Download or read book Ancient Judaism written by Max Weber and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2010-05-11 with total page 522 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Weber’s classic study which deals specifically with: Types of Asceticism and the Significance of Ancient Judaism, History and Social Organization of Ancient Palestine, Political Organization and Religious Ideas in the Time of the Confederacy and the Early Kings, Political Decline, Religious Conflict and Biblical Prophecy.

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 The Origin of the Jews written by Steven Weitzman and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2019-04-02 with total page 408 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The scholarly quest to answer the question of Jewish origins The Jews have one of the longest continuously recorded histories of any people in the world, but what do we actually know about their origins? While many think the answer to this question can be found in the Bible, others look to archaeology or genetics. Some skeptics have even sought to debunk the very idea that the Jews have a common origin. Steven Weitzman takes a learned and lively look at what we know—or think we know—about where the Jews came from, when they arose, and how they came to be. He sheds new light on the assumptions and biases of those seeking answers—and the religious and political agendas that have made finding answers so elusive. Introducing many approaches and theories, The Origin of the Jews brings needed clarity and historical context to this enduring and divisive topic.

Download or read book A Concise History of Ancient Israel written by Bernd U. Schipper and published by Penn State Press. This book was released on 2020-04-28 with total page 128 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The history of biblical Israel, as it is told in the Hebrew Bible, differs substantially from the history of ancient Israel as it can be reconstructed using ancient Near Eastern texts and archaeological evidence. In A Concise History of Ancient Israel, Bernd U. Schipper uses this evidence to present a critical revision of the history of Israel and Judah from the late second millennium BCE to the beginning of the Roman period. Considering archaeological material as well as biblical and extrabiblical texts, Schipper argues that the history of “Israel” in the preexilic period took place mostly in the hinterland of the Levant and should be understood in the context of the Neo-Assyrian expansion. He demonstrates that events in the exilic and postexilic periods also played out differently than they are recounted in the biblical books of Ezra and Nehemiah. In contrast to previous scholarship, which focused heavily on Israel’s origins and the monarchic period, Schipper’s history gives equal attention to the Persian and early Hellenistic periods, providing confirmation that a wide variety of forms of YHWH religion existed in the Persian period and persisted into the Hellenistic age. Original and innovative, this brief history provides a new outline of the historical development of ancient Israel that will appeal to students, scholars, and lay readers who desire a concise overview.

Download or read book Rewriting Ancient Jewish History written by Amram Tropper and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2016-04-20 with total page 229 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Half a century ago, the primary contours of the history of the Jews in Roman times were not subject to much debate. This standard account collapsed, however, when a handful of insights undermined the traditional historical method, the method long enlisted by historians for eliciting facts from sources. In response to these insights, a new historical method gradually emerged. Rewriting Ancient Jewish History critiques the traditional historical method and makes a case for the new one, illustrating how to write anew ancient Jewish history. At the heart of the traditional historical method lie three fundamental presumptions. The traditional historical method regularly presumes that multiple versions of a text or tradition are equally authentic; it presumes that many ancient Jewish sources are the products of largely immanent forces of cloistered Jewish communities; and, barring any local grounds for suspicion, it presumes that most ancient Jewish texts faithfully reflect their sources and reliably recount events. Rewriting Ancient Jewish History unfurls the failings of this approach; it promotes the new historical method which circumvents the flawed traditional presumptions while plotting anew the limits of rational argumentation in historical inquiry. This crucial reappraisal is a must-read for students of Jewish and Roman history alike, and a fascinating case-study in how historians should approach their ancient sources.

Download or read book History of the Jews written by Captivating History and published by Captivating History. This book was released on 2021-01-12 with total page 110 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: If you want to discover the captivating history of the Jews, then keep reading... The Jewish people are one of the oldest living people groups on the planet. The Jews lived alongside the ancient Egyptians, Babylonians, Phoenicians, and Sumerians-all of whom have since disappeared from the pages of history. Yet the Jews still remain. Despite all of the odds, Jewish culture, language, laws, and religion have remained intact over the course of thousands of years. Even after being kicked out of their homeland and scattered all over the globe, the Jews were able to hold their customs close to their heart. While in exile, they developed special rules to live by through rabbinical works, such as the Talmud, which gave them a moral compass by which to live, no matter where they might end up. This was a great source of comfort for the Jewish people even while having to live in less than encouraging environments. Their traditions kept them strong. Even from the worst ghettoes in Europe, great minds, such as Moses Mendelssohn, came forth and illuminated the world with their ideas. This light shined so brightly that soon the full emancipation of Jews became the norm in the civilized world. But then, in the middle of the 20th century, disaster struck when the Nazis came to power in Germany. This horrific regime brought death and destruction upon the Jewish people on a scale that the world had never seen before. Yet despite the horrors of the Holocaust, the Jews survived. Not only did they survive, but their ancient homeland of Israel was also soon revived and reborn. When Israel became a state in 1948, the great dream of having a Jewish safe haven became a reality. This is the history of the Jews. In History of the Jews: A Captivating Guide to Jewish History, Starting from the Ancient Israelites through Roman Rule to World War 2, you will discover topics such as The origin story of the Jewish people How the Jews first established Israel About the judges and kings who ruled Israel The Babylonian captivity Life under Roman rule How Christianity emerged from Judaism The Jewish emancipation The Holocaust The formation of Israel And much, much more! So if you want to learn more about the history of the Jews, scroll up and click the "add to cart" button!

Download or read book Judeans and Jews written by Daniel R. Schwartz and published by University of Toronto Press. This book was released on 2014-11-21 with total page 192 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In writing in English about the classical era, is it more appropriate to refer to “Jews” or to “Judeans”? What difference does it make? Today, many scholars consider “Judeans” the more authentic term, and “Jews” and “Judaism” merely anachronisms. In Judeans and Jews, Daniel R. Schwartz argues that we need both terms in order to reflect the dichotomy between the tendencies of those, whether in Judea or in the Disapora, whose identity was based on the state and the land (Judeans), and those whose identity was based on a religion and culture (Jews). Presenting the Second Temple era as an age of transition between a territorial past and an exilic and religious future, Judeans and Jews not only sharpens our understanding of this important era but also sheds important light on the revolution in Jewish identity caused by the creation of the modern state of Israel.

Download or read book When Christians Were Jews written by Paula Fredriksen and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 2018-10-23 with total page 272 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A compelling account of Christianity’s Jewish beginnings, from one of the world’s leading scholars of ancient religion How did a group of charismatic, apocalyptic Jewish missionaries, working to prepare their world for the impending realization of God's promises to Israel, end up inaugurating a movement that would grow into the gentile church? Committed to Jesus’s prophecy—“The Kingdom of God is at hand!”—they were, in their own eyes, history's last generation. But in history's eyes, they became the first Christians. In this electrifying social and intellectual history, Paula Fredriksen answers this question by reconstructing the life of the earliest Jerusalem community. As her account arcs from this group’s hopeful celebration of Passover with Jesus, through their bitter controversies that fragmented the movement’s midcentury missions, to the city’s fiery end in the Roman destruction of Jerusalem, she brings this vibrant apostolic community to life. Fredriksen offers a vivid portrait both of this temple-centered messianic movement and of the bedrock convictions that animated and sustained it.

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 Jew and Gentile in the Ancient World written by Louis H. Feldman and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2021-08-10 with total page 691 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Relations between Jews and non-Jews in the Hellenistic-Roman period were marked by suspicion and hate, maintain most studies of that topic. But if such conjectures are true, asks Louis Feldman, how did Jews succeed in winning so many adherents, whether full-fledged proselytes or "sympathizers" who adopted one or more Jewish practices? Systematically evaluating attitudes toward Jews from the time of Alexander the Great to the fifth century A.D., Feldman finds that Judaism elicited strongly positive and not merely unfavorable responses from the non-Jewish population. Jews were a vigorous presence in the ancient world, and Judaism was strengthened substantially by the development of the Talmud. Although Jews in the Diaspora were deeply Hellenized, those who remained in Israel were able to resist the cultural inroads of Hellenism and even to initiate intellectual counterattacks. Feldman draws on a wide variety of material, from Philo, Josephus, and other Graeco-Jewish writers through the Apocrypha, the Pseudepigrapha, the Church Councils, Church Fathers, and imperial decrees to Talmudic and Midrashic writings and inscriptions and papyri. What emerges is a rich description of a long era to which conceptions of Jewish history as uninterrupted weakness and suffering do not apply.

Download or read book Esther in Ancient Jewish Thought written by Aaron Koller and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2014-01-09 with total page 277 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book situates the book of Esther in the intellectual history of Ancient Judaism and provides a new understanding of its purpose.

Download or read book Ancient Jewish Prayers and Emotions written by Stefan C. Reif and published by Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG. This book was released on 2015-11-13 with total page 479 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Given the recent interest in the emotions presupposed in early religious literature, it has been thought useful to examine in this volume how the Jews and early Christians expressed their feelings within the prayers recorded in some of their literature. Specialists in their fields from academic institutions around the world have analysed important texts relating to this overall theme and to what is revealed with regard to such diverse topics as relations with God, exegesis, education, prophecy, linguistic expression, feminism, happiness, grief, cult, suicide, non-Jews, Hellenism, Qumran and Jerusalem. The texts discussed are in Greek, Hebrew and Aramaic and are important for a scientific understanding of how Rabbinic Judaism and Early Christianity developed their approaches to worship, to the construction of their theology and to the feelings that lay behind their religious ideas and practices. The articles contribute significantly to an historical understanding of how Jews maintained their earlier traditions but also came to terms with the ideology of the dominant Hellenistic culture that surrounded them.

Download or read book Ancient Jewish Magic written by Gideon Bohak and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2011-02-24 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Gideon Bohak gives a pioneering account of the broad history of ancient Jewish magic, from the Second Temple to the rabbinic period. It is based both on ancient magicians' own compositions and products in Aramaic, Hebrew and Greek, and on the descriptions and prescriptions of non-magicians, to reconstruct a historical picture that is as balanced and nuanced as possible. The main focus is on the cultural make-up of ancient Jewish magic, and special attention is paid to the processes of cross-cultural contacts and borrowings between Jews and non-Jews, as well as to inner-Jewish creativity. Other major issues explored include the place of magic within Jewish society, contemporary Jewish attitudes to magic, and the identity of its practitioners. Throughout, the book seeks to explain the methodological underpinnings of all sound research in this demanding field, and to highlight areas where further research is likely to prove fruitful.

Download or read book Encyclopaedia Britannica written by Hugh Chisholm and published by . This book was released on 1910 with total page 1090 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This eleventh edition was developed during the encyclopaedia's transition from a British to an American publication. Some of its articles were written by the best-known scholars of the time and it is considered to be a landmark encyclopaedia for scholarship and literary style.

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 A Jew s Best Friend written by Phillip Isaac Ackerman-Lieberman and published by Liverpool University Press. This book was released on 2013 with total page 298 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The dog has captured the Jewish imagination from antiquity to the contemporary period, with the image of the dog often used to characterize and demean Jewish populations in medieval Christendom. This book discusses the cultural manifestations of the relationship between dogs and Jews, from ancient times onwards.

Download or read book Elements of Ancient Jewish Nationalism written by David Goodblatt and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2006-09-04 with total page 17 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Contrary to the widespread view that nationalism is a modern phenomenon, Goodblatt argues that it can be found in the ancient world. He argues that concepts of nationalism compatible with contemporary social scientific theories can be documented in the ancient sources from the Mediterranean Rim by the middle of the last millennium BCE. In particular, the collective identity asserted by the Jews in antiquity fits contemporary definitions of nationalism. After the theoretical discussion in the opening chapter, the author examines several factors constitutive of ancient Jewish nationalism. He shows how this identity was socially constructed by such means as the mass dissemination of biblical literature, retention of the Hebrew language, and through the priestly caste. The author also discusses each of the names used to express Jewish national identity: Israel, Judah and Zion.