Download or read book The Universe of Shabbetai Donnolo written by Andrew Sharf and published by . This book was released on 1976 with total page 222 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Shabbetai Donnolo was a Jewish doctor born in Southern Italy in 913 AD when it was part of the Byzantine Empire. He is best known as the author of a herbal and traditionally as one of the founders of Europe's first medical school at Salerno. However, his medical reputation has overshadowed his cosmological writings, the most important of which is his Sefer Hakhmoni , a title implying Wisdom. As pharmacy and medicine in the tenth century were inextricably interwoven with astrology and cosmology Donnolo sets out his idea of a divinely created universe, with man in the image of God, based on a synthesis of contemporary thought. Professor Sharf shows how Donnolo's cosmology is a striking blend of his mystical inheritance from the Judaism of his birth, the Christian culture of his homeland and the Islamic astronomy which he studied, with the down-to-earth, plain and practical mind of the doctor.
Download or read book Shabbatai Donnolo s Sefer akhmoni written by Piergabriele Mancuso and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2010-04-06 with total page 428 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Sefer Hakhmoni by the 10th-century Jewish polymath Shabbatai Donnolo is one of the first texts written in Hebrew in medieval Europe and one of the most important documents of the “Hebrew Renaissance” of Byzantine Jewry in southern Italy between the 9th and the 11th centuries. Written as a commentary on Sefer Yeîirah (Book of Formation, an anonymous text probably written in Palestine between the 3rd and the 6th centuries), Sefer Hakhmoni is in fact a much more complex work, consisting of biblical exegesis, astrology, medicine, a detailed analysis of the neo-Platonic idea of melothesia, and the correspondence between the elements of the microcosm and macrocosm. This volume offers the critical text, an annotated English translation, and a comprehensive introduction to Donnolo and his works.
Download or read book Through a Speculum That Shines written by Elliot R. Wolfson and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2020-06-30 with total page 463 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A comprehensive treatment of visionary experience in some of the main texts of Jewish mysticism, this book reveals the overwhelmingly visual nature of religious experience in Jewish spirituality from antiquity through the late Middle Ages. Using phenomenological and critical historical tools, Wolfson examines Jewish mystical texts from late antiquity, pre-kabbalistic sources from the tenth to the twelfth centuries, and twelfth- and thirteenth-century kabbalistic literature. His work demonstrates that the sense of sight assumes an epistemic priority in these writings, reflecting and building upon those scriptural passages that affirm the visual nature of revelatory experience. Moreover, the author reveals an androcentric eroticism in the scopic mentality of Jewish mystics, which placed the externalized and representable form, the phallus, at the center of the visual encounter. In the visionary experience, as Wolfson describes it, imagination serves a primary function, transmuting sensory data and rational concepts into symbols of those things beyond sense and reason. In this view, the experience of a vision is inseparable from the process of interpretation. Fundamentally challenging the conventional distinction between experience and exegesis, revelation and interpretation, Wolfson argues that for the mystics themselves, the study of texts occasioned a visual experience of the divine located in the imagination of the mystical interpreter. Thus he shows how Jewish mystics preserved the invisible transcendence of God without doing away with the visual dimension of belief.
Download or read book Byzantine Jewry in the Mediterranean Economy written by Joshua Holo and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2009-11-12 with total page 299 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Covers the middle Byzantine period, describing the day-to-day workings of the Byzantine-Jewish economy via primary sources.
Download or read book Routledge Revivals Medieval Italy 2004 written by Christopher Kleinhenz and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2017-07-05 with total page 1648 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: First published in 2004, Medieval Italy: An Encyclopedia provides an introduction to the many and diverse facets of Italian civilization from the late Roman empire to the end of the fourteenth century. It presents in two volumes articles on a wide range of topics including history, literature, art, music, urban development, commerce and economics, social and political institutions, religion and hagiography, philosophy and science. This illustrated, A-Z reference is a cross-disciplinary resource and will be of key interest not only to students and scholars of history but also to those studying a range of subjects, as well as the general reader.
Download or read book Jewish Philosophy in the Middle Ages written by T. M. Rudavsky and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2018-07-11 with total page 344 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: T. M. Rudavsky presents a new account of the development of Jewish philosophy from the tenth century to Spinoza in the seventeenth, viewed as part of an ongoing dialogue with medieval Christian and Islamic thought. Her aim is to provide a broad historical survey of major figures and schools within the medieval Jewish tradition, focusing on the tensions between Judaism and rational thought. This is reflected in particular philosophical controversies across a wide range of issues in metaphysics, language, cosmology, and philosophical theology. The book illuminates our understanding of medieval thought by offering a much richer view of the Jewish philosophical tradition, informed by the considerable recent research that has been done in this area.
Download or read book Kabbalah and Sex Magic written by Marla Segol and published by Penn State Press. This book was released on 2021-06-16 with total page 221 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this provocative book, Marla Segol explores the development of the kabbalistic cosmology underlying Western sex magic. Drawing extensively on Jewish myth and ritual, Segol tells the powerful story of the relationship between the divine and the human body in late antique Jewish esotericism, in medieval kabbalah, and in New Age ritual practice. Kabbalah and Sex Magic traces the evolution of a Hebrew microcosm that models the powerful interaction of human and divine bodies at the heart of both kabbalah and some forms of Western sex magic. Focusing on Jewish esoteric and medical sources from the fifth to the twelfth century from Byzantium, Persia, Iberia, and southern France, Segol argues that in its fully developed medieval form, kabbalah operated by ritualizing a mythos of divine creation by means of sexual reproduction. She situates in cultural and historical context the emergence of Jewish cosmological models for conceptualizing both human and divine bodies and the interactions between them, arguing that all these sources position the body and its senses as the locus of culture and the means of reproducing it. Segol explores the rituals acting on these models, attending especially to their inherent erotic power, and ties these to contemporary Western sex magic, showing that such rituals have a continuing life. Asking questions about its cosmology, myths, and rituals, Segol poses even larger questions about the history of kabbalah, the changing conceptions of the human relation to the divine, and even the nature of religious innovation itself. This groundbreaking book will appeal to students and scholars of Jewish studies, religion, sexuality, and magic.
Download or read book A Traditional Quest written by Dan Cohn-Sherbok and published by A&C Black. This book was released on 1991-03-01 with total page 241 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Louis Jacobs has made a formidable contribution to Jewish scholarship over the last 40 years. In addition he has inspired a generation of students of Judaica as well as members of his own congregation at the New London Synagogue. The contributors to this volume in his honour include a wide range of distinguished scholars. Beginning with Jacob Neusner's essay on the transformation of the Dual Torah in the first four centuries CE, the volume ranges over a variety of topics in the field of Bible, Talmud, history and theology, mirroring the wide range of Louis Jacobs' own interests. In addition, a full bibliography of Louis Jacobs' publications is included.
Download or read book Christian Attitudes Toward the Jews in the Middle Ages written by Michael Frassetto and published by Taylor & Francis. This book was released on 2007 with total page 242 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Publisher description
Download or read book Medieval Italy written by Katherine L. Jansen and published by University of Pennsylvania Press. This book was released on 2011-09-21 with total page 620 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Medieval Italy gathers together an unparalleled selection of newly translated primary sources from the central and later Middle Ages, a period during which Italy was famous for its diverse cultural landscape of urban towers and fortified castles, the spirituality of Saints Francis and Clare, and the vernacular poetry of Dante, Petrarch, and Boccaccio. The texts highlight the continuities with the medieval Latin West while simultaneously emphasizing the ways in which Italy was exceptional, particularly for its cities that drove Mediterranean trade, its new communal forms of government, the impact of the papacy's temporal claims on the central peninsula, and the richly textured religious life of the mainland and its islands. A unique feature of this volume is its incorporation of the southern part of the peninsula and Sicily—the glittering Norman court at Palermo, the multicultural emporium of the south, and the kingdoms of Frederick II—into a larger narrative of Italian history. Including Hebrew, Arabic, Greek, and Lombard sources, the documents speak in ethnically and religiously differentiated voices, while providing wider chronological and geographical coverage than previously available. Rich in interdisciplinary texts and organized to enable the reader to focus by specific region, topic, or period, this is a volume that will be an essential resource for anyone with a professional or private interest in the history, religion, literature, politics, and built environment of Italy from ca. 1000 to 1400.
Download or read book Health and Medicine in Early Medieval Southern Italy written by Patricia Skinner and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2022-02-22 with total page 204 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Medical historians are already familiar with medieval southern Italy through research into its famed medical school at Salerno. This volume takes a broader view of healthcare, seeking to illuminate the experience of sickness, attitudes towards the ill and infirm and the provision of care up to the twelfth century. Combining information from hagiography and chronicles with less well-known charters and archaeology, it deals with the provision of food, the environment, women's health, individual and collective disease and varieties of cure. A final chapter assesses the interaction between intellectual and practical medicine, as well as re-examining the early life of the medical school at Salerno. The book's importance lies in its wide-ranging approach and detailed analysis, which will appeal to historians of medicine and medieval culture alike.
Download or read book The New Cambridge Medieval History Volume 1 C 500 c 700 written by Paul Fouracre and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 1995 with total page 1022 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Sample Text
Download or read book The Byzantine World written by Paul Stephenson and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2010-12-20 with total page 639 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Byzantine World presents the latest insights of the leading scholars in the fields of Byzantine studies, history, art and architectural history, literature, and theology. Those who know little of Byzantine history, culture and civilization between AD 700 and 1453 will find overviews and distillations, while those who know much already will be afforded countless new vistas. Each chapter offers an innovative approach to a well-known topic or a diversion from a well-trodden path. Readers will be introduced to Byzantine women and children, men and eunuchs, emperors, patriarchs, aristocrats and slaves. They will explore churches and fortifications, monasteries and palaces, from Constantinople to Cyprus and Syria in the east, and to Apulia and Venice in the west. Secular and sacred art, profane and spiritual literature will be revealed to the reader, who will be encouraged to read, see, smell and touch. The worlds of Byzantine ceremonial and sanctity, liturgy and letters, Orthodoxy and heresy will be explored, by both leading and innovative international scholars. Ultimately, readers will find insights into the emergence of modern Byzantine studies and of popular Byzantine history that are informative, novel and unexpected, and that provide a thorough understanding of both.
Download or read book Sod ha Shabbat written by Elliot K. Ginsburg and published by State University of New York Press. This book was released on 2012-02-01 with total page 282 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Sabbath has been one of the most significant and beloved institutions of Jewish life since late antiquity. Over a period of several centuries, the classical Kabbalists developed a rich body of ritual and myth that articulated a fresh vision of the Sabbath. The mystical understanding of the Sabbath was assimilated by virtually every Jewish community. This volume is a translation and critical commentary to Sod ha-Shabbat, a treatise on the mystical Sabbath by the influential Spanish-Turkish Kabbalist, R. Meir ibn Gabbai. This important text, the most systematic treatment of the Sabbath in classical Kabbalah, has been inaccessible to the English reader until now. The study includes an Introduction to ibn Gabbai's life and work, accompanied by extensive critical notes that clarify general problems of translation and place the work in its historical context. Broader theoretical issues regarding myth and the ritual process are also discussed.
Download or read book The Qabalah Workbook for Magicians written by Kraft, Anita and published by Weiser Books. This book was released on 2013-07-01 with total page 178 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Qabalah Workbook for Magicians is the perfect guide for the practicing magician who wants a greater understanding of Qabalah concepts and practice. Created by Anita Kraft, one of the world’s most respected Qabalist teachers, this workbook teachers readers how to practice Qabalah using tarot, plants, stones, perfumes, the zodiac, and other magical sources. Kraft show how to work through the Sephiroth— the ten attributes or emanations of Qabalah—for greater understanding and illumination. Drawing on occult works, including those of Israel Regardie, Aleister Crowley, Dion Fortune, and Lon Milo DuQuette, as well as dozens of Herbrew texts and manuscripts, the practicing magician can understand the Tree of Life and other Qabalistic concepts. Kraft has spent more than twenty years creating and perfecting a method by which "Qabalah is experiential as is mysticism and magick. If all you do is read, you are not a mystic, magician, or Qabalist. You must do!" writes Kraft.
Download or read book Time Matters written by T.M. Rudavsky and published by State University of New York Press. This book was released on 2012-02-01 with total page 310 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Despite the importance of time and cosmology to Western thought, surprisingly little attention has been paid to these issues in histories of Jewish philosophy. Focusing on how medieval philosophers constructed a philosophical theology that was sensitive to religious constraints and yet also incorporated compelling elements of science and philosophy, T. M. Rudavsky traces the development of the concepts of time, cosmology, and creation in the writings of Ibn Gabirol, Maimonides, Gersonides, Crescas, Spinoza, and others.
Download or read book The Codex Judas Papers written by April D. DeConick and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2009-12-14 with total page 672 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book contains the proceedings from the Codex Judas Congress, the first international conference held to discuss the newly-restored Tchacos Codex. Given that the Tchacos Codex is a newly-conserved ancient book of Christian manuscripts which had yet to be discussed collaboratively by a body of scholars, the research conducted and published within this book by the members of the Codex Judas Congress is nothing less than a landmark in Gnostic studies. Scholars address issues of identity and community, portraits of Judas, astrological lore, salvation and praxis, text and intertext, and manuscript matters. Although the contributions show a variety of interpretations of the Tchacos texts, several points of agreement emerge, including the assessment that the Codex belonged to early Christians in conflict with other Christians who belonged to the apostolic or conventional church. Contributors include: Grant Adamson, Johanna Brankaer, Fernando Bermejo Rubio, Serge Cazelais, April D. DeConick, Ismo Dunderberg, Niclas Förster, Wolf-Peter Funk, Simon Gathercole, Matteo Grosso, Lance Jenott, Karen King, Nicola Denzey Lewis, Alastair Logan, Antti Marjanen, Marvin Meyer, Elaine Pagels, Birger A. Pearson, Pierluigi Piovanelli, James M. Robinson, Gesine Schenke Robinson, Kevin Sullivan, Franklin Trammel, Johannes van Oort, Bas van Os, Louis Painchaud, Tage Petersen, John D. Turner, and Gregor Wurst.
