Download or read book War Memory and National Identity in the Hebrew Bible written by Jacob L. Wright and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2020-07-23 with total page 297 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Hebrew Bible is permeated with depictions of military conflicts that have profoundly shaped the way many think about war. Why does war occupy so much space in the Bible? In this book, Jacob Wright offers a fresh and fascinating response to this question: War pervades the Bible not because ancient Israel was governed by religious factors (such as 'holy war') or because this people, along with its neighbors in the ancient Near East, was especially bellicose. The reason is rather that the Bible is fundamentally a project of constructing a new national identity for Israel, one that can both transcend deep divisions within the population and withstand military conquest by imperial armies. Drawing on the intriguing interdisciplinary research on war commemoration, Wright shows how biblical authors, like the architects of national identities from more recent times, constructed a new and influential notion of peoplehood in direct relation to memories of war, both real and imagined. This book is also available as Open Access on Cambridge Core.
Download or read book War Memory and National Identity in the Hebrew Bible written by Jacob L. Wright and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2020-07-23 with total page 297 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Shows how biblical authors, like more recent architects of national identities, constructed identity in direct relation to memories of war.
Download or read book Rebuilding Identity written by Jacob L. Wright and published by Walter de Gruyter. This book was released on 2012-10-24 with total page 388 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This monograph presents a fresh and detailed treatment of the problems posed by the Nehemiah-Memoir. Starting from the pre-critical interpretations of Ezra-Neh, the study demonstrates that the use of the first-person does not suffice as a criterion for distinguishing between the verba Neemiae and the additions of later authors. The earliest edition of the Memoir isconfined to a building report, which was expanded as early generations of readers developed the implications of Nehemiah's accomplishments for the consolidation and centralization of Judah. The expansions occasioned in turn the composition of the history of the "Restoration" in Ezra-Neh.
Download or read book David King of Israel and Caleb in Biblical Memory written by Jacob L. Wright and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2014-05-12 with total page 285 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book presents a new thesis on the history of Israel: David was originally king of Judah, not of Israel. The tales of his encounters with Goliath, Saul, Jonathan, Michal, Bathsheba, Absalom, and Solomon are later additions to the account. The work develops a new model for the study of biblical literature.
Download or read book Why the Bible Began written by Jacob L. Wright and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2023-07-31 with total page 501 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: With a bold new thesis about the discovery of 'peoplehood,' this book revolutionizes our understanding of the Bible and its historical achievement.
Download or read book Remembering the Story of Israel written by Aubrey E. Buster and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2022-05-19 with total page 369 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this book, Aubrey Buster demonstrates how methods adapted from cultural and social memory studies and the new formalism can illuminate the communal function of biblical and extra-biblical historical summaries in Second Temple Judaism. Refining models drawn from memory studies, she applies them to ancient texts and demonstrates the development of Judah's speech about their past across the Second Temple period. Buster's wide-ranging study demonstrates how and where the historical summary functions in the book of Psalms, Nehemiah, 1 and 2 Chronicles, as well as the Qumran Psalms Scrolls, Words of the Luminaries, Paraphrase of Genesis and Exodus, and Pseudo-Daniel. She shows how the historical summary proves to be a generative, replicable, and ultimately productive form of memory. Crossing the boundaries of genre categories and time periods, liturgical performances, and literary works, historical summaries crafted a highly selective but broadly useful mode of commemoration of key events from Israel's past.
Download or read book The Cambridge Companion to the Hebrew Bible and Ethics written by C. L. Crouch and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2021-01-21 with total page 355 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Balances historical and contemporary concerns in an engaging and informative way, drawing connections between ancient and contemporary ethical problems.
Download or read book Joshua Baker Commentary on the Old Testament Historical Books written by John Goldingay and published by Baker Books. This book was released on 2023-04-18 with total page 530 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: John Goldingay is one of the most prolific and creative Old Testament scholars working today. In this book he draws on the best of biblical scholarship as well as the Christian tradition to offer a substantive and useful commentary on Joshua. The commentary is both critically engaged and sensitive to the theological contributions of the text. Goldingay treats Joshua as an ancient Israelite document that speaks to twenty-first-century Christians. He examines the text section by section--offering a fresh translation, textual notes, paragraph-level commentary, and theological reflection--and addresses important issues and problems that flow from the text and its discussion. This volume, the first in a new series on the Historical Books, complements other Baker Commentary on the Old Testament series: Pentateuch, Wisdom and Psalms, and Prophets. Each series volume is grounded in rigorous scholarship but is useful for those who preach and teach. The series editors are David G. Firth (Trinity College, Bristol) and Lissa M. Wray Beal (Wycliffe College, University of Toronto).
Download or read book Interpreting Exile written by Brad E. Kelle and published by Brill Academic Publishers. This book was released on 2012 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Introductory essays describe the interdisciplinary and comparative approach and explain how it overcomes methodological dead ends and advances the study of war in ancient and modern contexts. Following essays, written by scholars from various disciplines, explore specific cases drawn from a wide variety of ancient and modern settings and consider archaeological, anthropological, physical, and psychological realities, as well as biblical, literary, artistic, and iconographic representations of displacement and exile.
Download or read book Judah s Desire and the Making of the Abrahamic Israel written by Hong Guk-Pyoung and published by Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG. This book was released on 2024-07-01 with total page 270 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this refreshing exploration of Judah’s identity formation, the emphasis is placed on the psychological underpinnings of Judah’s sentiments towards Israel, aiming to illuminate the significance of Judah's appropriation of Israel. Richly contextual, this book draws parallels observed in Asian contexts, notably those of North and South Korea, and China with its marginal Others. Central to the thesis is that Judah’s perceived inferiority to Israel played a crucial role in its quest to appropriate Israel’s legacy and identity. Adopting a functionalist lens, Judah’s rewriting of Israel’s ancestral past is examined. The Abraham and Jacob traditions are understood as competing "identity narratives," serving as critical discursive tools to construct their pasts. The study scrutinizes how the southern Abraham tradition fundamentally reoriented the Jacob tradition, North Israel’s standalone ancestral myth. Set against the broader canvas of continued efforts to redefine and embody "Israel" within the history of Judeo-Christian religions, this exploration underscores how Judah's pivotal appropriation of Israel has established a paradigm for all future endeavors of "becoming Israel."
Download or read book Re forming Judaism written by Stanley Davids and published by CCAR Press. This book was released on 2023-08-07 with total page 427 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Throughout Jewish history, revolutionary events and subversive ideas have burst forth, repeatedly transforming Jewish experience. Re-forming Judaism seeks to explore these ideas---and the individuals behind them---by delving into historical disruptions that led to lasting change in Jewish thought. A distinguished array of scholars take us on a journey from the disruptive prophets of ancient times, through rational, mystical, and extremist medievalists, to the impact of Haskalah and early Reform thought in modernity. Contemporary innovations such as changes in liturgy and music, feminism, and post-Holocaust theology are included, as are insights into Sephardic and North African experiences. By showing how Judaism forms---then re-forms, and re-forms again---the contributors demonstrate that tensions between continuity and change have always been part of Jewish life, helping us to both understand the past and contemplate the future. The excellent chapters in this exciting and provocative book provide an illuminating journey through the grand sweep of Jewish history, seen through the lens of crises that generated radical transformations. The volume is perfect for all who seek to explore the resilience that undergirds Jewish survival and to benefit from first-rate scholarship and engaging style. -- Rabbi Tamara Cohn Eskenazi, PhD, Effie Wise Ochs Professor of Biblical Literature and History, Hebrew Union College--Jewish Institute of Religion An accessible introduction to the long history of disruption in Jewish life from antiquity to the present. To paraphrase a famous slogan, "You don't need to be Reform to enjoy Re-Forming Judaism." You just need to be curious as to how change happens. -- Jonathan D. Sarna, PhD, University Professor and Joseph H. & Belle R. Braun Professor of American Jewish History, Brandeis University There is a piece of every Jew that relishes thinking of oneself as standing at Sinai and being part of a people and tradition that extends from then to now. The Jewish tradition, though, is ours now only because it had the wisdom to change over the centuries. This book graphically demonstrates how tradition and change together have kept Judaism instructive and relevant over time so that Jews now can enjoy and benefit from both its continuity and its ever-refreshing and challenging nature. -- Rabbi Elliot Dorff, PhD, Rector and Sol & Anne Dorff Distinguished Service Professor of Philosophy, American Jewish University
Download or read book Conversations on Canaanite and Biblical Themes written by Rebecca S. Watson and published by Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG. This book was released on 2022-08-01 with total page 376 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Arguments over the relationship between Canaanite and Israelite religion often derive from fundamental differences in presupposition, methodology and definition, yet debate typically focuses in on details and encourages polarization between opposing views, inhibiting progress. This volume seeks to initiate a cultural change in scholarly practice by setting up dialogues between pairs of experts in the field who hold contrasting views. Each pair discusses a clearly defined issue through the lens of a particular biblical passage, responding to each other’s arguments and offering their reflections on the process. Topics range from the apparent application of ‘chaos’ and ‘divine warrior’ symbolism to Yahweh in Habakkuk 3, the evidence for ‘monotheism’ in pre-Exilic Judah in 2 Kings 22–23, and the possible presence of ‘chaos’ or creatio ex nihilo in Genesis 1 and Psalm 74. This approach encourages the recognition of points of agreement as well as differences and exposes some of the underlying issues that inhibit consensus. In doing so, it consolidates much that has been achieved in the past, offers fresh ideas and perspective and, through intense debate, subjects new ideas to thorough critique and suggests avenues for further research.
Download or read book Falafel Nation written by Yael Raviv and published by U of Nebraska Press. This book was released on 2015 with total page 304 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: When people discuss food in Israel, their debates ask politically charged questions: Who has the right to falafel? Whose hummus is better? But Yael Raviv’s Falafel Nation moves beyond the simply territorial to divulge the role food plays in the Jewish nation. She ponders the power struggles, moral dilemmas, and religious and ideological affiliations of the different ethnic groups that make up the “Jewish State” and how they relate to the gastronomy of the region. How do we interpret the recent upsurge in the Israeli culinary scene—the transition from ideological asceticism to the current deluge of fine restaurants, gourmet stores, and related publications and media? Focusing on the period between the 1905 immigration wave and the Six-Day War in 1967, Raviv explores foodways from the field, factory, market, and kitchen to the table. She incorporates the role of women, ethnic groups, and different generations into the story of Zionism and offers new assertions from a secular-foodie perspective on the relationship between Jewish religion and Jewish nationalism. A study of the changes in food practices and in attitudes toward food and cooking, Falafel Nation explains how the change in the relationship between Israelis and their food mirrors the search for a definition of modern Jewish nationalism.
Download or read book Ezra written by Tamara Cohn Eskenazi and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 2023-07-11 with total page 501 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A new translation and commentary on the biblical book of Ezra by the renowned author of two award-winning biblical commentaries The book of Ezra is a remarkable testament to a nation's ability to survive and develop a distinctive identity under imperial rule. But Ezra is far more than a simple chronicle; it constitutes a new biblical model for political, religious, and social order in the Persian Empire. In this new volume, Tamara Cohn Eskenazi illustrates how the book of Ezra envisions the radical transformation that followed reconstruction after the fall of Jerusalem and Judah. The extensive introduction highlights the book's innovations, including its textualization of the tradition, as well as the unprecedented role of the people as chief protagonists. The translation and commentary incorporate evidence from ancient and contemporaneous primary sources from Egypt, Babylonia, Greece, and Persia, along with new archaeological studies of Judah. With great care and detail, Eskenazi demonstrates how the book of Ezra creates a blueprint for survival after destruction, shaping a new kind of society and forging a new communal identity.
Download or read book Suffering as Identity written by Esther Benbassa and published by Verso Books. This book was released on 2020-05-05 with total page 335 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Reaching from biblical times to the present day, Esther Benbassa's prize-winning exploration of Jewish identity is both epic and comprehensive. She shows how in the Jewish world, the representation and ritualization of suffering have shaped the history of both the people and the religion. Benbassa argues that the nineteenth century gave rise to a Jewish 'lachrymose' historiography, and that Jewish history was increasingly seen to be a 'vale of tears'-a development that has become even more pronounced since the Holocaust. The treatment of the Holocaust in the State of Israel now has the form of a civil religion. In principle within reach of everyone, the 'duty of memory' and the uniqueness of the genocide have mitigated for many Jews the loss of other traditions. The Israeli government invokes the memory of the Holocaust to neutralize threats to its interests-ensuring that suffering continues to be a central part of Jewish identity and positioning the State of Israeli as a redemptive force.
Download or read book Heavenly Priesthood in the Apocalypse of Abraham written by Andrei A. Orlov and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2013-08 with total page 227 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Sheds light on the complex Jewish debates about the nature of priesthood in the early centuries of the Common Era.
Download or read book John within Judaism written by Wally V. Cirafesi and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2021-10-11 with total page 357 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In John within Judaism Wally V. Cirafesi offers a reading of the Gospel of John as an expression of the fluid and flexible nature of Jewish ethnic identity in Greco-Roman antiquity.
