paquda, Abraham ibn Ezra, Judah Halevi, and Moses Maimonides. Drawing on social theory, comparative religion, and the analysis of original sources, Hughes presents a compelling case for rewriting our understanding of Jews and Muslims in their earliest centuries of interaction. Not content to remain solely in the past, Shared Identities examines the continued interaction of Muslims and Jews, now reimagined as Palestinians and Israelis, into the present.
Download or read book Jewish Education from Antiquity to the Middle Ages written by George J. Brooke and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2017-10-17 with total page 473 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Jewish Education from Antiquity to the Middle Ages fifteen scholars offer specialist studies on Jewish education from the areas of their expertise. This tightly themed volume in honour of Philip S. Alexander has some essays that look at individual manuscripts, some that consider larger literary corpora, and some that are more thematically organised. Jewish education has been addressed largely as a matter of the study house, the bet midrash. Here a richer range of texts and themes discloses a wide variety of activity in several spheres of Jewish life. In addition, some notable non-Jewish sources provide a wider context for the discourse than is often the case.
Download or read book Religious and Intellectual Diversity in the Islamicate World and Beyond Volume II written by and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2024-04-08 with total page 794 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Religious and Intellectual Diversity in the Islamicate World and Beyond is a collection of essays in honor of Sarah Stroumsa, an eminent scholar who through the years has embodied and advanced the possibility of collaboration across borders. The volume is presented to her by scholars working on the study of the intellectual history of the Middle Ages, the intercultural contact and migration of knowledge in the Islamic world, and many other topics. Contributors: Binyamin Abrahamov, Camilla Adang, Anna Ayse Akasoy, Aleida Assmann, Jan Assmann, Meir M. Bar-Asher, José Bellver, Menachem Ben-Sasson, Haggai Ben-Shammai, Glen W. Bowersock, Rémi Brague, Godefroid de Callataÿ, Jonathan Decter, Michael Ebstein, Hussein Fancy, Carlos Fraenkel, Gil Gambash, Robert Gleave, Miriam Goldstein, Frank Griffel, Jaakko Hämeen Anttila, Steven Harvey, Warren Zev Harvey, Meir Hatina, Geoffrey Khan, Gudrun Krämer, Ehud Krinis, Y. Tzvi Langermann, Daniel J. Lasker, Reimund Leicht, Gideon Libson, Menachem Lorberbaum, Maria Mavroudi, Jon McGinnis, Omer Michaelis, Yonatan Moss, David Nirenberg, Sari Nusseibeh, Olaf Pluta, Meira Polliack, James T. Robinson, Marina Rustow, Sabine Schmidtke, Gregor Schwarb, Ahmed El Shamsy, Mark Silk, Uriel Simonsohn, Daniel De Smet, Josef Stern, Guy G. Stroumsa, Sara Sviri, Alexander Treiger, Roy Vilozny, Ronny Vollandt, Elvira Wakelnig, Paul E. Walker, David J. Wasserstein, Tanja Werthmann, Dong Xiuyuan, Arye Zoref.
Download or read book Now I Know Five Centuries of Aqedah Exegesis written by Albert van der Heide and published by Springer. This book was released on 2017-02-28 with total page 517 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book describes how medieval Jewish Bible scholars sought to answer the question of what is meant by the Angel’s message from God to Abraham: ‘Now I Know’, as written in Genesis 22 verse 12. It examines these scholars’ comments on the nineteen verses in Genesis that tell the story of Abraham’s readiness to sacrifice his own son Isaac, the Aqedat Yiṣḥaq. It explores the answers they found to the question of what, indeed, this story is trying to tell us. Is it a drastic way to condemn the practice of child sacrifice? Does it call for replacing human sacrifices with animal sacrifices? Is it a trial by which the Almighty tests the fidelity of one of His followers? Or is it His way to show the world the nature of true belief? The book starts with an introduction to familiarize readers with the many and varied manifestations of the Aqedah theme in Jewish culture and with the developments of medieval Jewish Bible exegesis in general. Next, it offers translations and analyses of the classical medieval Jewish Bible commentaries that deal with the exegesis of Genesis 22, exploring the many angles from which the Aqedah story has been understood. No less than five centuries of medieval Aqedah exegesis are reviewed, from Saadya (882-942) to Isaac Abrabanel (1437-1508). These texts from the commentaries are combined with hermeneutical key passages by Moses Maimonides, Joseph Ibn Kaspi, Ḥasdai Crescas, and others, which were familiar to the minds of the exegetes, or which, conversely, reflect the impact of biblical Aqedah exegesis on religious thought. Together, the passages discussed illustrate the growth and development of Jewish Bible exegesis in dialogue with the rabbinic sources and with the various trends of thought and theology of their times. The consistent focus on the Aqedah constitutes a unifying theme, while the insights presented here greatly advance our understanding of the various developments in medieval Jewish Bible exegesis.
Download or read book Medieval Hebrew Poetry in Muslim Egypt written by Joachim J.M.S. Yeshaya and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2010-11-19 with total page 365 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Offering an edition of secular poems taken from the earliest, fifteenth-century manuscript, this book seeks to evaluate Moses Dar??’s poetry in the light of the Andalusian-Hebrew poetical tradition and within the context of Hebrew literary activity in the Muslim East.
Download or read book Rashi s Commentary on the Torah written by Eric Lawee and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2019-04-09 with total page 480 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Winner of the Jewish Book Council Nahum M. Sarna Memorial Award in Scholarship This book explores the reception history of the most important Jewish Bible commentary ever composed, the Commentary on the Torah of Rashi (Shlomo Yitzhaki; 1040-1105). Though the Commentary has benefited from enormous scholarly attention, analysis of diverse reactions to it has been surprisingly scant. Viewing its path to preeminence through a diverse array of religious, intellectual, literary, and sociocultural lenses, Eric Lawee focuses on processes of the Commentary's canonization and on a hitherto unexamined--and wholly unexpected--feature of its reception: critical, and at times astonishingly harsh, resistance to it. Lawee shows how and why, despite such resistance, Rashi's interpretation of the Torah became an exegetical classic, a staple in the curriculum, a source of shared religious vocabulary for Jews across time and place, and a foundational text that shaped the Jewish nation's collective identity. The book takes as its larger integrating perspective processes of canonicity as they shape how traditions flourish, disintegrate, or evolve. Rashi's scriptural magnum opus, the foremost work of Franco-German (Ashkenazic) biblical scholarship, faced stiff competition for canonical supremacy in the form of rationalist reconfigurations of Judaism as they developed in Mediterranean seats of learning. It nevertheless emerged triumphant in an intense battle for Judaism's future that unfolded in late medieval and early modern times. Investigation of the reception of the Commentary throws light on issues in Jewish scholarship and spirituality that continue to stir reflection, and even passionate debate, in the Jewish world today.
Download or read book Maimonides Guide of the Perplexed in Translation written by Josef Stern and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2019-08-15 with total page 490 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Moses Maimonides’s Guide of the Perplexed is the greatest philosophical text in the history of Jewish thought and a major work of the Middle Ages. For almost all of its history, however, the Guide has been read and commented upon in translation—in Hebrew, Latin, Spanish, French, English, and other modern languages—rather than in its original Judeo-Arabic. This volume is the first to tell the story of the translations and translators of Maimonides’ Guide and its impact in translation on philosophy from the Middle Ages to the present day. A collection of essays by scholars from a range of disciplines, the book unfolds in two parts. The first traces the history of the translations of the Guide, from medieval to modern renditions. The second surveys its influence in translation on Latin scholastic, early modern, and contemporary Anglo-American philosophy, as well as its impact in translation on current scholarship. Interdisciplinary in approach, this book will be essential reading for philosophers, historians, and religious studies scholars alike.
Download or read book Reappraising the History of the Jews in the Netherlands written by J.C.H. Blom and published by Liverpool University Press. This book was released on 2021-09-15 with total page 625 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The two decades since the last authoritative general history of Dutch Jews was published have seen such substantial developments in historical understanding that new assessment has become an imperative. This volume offers an indispensable survey from a contemporary viewpoint that reflects the new preoccupations of European historiography and allows the history of Dutch Jewry to be more integrated with that of other European Jewish histories. Historians from both older and newer generations shed significant light on all eras, providing fresh detail that reflects changed emphases and perspectives. In addition to such traditional subjects as the Jewish community’s relationship with the wider society and its internal structure, its leaders, and its international affiliations, new topics explored include the socio-economic aspects of Dutch Jewish life seen in the context of the integration of minorities more widely; a reassessment of the Holocaust years and consideration of the place of Holocaust memorialization in community life; and the impact of multiculturalist currents on Jews and Jewish politics. Memory studies, diaspora studies, postcolonial studies, and digital humanities all play their part in providing the fullest possible picture. This wide-ranging scholarship is complemented by a generous plate section with eighty fully captioned colour illustrations.
Download or read book The Letter before the Spirit The Importance of Text Editions for the Study of the Reception of Aristotle written by and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2012-11-21 with total page 541 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Letter before the Spirit underlines the importance for scholars to have at their disposal reliable scientific text editions – book editions or digital editions – of Aristotle’s works in the Semitico-Latin, and the Graeco-Latin, translation and commentary traditions.
Download or read book How Russian Literature Became Great written by Rolf Hellebust and published by Cornell University Press. This book was released on 2024-01-15 with total page 253 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How Russian Literature Became Great explores the cultural and political role of a modern national literature, orchestrated in a Slavonic key but resonating far beyond Russia's borders. Rolf Hellebust investigates a range of literary tendencies, philosophies, and theories from antiquity to the present: Roman jurisprudence to German Romanticism, French Enlightenment to Czech Structuralism, Herder to Hobsbawm, Samuel Johnson to Sainte-Beuve, and so on. Besides the usual Russian suspects from Pushkin to Chekhov, Hellebust includes European writers: Byron and Shelley, Goethe and Schiller, Chateaubriand and Baudelaire, Dante, Mickiewicz, and more. As elsewhere, writing in Russia advertises itself via a canon of literary monuments constituting an atemporal "ideal order among themselves" (T.S. Eliot). And yet this is a tradition that could only have been born at a specific moment in the golden nineteenth-century age of historiography and nation-building. The Russian example reveals the contradictions between immutability and innovation, universality and specificity at the heart of modern conceptions of tradition from Sainte-Beuve through Eliot and down to the present day. The conditions of its era of formation—the prominence of the crucial literary-historical question of the writer's social function, and the equation of literature with national identity—make the Russian classical tradition the epitome of a unified cultural text, with a complex narrative in which competing stories of progress and decline unfold through the symbolic biographical encounters of the authors who constitute its members. How Russian Literature Became Great thus offers a new paradigm for understanding the paradoxes of modern tradition.
Download or read book A Philosopher of Scripture written by Raphael Dascalu and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2019-08-05 with total page 489 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Tanḥum b. Joseph ha-Yerushalmi (d. 1291, Fusṭāṭ, Egypt) was a rigorous linguist and philologist, philosopher and mystic, and a biblical exegete of singular breadth. As well as providing us with an insight into the inner world of a profound and original thinker, his oeuvre sheds light on a Jewish historical and cultural milieu that remains relatively poorly understood: the Islamic East in the post-Maimonidean period. In A Philosopher of Scripture: The Exegesis and Thought of Tanḥum ha-Yerushalmi, Raphael Dascalu presents the first detailed intellectual portrait of Tanḥum ha-Yerushalmi. Tanḥum emerges as a polymath with a clear intellectual program, an eclectic thinker who brought multiple traditions together in his search for the philosophical meaning of Scripture.
Download or read book Imagining the City written by Christian Emden and published by Peter Lang. This book was released on 2006 with total page 392 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Based on papers given at the conference 'Imagining the City' held in Cambridge in 2004"--P. [4] of cover, v. 1.
Download or read book European Identity and the Second World War written by Menno Spiering and published by Springer. This book was released on 2011-03-08 with total page 282 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The two concepts at the centre of this book: Europe, and the Second World War, are constantly changing in public perception. Now that 'Europe' is an even more contested idea than ever, this volume informs the current discourse on European identity by analysing Europe's reaction to the tragedy, heroism and disgrace of the Second World War.
Download or read book The Art of Dialogue in Jewish Philosophy written by Aaron W. Hughes and published by . This book was released on 2008 with total page 264 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Aaron W. Hughes presents the first major study of dialogue as a Jewish philosophical practice. Examining connections between Jewish philosophy, the literary form in which it is expressed, and the culture in which it is produced, Hughes shows how Jews understood and struggled with their social, religious, and intellectual environments. In this innovative and insightful book, Hughes addresses various themes associated with the literary form of dialogue as well as its philosophical reception: Why did various thinkers choose dialogue? What did it allow them to accomplish? How do the literary features of dialogue construct philosophical argument? As a history of philosophical form, context, and practice, this book will interest scholars and students working at the intersections of religious studies, philosophy, and literature.
