Download or read book The Invention of Judaism written by John J. Collins and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 2017-02-14 with total page 333 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Most people understand Judaism to be the Torah and the Torah to be Judaism. However, in The Invention of Judaism, John J. Collins persuasively argues this was not always the case. The Torah became the touchstone for most of Judaism’s adherents only in the hands of the rabbis of late antiquity. For 600 years prior, from the Babylonian Exile to the Roman destruction of the Second Temple, there was enormous variation in the way the Torah was understood. Collins provides a comprehensive account of the role of the Torah in ancient Judaism, exploring key moments in its history, beginning with the formation of Deuteronomy and continuing through the Maccabean revolt and the rise of Jewish sectarianism and early Christianity.
Download or read book The Invention of the Jewish People written by Shlomo Sand and published by Verso Books. This book was released on 2010-06-14 with total page 352 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A historical tour de force, The Invention of the Jewish People offers a groundbreaking account of Jewish and Israeli history. Exploding the myth that there was a forced Jewish exile in the first century at the hands of the Romans, Israeli historian Shlomo Sand argues that most modern Jews descend from converts, whose native lands were scattered across the Middle East and Eastern Europe. In this iconoclastic work, which spent nineteen weeks on the Israeli bestseller list and won the coveted Aujourd'hui Award in France, Sand provides the intellectual foundations for a new vision of Israel's future.
Download or read book The Invention of the Land of Israel written by Shlomo Sand and published by Verso Books. This book was released on 2012-11-20 with total page 305 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What is a homeland and when does it become a national territory? Why have so many people been willing to die for such places throughout the twentieth century? What is the essence of the Promised Land? Following the acclaimed and controversial The Invention of the Jewish People, Shlomo Sand examines the mysterious sacred land that has become the site of the longest-running national struggle of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. The Invention of the Land of Israel deconstructs the age-old legends surrounding the Holy Land and the prejudices that continue to suffocate it. Sand’s account dissects the concept of “historical right” and tracks the creation of the modern concept of the “Land of Israel” by nineteenth-century Evangelical Protestants and Jewish Zionists. This invention, he argues, not only facilitated the colonization of the Middle East and the establishment of the State of Israel; it is also threatening the existence of the Jewish state today.
Download or read book A History of Judaism written by Martin Goodman and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2019-11-19 with total page 656 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Judaism is one of the oldest religions in the world, and it has preserved its distinctive identity despite the extraordinarily diverse forms and beliefs it has embodied over the course of more than three millennia. A History of Judaism provides the first truly comprehensive look in one volume at how this great religion came to be, how it has evolved from one age to the next, and how its various strains, sects, and traditions have related to each other. In this magisterial and elegantly written book, Martin Goodman takes readers from Judaism's origins in the polytheistic world of the second and first millennia BCE to the temple cult at the time of Jesus. He tells the stories of the rabbis, mystics, and messiahs of the medieval and early modern periods and guides us through the many varieties of Judaism today. Goodman's compelling narrative spans the globe, from the Middle East, Europe, and America to North Africa, China, and India. He explains the institutions and ideas on which all forms of Judaism are based, and masterfully weaves together the different threads of doctrinal and philosophical debate that run throughout its history."--
Download or read book The Invention of Jewish Theocracy written by Alexander Kaye and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 2020 with total page 281 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "This book is about the attempt of Orthodox Jewish Zionists to implement traditional Jewish law (halakha) as the law of the State of Israel. These religious Zionists began their quest for a halakhic sate immediately after Israel's establishment in 1948 and competed for legal supremacy with the majority of Israeli Jews who wanted Israel to be a secular democracy. Although Israel never became a halachic state, the conflict over legal authority became the backdrop for a pervasive culture war, whose consequences are felt throughout Israeli society until today. The book traces the origins of the legal ideology of religious Zionists and shows how it emerged in the middle of the twentieth century. It further shows that the ideology, far from being endemic to Jewish religious tradition as its proponents claim, is a version of modern European jurisprudence, in which a centralized state asserts total control over the legal hierarchy within its borders. The book shows how the adoption (conscious or not) of modern jurisprudence has shaped religious attitudes to many aspects of Israeli society and politics, created an ongoing antagonism with the state's civil courts, and led to the creation of a new and increasingly powerful state rabbinate. This account is placed into wider conversations about the place of religion in democracies and the fate of secularism in the modern world. It concludes with suggestions about how a better knowledge of the history of religion and law in Israel may help ease tensions between its religious and secular citizens"--
Download or read book American Judaism written by Jonathan D. Sarna and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 2019-06-25 with total page 558 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Jonathan D. Sarna's award-winning American Judaism is now available in an updated and revised edition that summarizes recent scholarship and takes into account important historical, cultural, and political developments in American Judaism over the past fifteen years. Praise for the first edition: "Sarna . . . has written the first systematic, comprehensive, and coherent history of Judaism in America; one so well executed, it is likely to set the standard for the next fifty years."--Jacob Neusner, Jerusalem Post "A masterful overview."--Jeffrey S. Gurock, American Historical Review "This book is destined to be the new classic of American Jewish history."--Norman H. Finkelstein, Jewish Book World Winner of the 2004 National Jewish Book Award/Jewish Book of the Year
Download or read book How Judaism Became a Religion written by Leora Batnitzky and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2011-09-11 with total page 224 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A new approach to understanding Jewish thought since the eighteenth century Is Judaism a religion, a culture, a nationality—or a mixture of all of these? In How Judaism Became a Religion, Leora Batnitzky boldly argues that this question more than any other has driven modern Jewish thought since the eighteenth century. This wide-ranging and lucid introduction tells the story of how Judaism came to be defined as a religion in the modern period—and why Jewish thinkers have fought as well as championed this idea. Ever since the Enlightenment, Jewish thinkers have debated whether and how Judaism—largely a religion of practice and public adherence to law—can fit into a modern, Protestant conception of religion as an individual and private matter of belief or faith. Batnitzky makes the novel argument that it is this clash between the modern category of religion and Judaism that is responsible for much of the creative tension in modern Jewish thought. Tracing how the idea of Jewish religion has been defended and resisted from the eighteenth century to today, the book discusses many of the major Jewish thinkers of the past three centuries, including Moses Mendelssohn, Abraham Geiger, Hermann Cohen, Martin Buber, Zvi Yehuda Kook, Theodor Herzl, and Mordecai Kaplan. At the same time, it tells the story of modern orthodoxy, the German-Jewish renaissance, Jewish religion after the Holocaust, the emergence of the Jewish individual, the birth of Jewish nationalism, and Jewish religion in America. More than an introduction, How Judaism Became a Religion presents a compelling new perspective on the history of modern Jewish thought.
Download or read book The Cambridge History of Judaism Volume 2 The Hellenistic Age written by William David Davies and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 1984 with total page 766 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Vol. 4 covers the late Roman period to the rise of Islam. Focuses especially on the growth and development of rabbinic Judaism and of the major classical rabbinic sources such as the Mishnah, Jerusalem Talmud, Babylonian Talmud and various Midrashic collections.
Download or read book Introduction to the Hebrew Bible written by John J. Collins and published by Fortress Press. This book was released on 2014-08-01 with total page 1076 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: John J. Collins’ Introduction to the Hebrew Bible is one of the most reliable and widely adopted critical textbooks at undergraduate and graduate levels alike, and for good reason. Enriched by decades of classroom teaching, it is aimed explicitly at motivated students regardless of their previous exposure to the Bible or faith commitments. Collins proceeds through the canon of the Old Testament and the Apocrypha, judiciously presenting the current state of historical, archaeological, and literary understanding of the biblical text, and engaging the student in questions of significance and interpretation for the contemporary world. The second edition has been revised where more recent scholarship indicates it, and is now presented in a refreshing new format.
Download or read book History Of The Jewish People Vol 1 written by Charles Foster Kent and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2013-07-04 with total page 158 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: First published in 2007. This classic work explores the seminal early periods of Jewish history. The destruction of Jerusalem in 586 B.C. by the army of Nebuchadnezzar marks a radical turning point in the life of the people of Jehovah, for then the history of the Hebrew state and monarchy ends, and the Jewish history, the records of experiences, not of a nation but of the scattered, oppressed remnants of the Jewish people, begins.
Download or read book history of the jews written by Paul Johnson and published by Associated University Presse. This book was released on 1987 with total page 868 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Jewish Christianity and the History of Judaism written by Annette Yoshiko Reed and published by Mohr Siebeck. This book was released on 2018-07-12 with total page 535 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Jewish-Christianity" is a contested category in current research. But for precisely this reason, it may offer a powerful lens through which to rethink the history of Jewish/Christian relations. Traditionally, Jewish-Christianity has been studied as part of the origins and early diversity of Christianity. Collecting revised versions of previously published articles together with new materials, Annette Yoshiko Reed reconsiders Jewish-Christianity in the context of Late Antiquity and in conversation with Jewish studies. She brings further attention to understudied texts and traditions from Late Antiquity that do not fit neatly into present day notions of Christianity as distinct from Judaism. In the process, she uses these materials to probe the power and limits of our modern assumptions about religion and identity.
Download or read book The Literary Imagination in Jewish Antiquity written by Eva Mroczek and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2016 with total page 282 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How did Jews understand sacred writing before the concepts of "Bible" and "book" emerged? The Literary Imagination in Jewish Antiquity challenges anachronistic categories to reveal new aspects of how ancient Jews imagined written revelation-a wildly varied collection stretching back to the dawn of time, with new discoveries always around the corner.
Download or read book Response to Modernity written by Michael A. Meyer and published by Wayne State University Press. This book was released on 1995-04-01 with total page 518 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Comprehensive and balanced history of the Reform Movement. The movement for religious reform in modern Judaism represents one of the most significant phenomena in Jewish history during the last two hundred years. It introduced new theological conceptions and innovations in liturgy and religious practice that affected millions of Jews, first in central and Western Europe and later in the United States. Today Reform Judaism is one of the three major branches of Jewish faith. Bringing to life the ideas, issues, and personalities that have helped to shape modern Jewry, Response to Modernity offers a comprehensive and balanced history of the Reform Movement, tracing its changing configuration and self-understanding from the beginnings of modernization in late 18th century Jewish thought and practice through Reform's American renewal in the 1970s.
Download or read book Jewish History written by David N. Myers and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2017-04-18 with total page 162 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How have the Jews survived? For millennia, they have defied odds by overcoming the travails of exile, persecution, and recurring plans for their annihilation. Many have attempted to explain this singular success as a result of divine intervention. In this engaging book, David N. Myers charts the long journey of the Jews through history. At the same time, it points to two unlikely-and decidedly this-worldly--factors to explain the survival of the Jews: antisemitism and assimilation. Usually regarded as grave dangers, these two factors have continually interacted with one other to enable the persistence of the Jews. At every turn in their history, not just in the modern age, Jews have adapted to new environments, cultures, languages, and social norms. These bountiful encounters with host societies have exercised the cultural muscle of the Jews, preventing the atrophy that would have occurred if they had not interacted so extensively with the non-Jewish world. It is through these encounters--indeed, through a process of assimilation--that Jews came to develop distinct local customs, speak many different languages, and cultivate diverse musical, culinary, and intellectual traditions. Left unchecked, the Jews' well-honed ability to absorb from surrounding cultures might have led to their disappearance. And yet, the route toward full and unbridled assimilation was checked by the nearly constant presence of hatred toward the Jew. Anti-Jewish expression and actions have regularly accompanied Jews throughout history. Part of the ironic success of antisemitism is its malleability, its talent in assuming new forms and portraying the Jew in diverse and often contradictory images--for example, at once the arch-capitalist and revolutionary Communist. Antisemitism not only served to blunt further assimilation, but, in a paradoxical twist, affirmed the Jew's sense of difference from the host society. And thus together assimilation and antisemitism (at least up to a certain limit) contribute to the survival of the Jews as a highly adaptable and yet distinct group.
Download or read book A Short History of Judaism written by Jacob Neusner and published by Fortress Press. This book was released on 1992 with total page 256 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: One of the world's experts on classical Jewish history and literature offers an authoritative interpretation of the three major periods of Jewish history from the time of the Bible up to the present. What emerges is a captivating account of the life-forming nature of a dynamic religion in vastly differing historical contexts. Glossary, maps, illustrations, photographs.
Download or read book Creating Judaism written by Michael L. Satlow and published by Columbia University Press. This book was released on 2006-12-19 with total page 355 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How can we define "Judaism," and what are the common threads uniting ancient rabbis, Maimonides, the authors of the Zohar, and modern secular Jews in Israel? Michael L. Satlow offers a fresh perspective on Judaism that recognizes both its similarities and its immense diversity. Presenting snapshots of Judaism from around the globe and throughout history, Satlow explores the links between vastly different communities and their Jewish traditions. He studies the geonim, rabbinical scholars who lived in Iraq from the ninth to twelfth centuries; the intellectual flourishing of Jews in medieval Spain; how the Hasidim of nineteenth-century Eastern Europe confronted modernity; and the post-World War II development of distinct American and Israeli Jewish identities. Satlow pays close attention to how communities define themselves, their relationship to biblical and rabbinic texts, and their ritual practices. His fascinating portraits reveal the amazingly creative ways Jews have adapted over time to social and political challenges and continue to remain a "Jewish family."
