Download or read book Ishmael on the Border written by Carol Bakhos and published by State University of New York Press. This book was released on 2012-02-01 with total page 218 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Ishmael on the Border is an in-depth study of the rabbinic treatment of Abraham's firstborn son, Ishmael. This book examines Ishmael's conflicted portrayal over a thousand-year period and traces the shifts and nuances in his representation within the Jewish tradition before and after the emergence of Islam. In classical rabbinic texts, Ishmael is depicted in a variety of ways. By examining the biblical account of Ishmael's life, Carol Bakhos points to the tension between his membership in and expulsion from Abraham's household—on the one hand he is circumcised with Abraham, yet on the other, because of divine favor, his brother supplants him as primogenitor. The rabbis address his liminal status in a variety of ways. Like Esau, he is often depicted in antipodal terms. He is Israel's "Other." Yet, Bakhos notes, the emergence of Islam and the changing ethnic, religious, and political landscape of the Near East in the seventh century affected later, medieval rabbinic depictions of Ishmael, whereby he becomes the symbol of Islam and the eponymous prototype of Arabs. With this inquiry into the rabbinic portrayal of Ishmael, the book confronts the interfacing of history and hermeneutics and the ways in which the rabbis inhabited a world of intertwined political, social, and theological forces.

Download or read book Ishmael written by Daniel Quinn and published by Bantam. This book was released on 1995-05-01 with total page 338 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: One of the most beloved and bestselling novels of spiritual adventure ever published, Ishmael has earned a passionate following. This special twenty-fifth anniversary edition features a new foreword and afterword by the author. “A thoughtful, fearlessly low-key novel about the role of our species on the planet . . . laid out for us with an originality and a clarity that few would deny.”—The New York Times Book Review Teacher Seeks Pupil. Must have an earnest desire to save the world. Apply in person. It was just a three-line ad in the personals section, but it launched the adventure of a lifetime. So begins an utterly unique and captivating novel. It is the story of a man who embarks on a highly provocative intellectual adventure with a gorilla—a journey of the mind and spirit that changes forever the way he sees the world and humankind’s place in it. In Ishmael, which received the Turner Tomorrow Fellowship for the best work of fiction offering positive solutions to global problems, Daniel Quinn parses humanity’s origins and its relationship with nature, in search of an answer to this challenging question: How can we save the world from ourselves? Explore Daniel Quinn’s spiritual Ishmael trilogy: ISHMAEL • MY ISHMAEL • THE STORY OF B Praise for Ishmael “As suspenseful, inventive, and socially urgent as any fiction or nonfiction you are likely to read this or any other year.”—The Austin Chronicle “Before we’re halfway through this slim book . . . we’re in [Daniel Quinn’s] grip, we want Ishmael to teach us how to save the planet from ourselves. We want to change our lives.”—The Washington Post “Arthur Koestler, in an essay in which he wondered whether mankind would go the way of the dinosaur, formulated what he called the Dinosaur’s Prayer: ‘Lord, a little more time!’ Ishmael does its bit to answer that prayer and may just possibly have bought us all a little more time.”—Los Angeles Times

Download or read book A Targumist Interprets the Torah Contradictions and Coherence in Targum Pseudo Jonathan written by Iosif J Zhakevich and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2022-01-17 with total page 283 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book conducts a study of contradictions and coherence in Targum Pseudo-Jonathan and suggests that the alleged contradictions are ultimately given to resolution, once the greater context of biblical and Jewish tradition is taken into consideration.

Download or read book Jacob Esau written by Malachi Haim Hacohen and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2019-01-10 with total page 757 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Jacob and Esau is a profound new account of two millennia of Jewish European history that, for the first time, integrates the cosmopolitan narrative of the Jewish diaspora with that of traditional Jews and Jewish culture. Malachi Haim Hacohen uses the biblical story of the rival twins, Jacob and Esau, and its subsequent retelling by Christians and Jews throughout the ages as a lens through which to illuminate changing Jewish-Christian relations and the opening and closing of opportunities for Jewish life in Europe. Jacob and Esau tells a new history of a people accustomed for over two-and-a-half millennia to forming relationships, real and imagined, with successive empires but eagerly adapting, in modernity, to the nation-state, and experimenting with both assimilation and Jewish nationalism. In rewriting this history via Jacob and Esau, the book charts two divergent but intersecting Jewish histories that together represent the plurality of Jewish European cultures.

Download or read book The Family of Abraham written by Carol Bakhos and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2014-06-16 with total page 296 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The term “Abrahamic religions” has gained considerable currency in both scholarly and ecumenical circles as a way of referring to Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. In The Family of Abraham, Carol Bakhos steps back from this convention to ask a frequently overlooked question: What, in fact, is Abrahamic about these three faiths? Exploring diverse stories and interpretations relating to the portrayal of Abraham, she reveals how he is venerated in these different scriptural traditions and how scriptural narratives have been pressed into service for nonreligious purposes. Grounding her study in a close examination of ancient Jewish textual practices, primarily midrash, as well as medieval Muslim Stories of the Prophets and the writings of the early Church Fathers, Bakhos demonstrates that ancient and early-medieval readers often embellished the image of Abraham and his family—Sarah, Hagar, Ishmael, and Isaac. Her analysis dismantles pernicious misrepresentations of Abraham’s firstborn son, Ishmael, and provocatively challenges contemporary references to Judaism and Islam as sibling religions. As Bakhos points out, an uncritical adoption of the term “Abrahamic religions” not only blinds us to the diverse interpretations and traditions of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam but also artificially separates these faiths from their historical contexts. In correcting mistaken assumptions about the narrative and theological significance of Abraham, The Family of Abraham sheds new light on key figures of three world religions.

Download or read book Jethro and the Jews written by Beatrice Lawrence and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2017-06-12 with total page 188 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Jethro and the Jews, Beatrice J. W. Lawrence examines rabbinic texts that address the biblical character of Jethro, a Midianite priest, Moses’ advisor and father-in-law, and the creator of the system of Jewish jurisprudence. Lawrence explores biblical interpretations in Midrash, Targum and Talmud, revealing a spectrum of responses to the presence of a man who straddles the line between insider and outsider. Ranging from character assassination to valorization of Jethro as a convert, these interpretive strategies reveal him to be a locus of anxiety for the rabbis concerning conversion, community boundaries, intermarriage, and non-Jews.

Download or read book Abraham the Nations and the Hagarites written by Martin Goodman and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2010-11-11 with total page 614 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Jews, Christians and Muslims describe their origins with close reference to the narrative of Abraham, including the complex story of Abraham's relation to Hagar. This volume sketches the history of interpretation of some of the key passages in this narrative, not least the verses which state that in Abraham all the nations of the earth will be blessed. This passage, which features prominently in Christian historiography, is largely disregarded in ancient Judaism, prompting the question how the relation between Abraham and the nations was perceived in Jewish sources. This focus is supplemented with the question how Islamic historiography relates to the Abraham narrative, and in particular to the descent of the Arabs from Abraham through Ishmael and Hagar. In studying the traditional readings of these narratives, the volume offers a detailed yet wide-ranging analysis of important aspects of the accounts of their origins which emerged within the three Abrahamic religions.

Download or read book Reading Genesis written by Ronald Hendel and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2010-09-27 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Reading Genesis presents a panoramic view of the most vital ways that Genesis is approached in modern scholarship. Essays by ten eminent scholars cover the perspectives of literature, gender, memory, sources, theology, and the reception of Genesis in Judaism and Christianity. Each contribution addresses the history and rationale of the method, insightfully explores particular texts of Genesis, and deepens the interpretive gain of the method in question. These ways of reading Genesis, which include its classic past readings, map out a pluralistic model for understanding Genesis in - and for - the modern age.

Download or read book Abraham written by Joseph Blenkinsopp and published by Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing. This book was released on 2015-05-25 with total page 256 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this discursive commentary Joseph Blenkinsopp explores the story of Abraham -- iconic ancestor of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam -- as told in Genesis 11-25. Presented in continuous discussion rather than in verse-by-verse form, Blenkinsopp s commentary focuses on the literary and theological artistry of the narrative as a whole. Blenkinsopp discussses a range of issues raised in the Abraham saga, including confirmation of God s promises, Isaac s sacrifice and the death of Jesus, and Abraham s other beloved son, Ishmael. Each chapter has a section called Filling in the Gaps, which probes some of the vast amount of Jewish, Christian, and Islamic commentary that the basic Genesis text has generated through the ages. In an epilogue Blenkinsopp looks at Abraham in early Christianity and expresses his own views, as a Christian, on Abraham. Readers of Blenkinsopp s Abraham: The Story of a Life will surely come away with a deeper, richer understanding of this seminal ancient figure.

Download or read book Fighting Over the Bible written by Isaac Kalimi and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2017-03-06 with total page 356 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Fighting over the Bible explores the bitter conflicts between main stream Jews and their internal and external opponents, especially between particular Jewish groups such as Pharisees, Sadducees, Qumranites, Samaritans, Rabbanites and Karaites, as well as with Christians and Muslims regarding their interpretations of Jewish Scripture. The Hebrew Bible/Old Testament is an important sacred text for all branches of the Abrahamic faiths, but it has more often divided than unified them. This volume explores and exemplifies the roots of these interpretive conflicts and controversies and traces the rich exegetical and theological approaches that grew out of them. Focusing on the Jewish sources from the late Second Temple period through the high Middle-Ages, it illustrates how the study of the Bible filled the vacuum left by the Temple’s destruction, and became the foundation of Jewish life throughout its long conflicted history. "This is a rich and engaging volume, one of impressive erudition and sound scholarship. It demonstrates a deep understanding of the history that it seeks to unravel and document. I especially appreciate the attention given to primary sources in their original languages (usually accompanied by English translation) and the balanced and fair-minded handling of controversial issues." - Richard A. Taylor, DTS (Dallas Theological Seminary), in: Voice (2017) "“In this passionate account, Isaac Kalimi crystallizes a decade of personal research into the dynamics that shaped Jewish interpretation of the Tanak from the second century B.C.E. to the sixteenth century C.E. This is a startlingly honest book that profiles the Bible as a source of conflict rather than mutual understanding among the Abrahamic traditions...It will be a fine addition to the libraries of religious studies departments, seminaries, and study groups that are committed to interfaith dialogue." - Michael W. Duggan, in: Catholic Biblical Quarterly 81 (2019) “... Each of these chapters carries the overall theme of how the sacred text of the HB has been interpreted and why this has prompted controversy and conflict...The arguments are straightforward and have a clear conclusion at the end of each chapter. The Appendix ‘And What Now?’ gives a strong analysis of how disagreeing factions can reconcile ideas for a more peaceful future and presents a persuasive argument for peaceful coexistence between Jews and Christians in the modern world.” - Jacob Greenhouse, in: Journal for the Study of the Old Testament 43 (2019)

Download or read book Defining Neighbors written by Jonathan Marc Gribetz and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2014-09-22 with total page 307 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How religion and race—not nationalism—shaped early encounters between Zionists and Arabs in Palestine As the Israeli-Palestinian conflict persists, aspiring peacemakers continue to search for the precise territorial dividing line that will satisfy both Israeli and Palestinian nationalist demands. The prevailing view assumes that this struggle is nothing more than a dispute over real estate. Defining Neighbors boldly challenges this view, shedding new light on how Zionists and Arabs understood each other in the earliest years of Zionist settlement in Palestine and suggesting that the current singular focus on boundaries misses key elements of the conflict. Drawing on archival documents as well as newspapers and other print media from the final decades of Ottoman rule, Jonathan Gribetz argues that Zionists and Arabs in pre–World War I Palestine and the broader Middle East did not think of one another or interpret each other's actions primarily in terms of territory or nationalism. Rather, they tended to view their neighbors in religious terms—as Jews, Christians, or Muslims—or as members of "scientifically" defined races—Jewish, Arab, Semitic, or otherwise. Gribetz shows how these communities perceived one another, not as strangers vying for possession of a land that each regarded as exclusively their own, but rather as deeply familiar, if at times mythologized or distorted, others. Overturning conventional wisdom about the origins of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Gribetz demonstrates how the seemingly intractable nationalist contest in Israel and Palestine was, at its start, conceived of in very different terms. Courageous and deeply compelling, Defining Neighbors is a landmark book that fundamentally recasts our understanding of the modern Jewish-Arab encounter and of the Middle East conflict today.

Download or read book Babel s Tower Translated written by Phillip Michael Sherman and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2013-04-15 with total page 377 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Babel's Tower Translated, Phillip Sherman explores the narrative of Genesis 11 and its reception and interpretation in several Second Temple and Early Rabbinic texts (e.g., Jubilees, Philo, Genesis Rabbah). The account of the Tower of Babel (Genesis 11:1-9) is famously ambiguous. The meaning of the narrative and the actions of both the human characters and the Israelite deity defy any easy explanation. This work explores how changing historical and hermeneutical realities altered and shifted the meaning of the text in Jewish antiquity.

Download or read book Goy written by Adi Ophir and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2018 with total page 342 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This work traces the development of the term and category of the goy from the Bible to rabbinic literature.

Download or read book Ishmael s Oranges written by Claire Hajaj and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2014-07-17 with total page 336 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Shortlisted for the Jewish Quarterly-Wingate Prize 2016 A finalist for the Authors’ Club Best First Novel Award 2015 It’s April 1948, and war hangs over Jaffa. One minute seven-year-old Salim is dreaming of taking his first harvest from the family’s orange tree; the next he is swept away into a life of exile and rage. Seeking a new beginning in swinging-’60s London, Salim falls in love with Jude. The only problem? Jude is Jewish. A captivating story about love and loss, Ishmael’s Oranges follows the story of two families spanning the crossroad events of modern times, and of the legacy of hatred their children inherit.

Download or read book Shadowborn written by Alison Sinclair and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2011-06-07 with total page 314 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: For the Darkborn, the touch of sunlight kills, while darkness is lethal for the Lightborn. For centuries, the two have lived in an uneasy peace, sharing the same city but never meeting. Now, with the rise of the Shadowborn, everything is about to change… Condemned to death by the Darkborn for practicing sorcery, Lady Telmaine Hearne escaped her fate and is now bound with her mageborn allies for the Borders—and the war brewing there. Also on the frontlines of the battle between Darkborn and Shadowborn is the assassin Floria White Hand, desperately maneuvering between allies and enemies to bring her Lightborn prince home safe. The fragile alliance between Lightborn and Darkborn, between mage and non-mage, is endangered. The mage Tammorn is forced to become ambassador to the enemy. And a lifetime fighting the Shadowborn has not prepared Ishmael di Studier for what he will find when he follows the Call from the Shadowlands—and meets the woman behind it…

Download or read book In Ishmael s House written by Martin Gilbert and published by Emblem Editions. This book was released on 2011-09-20 with total page 466 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From one of the most popular historians writing today comes a book as fascinating as the bestsellers of Karen Armstrong and Reza Aslan. In this captivating chronicle, Martin Gilbert shines new light on a controversial dilemma in the modern world: the troubled relationship between Jews and Muslims. Beginning at the dawn of Islam and sweeping from the Atlantic Ocean to the mountains of Afghanistan, Gilbert presents the first popular and authoritative history of Jewish peoples under Muslim rule. He confronts with wisdom and compassion the stormy events in their dramatic story, including anti-Zionist movements and the forced exodus to Israel. He also gives special attention to the twentieth century and to the current political debate about refugee status and restitution. Throughout, Gilbert weaves a compelling narrative of perseverance, struggle, and renewal marked by surprising moments of tolerance and partnership. A monumental and timely book, Jews under Muslim Rule is a crowning achievement that confirms Martin Gilbert as one of the foremost historians of our time.

Download or read book A History of Muslim Views of the Bible written by Martin Whittingham and published by Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG. This book was released on 2020-11-23 with total page 230 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book is the first of two volumes that aim to produce something not previously attempted: a synthetic history of Muslim responses to the Bible, stretching from the rise of Islam to the present day. It combines scholarship with a genuine narrative, so as to tell the story of Muslim engagement with the Bible. Covering Sunnī, Imāmī Shī'ī and Ismā'īlī perspectives, this study will offer a scholarly overview of three areas of Muslim response, namely ideas of corruption, use of the Biblical text, and abrogation of the text. For each period of history, the important figures and dominant trends, along with exceptions, are identified. The interplay between using and criticising the Bible is explored, as well as how the respective emphasis on these two approaches rises and falls in different periods and locations. The study critically engages with existing scholarship, scrutinizing received views on the subject, and shedding light on an important area of interfaith concern.