Download or read book Visual Aspects of Scribal Culture in Ashkenaz written by Ingrid M. Kaufmann and published by Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG. This book was released on 2019-09-02 with total page 296 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The medieval Ashkenazi manuscripts of the Small Book of Commandments (Sefer Mitzvot Katan, or ‘SeMaK’ for short), which was written by Isaac of Corbeil, attest a scribal culture in which rabbinical knowledge and piety were combined with creative freedom in manuscript design. This study is concerned with the creation, composition and circulation of manuscripts of the SeMaK and concentrates on the book as an artefact. The focus of the author’s attention is the manuscripts’ material nature, their artistic embellishment and the personal touches that scribes added to them. With the act of writing a text and decorating a SeMaK manuscript, they ‘appropriated’ the text, so to speak, giving it a character of its very own. They drew on a visual language in the process – or rather, on visual languages, which occupy a special place between pure writing culture and pure painting culture. It was in this area ‘in between’ the two that spontaneous touches arose, ranging from changes in the physical arrangement of the text (mise-en-page) to drawings and doodles added in the margins. An examination of paratextual elements broadens the reader’s knowledge about Jewish scribal culture and grants insights into medieval book art, material culture and Judeo-Christian co-existence in the Middle Ages as well as throwing some light on Jewish values, ideals and eschatological hopes.
Download or read book Jewish Manuscript Cultures written by Irina Wandrey and published by Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG. This book was released on 2017-12-18 with total page 494 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Hebrew manuscripts are considered to be invaluable documents and artefacts of Jewish culture and history. Research on Hebrew manuscript culture is progressing rapidly and therefore its topics, methods and questions need to be enunciated and reflected upon. The case studies assembled in this volume explore various fields of research on Hebrew manuscripts. They show paradigmatically the current developments concerning codicology and palaeography, book forms like the scroll and codex, scribes and their writing material, patrons, collectors and censors, manuscript and book collections, illuminations and fragments, and, last but not least, new methods of material analysis applied to manuscripts. The principal focus of this volume is the material and intellectual history of Hebrew book cultures from antiquity to the Middle Ages and Early Modern Period, its intention being to heighten and sharpen the reader’s understanding of Jewish social and cultural history in general.
Download or read book Becoming the People of the Talmud written by Talya Fishman and published by University of Pennsylvania Press. This book was released on 2012-01-31 with total page 424 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Becoming the People of the Talmud, Talya Fishman examines ways in which circumstances of transmission have shaped the cultural meaning of Jewish traditions. Although the Talmud's preeminence in Jewish study and its determining role in Jewish practice are generally taken for granted, Fishman contends that these roles were not solidified until the late eleventh and early twelfth centuries. The inscription of Talmud—which Sefardi Jews understand to have occurred quite early, and Ashkenazi Jews only later—precipitated these developments. The encounter with Oral Torah as a written corpus was transformative for both subcultures, and it shaped the roles that Talmud came to play in Jewish life. What were the historical circumstances that led to the inscription of Oral Torah in medieval Europe? How did this body of ancient rabbinic traditions, replete with legal controversies and nonlegal material, come to be construed as a reference work and prescriptive guide to Jewish life? Connecting insights from geonica, medieval Jewish and Christian history, and orality-textuality studies, Becoming the People of the Talmud reconstructs the process of cultural transformation that occurred once medieval Jews encountered the Babylonian Talmud as a written text. According to Fishman, the ascription of greater authority to written text was accompanied by changes in reading habits, compositional predilections, classroom practices, approaches to adjudication, assessments of the past, and social hierarchies. She contends that certain medieval Jews were aware of these changes: some noted that books had replaced teachers; others protested the elevation of Talmud-centered erudition and casuistic virtuosity into standards of religious excellence, at the expense of spiritual refinement. The book concludes with a consideration of Rhineland Pietism's emergence in this context and suggests that two contemporaneous phenomena—the prominence of custom in medieval Ashkenazi culture and the novel Christian attack on Talmud—were indirectly linked to the new eminence of this written text in Jewish life.
Download or read book Sephardim and Ashkenazim written by Sina Rauschenbach and published by Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG. This book was released on 2020-11-09 with total page 282 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Sephardic and Ashkenazic Judaism have long been studied separately. Yet, scholars are becoming ever more aware of the need to merge them into a single field of Jewish Studies. This volume opens new perspectives and bridges traditional gaps. The authors are not simply contributing to their respective fields of Sephardic or Ashkenazic Studies. Rather, they all include both Sephardic and Ashkenazic perspectives as they reflect on different aspects of encounters and reconsider traditional narratives. Subjects range from medieval and early modern Sephardic and Ashkenazic constructions of identities, influences, and entanglements in the fields of religious art, halakhah, kabbalah, messianism, and charity to modern Ashkenazic Sephardism and Sephardic admiration for Ashkenazic culture. For reasons of coherency, the contributions all focus on European contexts between the fourteenth and the nineteenth centuries.
Download or read book The Medieval Haggadah written by Marc Michael Epstein and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 2011-06-07 with total page 338 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Discusses four illuminated haggadot, manuscripts created for use at home services on Passover, all created in the early twelfth century.
Download or read book Medieval Ashkenaz written by Christoph Cluse and published by Harrassowitz. This book was released on 2021-03-25 with total page 450 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Professor Alfred Haverkamp, founder of the Arye Maimon Institute for Jewish History at Trier University, has been a leading scholar and successful mentor for medieval historical research on Jews and Judaism in Central Europe (Ashkenaz) since the 1970s. This Festschrift joins together current multi-disciplinary perspectives on medieval Jewish life and Jewish-Christian relations, in studies based on archival and manuscript sources as well as medieval sculpture and artefacts. With contributions by Elisheva Baumgarten, Thilo Becker, Eveline Brugger, Nicolo Bucaria, Jorn R. Christophersen, Christoph Cluse and Carsten Ginsheimer, Johannes Deissler, Simcha Emanuel, Rachel Furst and Sophia Schmitt, Johannes Heil, Elisabeth Hollender, Ephraim Kanarfogel, Katrin Kogman-Appel, Andreas Lehnertz, Ivan G. Marcus, Gerd Mentgen, Rachel Zohn Mincer, Jorg R. Muller, Judith Olszowy-Schlanger, Lucia Raspe, Rene Richtscheid, Michael Schlachter, Merav Schnitzer Maimon, Christian Scholl, Sarit Shalev-Eyni, Ephraim Shoham-Steiner, Alessandra Veronese, Markus J. Wenninger, and Birgit Wiedl. Foreword by Israel J. Yuval.
Download or read book Sefer Tagin Fragments from the Cairo Genizah written by Marc Michaels and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2020-10-12 with total page 286 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Sefer Tagin Fragments from the Cairo Genizah, Marc Michaels recreates fragments from the scribal manual concerning decorative tagin and 'strange' letters found in some Sifrey Torah.
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 Thy Father s Instruction written by Naomi Feuchtwanger-Sarig and published by de Gruyter. This book was released on 2022 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Nuremberg Miscellany is a unique work of scribal art, rich with paint and powdered gold. It was penned and illustrated in southern Germany in 1589 by Eliezer b. Mordechai the Martyr. The book is a compilation of religious Hebrew texts, which was
Download or read book Hebrew Manuscripts written by Ilana Tahan and published by . This book was released on 2007 with total page 168 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Highlighting the vibrant interplay between work and image, Tahan traces the development of Sephardi and Ashkenazi scripts, as well as the increased use of images, such as micrographic motifs, created out of minute script. By close analysis of individual folios, Tahan shows how scribes emphasized sacred words and phrases, enhancing and adorning the script. Illustrates with over 145 colour examples - some shown here for the first time - Hewbrew Manuscripts will appeal to all art lovers."--BOOK JACKET.
Download or read book A Remembrance of His Wonders written by David I. Shyovitz and published by University of Pennsylvania Press. This book was released on 2017-06-13 with total page 352 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In A Remembrance of His Wonders, David I. Shyovitz uncovers the sophisticated ways in which medieval Ashkenazic Jews engaged with the workings and meaning of the natural world, and traces the porous boundaries between medieval science and mysticism, nature and the supernatural, and ultimately, Christians and Jews.
Download or read book Images written by and published by . This book was released on 2008 with total page 248 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Skies of Parchment Seas of Ink written by Marc Michael Epstein and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2022-10-11 with total page 288 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A superbly illustrated history of five centuries of Jewish manuscripts The love of books in the Jewish tradition extends back over many centuries, and the ways of interpreting those books are as myriad as the traditions themselves. Skies of Parchment, Seas of Ink offers the first full survey of Jewish illuminated manuscripts, ranging from their origins in the Middle Ages to the present day. Featuring some of the most beautiful examples of Jewish art of all time—including hand-illustrated versions of the Bible, the Haggadah, the prayer book, marriage documents, and other beloved Jewish texts—the book introduces readers to the history of these manuscripts and their interpretation. Edited by Marc Michael Epstein with contributions from leading experts, this sumptuous volume features a lively and informative text, showing how Jewish aesthetic tastes and iconography overlapped with and diverged from those of Christianity, Islam, and other traditions. Featured manuscripts were commissioned by Jews and produced by Jews and non-Jews over many centuries, and represent Eastern and Western perspectives and the views of both pietistic and liberal communities across the Diaspora, including Europe, Israel, the Middle East, and Africa. Magnificently illustrated with pages from hundreds of manuscripts, many previously unpublished or rarely seen, Skies of Parchment, Seas of Ink offers surprising new perspectives on Jewish life, presenting the books of the People of the Book as never before.
Download or read book Clothing Sacred Scriptures written by David Ganz and published by Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG. This book was released on 2018-12-03 with total page 322 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: According to a longstanding interpretation, book religions are agents of textuality and logocentrism. This volume inverts the traditional perspective: its focus is on the strong dependency between scripture and aesthetics, holy books and material artworks, sacred texts and ritual performances. The contributions, written by a group of international specialists in Western, Byzantine, Islamic and Jewish Art, are committed to a comparative and transcultural approach. The authors reflect upon the different strategies of »clothing« sacred texts with precious materials and elaborate forms. They show how the pretypographic cultures of the Middle Ages used book ornaments as media for building a close relation between the divine words and their human audience. By exploring how art shapes the religious practice of books, and how the religious use of books shapes the evolution of artistic practices this book contributes to a new understanding of the deep nexus between sacred scripture and art.
Download or read book The Greatest Mirror written by Andrei A. Orlov and published by State University of New York Press. This book was released on 2017-09-19 with total page 320 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The idea of a heavenly double—an angelic twin of an earthbound human—can be found in Christian, Manichaean, Islamic, and Kabbalistic traditions. Scholars have long traced the lineage of these ideas to Greco-Roman and Iranian sources. In The Greatest Mirror, Andrei A. Orlov shows that heavenly twin imagery drew in large part from early Jewish writings. The Jewish pseudepigrapha—books from the Second Temple period that were attributed to biblical figures but excluded from the Hebrew Bible—contain accounts of heavenly twins in the form of spirits, images, faces, children, mirrors, and angels of the Presence. Orlov provides a comprehensive analysis of these traditions in their full historical and interpretive complexity. He focuses on heavenly alter egos of Enoch, Moses, Jacob, Joseph, and Aseneth in often neglected books, including Animal Apocalypse, Book of the Watchers, 2 Enoch, Ladder of Jacob, and Joseph and Aseneth, some of which are preserved solely in the Slavonic language.
Download or read book Representing Jewish Thought written by Agata Paluch and published by IJS Studies in Judaica. This book was released on 2021 with total page 236 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Representing Jewish Thought originated in the conference, convened in honour of Professor Ada Rapoport-Albert, on the theme of visual representations of Jewish thought from antiquity to the early modern period. The volume encompasses essays on various modes and media of transmitting and re/presenting thought, pertinent to Jewish past and present. It explores several approaches to the study of the transmission of ideas in historical sources, zooming in on textual and visual hermeneutics to material and textual culture to performative arts. The volume has brought together scholars from different subfields of Jewish Studies, covering thousands of years of Jewish history, who invite further scholarly reflection on the expression, transmission, and organisation of knowledge in Jewish contexts"--
Download or read book The Metamorphosis of Marginal Images written by Nurith Kenaan-Kedar and published by . This book was released on 2001 with total page 264 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: