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10 results

Paul and Judaism at the End of History
  • Matthew V. Novenson
  • Published online:
    23 October 2024
    Print publication:
    10 October 2024
  • The apostle Paul was a Jew. He was born, lived, undertook his apostolic work, and died within the milieu of ancient Judaism. And yet, many readers have found, and continue to find, Paul's thought so radical, so Christian, even so anti-Jewish – despite the fact that it, too, is Jewish through and through. This paradox, and the question how we are to explain it, are the foci of Matthew Novenson's groundbreaking book. The solution, says the author, lies in Paul's particular understanding of time. This too is altogether Jewish, with the twist that Paul sees the end of history as present, not future. In the wake of Christ's resurrection, Jews are perfected in righteousness and – like the angels – enabled to live forever, in fulfilment of God's ancient promises to the patriarchs. What is more, gentiles are included in the same pneumatic existence promised to the Jews. This peculiar combination of ethnicity and eschatology yields something that looks not quite like Judaism or Christianity as we are used to thinking of them.

  • Chapter 2 - Mishkan Tefila

  • from Part I - Bernstein’s World
  • Edited by Elizabeth A. Wells, Mount Allison University, Canada
  • Book:
    Leonard Bernstein in Context
    Published online:
    06 April 2024
    Print publication:
    28 March 2024, pp 11-17

  • Summary

    Although Leonard Bernstein wrote music in a variety of genres and styles, he was unusual in that he consistently created music infused with a Jewish flavour, whether consciously or not, throughout his career. Bernstein’s Jewish background has provided ample fodder for numerous articles and books, but most scholars are unaware of the true significance of his childhood synagogue in Boston, Congregation Mishkan Tefila. Its rabbi, Herman Rubenovitz (1883−1966), the cantor, Iszo Glickstein (1891−1947), and especially its music director, Solomon Braslavsky (1887−1975), made a lifelong impression on Bernstein. Mishkan Tefila served as the venue for some of Bernstein’s earliest piano performances, and he heard an organ and a choir here for the first time; it continued to serve as a Jewish anchor for him even as an adult. In the absence of early formal musical training, the synagogue became, in effect, Bernstein’s conservatory, and these three men his professors.

Jews, Christians, and the Discourse on Images before Iconoclasm
  • Alexei M. Sivertsev
  • Published online:
    01 February 2024
    Print publication:
    08 February 2024
  • Between the sixth and eighth centuries CE, the image emerged as a rhetorical category in religious literature produced in the Mediterranean basin. The development was not a uniquely Christian phenomenon. Rather, it emerged in the context of broader debates about symbolic forms that took place across a wide range of ethnic, linguistic, and religious groups who inhabited the late Roman and early Byzantine world. In this book, Alexei Sivertsev demonstrates how Jewish texts serve as an important, and until recently overlooked, witness to the formation of image discourse and associated practices of image veneration in late antiquity and the early Middle Ages. Addressing the role of the image as a rhetorical device in Jewish liturgical poetry, Sivertsev also considers the theme of the engraved image of Jacob in its early Byzantine context and the aesthetics of spaces that bridge the gap between the material and the immaterial in early Byzantine imagination.

Multilingualism and Translation in Ancient Judaism
  • Before and After Babel
  • Steven D. Fraade
  • Published online:
    01 August 2023
    Print publication:
    21 September 2023
  • In this book, Steven Fraade explores the practice and conception of multilingualism and translation in ancient Judaism. Interrogating the deep and dialectical relationship between them, he situates representative scriptural and other texts within their broader synchronic - Greco-Roman context, as well as diachronic context - the history of Judaism and beyond. Neither systematic nor comprehensive, his selection of Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek primary sources, here fluently translated into clear English, best illustrate the fundamental issues and the performative aspects relating to translation and multilingualism. Fraade scrutinizes and analyzes the texts to reveal the inner dynamics and the pedagogical-social implications that are implicit when multilingualism and translation are paired. His book demonstrates the need for a more thorough and integrated treatment of these topics, and their relevance to the study of ancient Judaism, than has been heretofore recognized.

  • What Does It Mean to Read New Testament Texts ‘within Judaism’?

  • Anders Runesson
  • Journal:
    New Testament Studies / Volume 69 / Issue 3 / July 2023
    Published online by Cambridge University Press:
    18 August 2023, pp. 299-312
    Print publication:
    July 2023
    • Article
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  • For centuries, Christians have understood some of the texts included in the New Testament as ‘Jewish,’ in the sense of them being written by (converted) Jews for other Jews. From a historical perspective, a new development in the academy suggests that such approaches do not do justice to the nature of these texts. Indeed, even more recent attempts at understanding the New Testament against the background of Judaism are also found wanting. Instead, placing these texts within the broader context of the diverse ways of embodying Jewish ancestral customs in the pre-rabbinic Second Temple period, this interpretive trajectory, involving scholars from a wide array of backgrounds, insists that Paul, Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, Revelation etc., should be understood as expressions of Judaism. This article highlights key issues involved in such re-readings of New Testament texts, including ways in which they may or may not relate to normative-theological positions among Christians and Jews today. First, the study looks at how the question is asked in our contemporary setting. Then, moving down historical layers, issues related to history and categorisation are addressed before we, finally, return to the present to consider possible implications of our findings.

  • 13 - Local Identities of Synagogue Communities in the Roman Empire

  • from Part III - Ethnicity and Identity in the Roman Empire
  • Edited by Jonathan J. Price, Tel-Aviv University, Margalit Finkelberg, Tel-Aviv University, Yuval Shahar, Tel-Aviv University
  • Book:
    Rome: An Empire of Many Nations
    Published online:
    14 April 2022
    Print publication:
    21 April 2022, pp 223-238
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  • Summary

    This chapter explores the question, using primarily epigraphic evidence, whether individual, localized Jewish communities, without any obvious connection to each other across the ethnically, linguistically and religiously diverse Roman Empire, can be said to have had, or displayed, a “micro-identity” in addition to their non-local ethnic one, or whether this feature, if not entirely absent in some cases, was indeed overshadowed by their shared history and ethnic origins. The answer offered: in some cases, maybe.

  • 13 - Local Identities of Synagogue Communities in the Roman Empire

  • from Part III - Ethnicity and Identity in the Roman Empire
  • Edited by Jonathan J. Price, Tel-Aviv University, Margalit Finkelberg, Tel-Aviv University, Yuval Shahar, Tel-Aviv University
  • Book:
    Rome: An Empire of Many Nations
    Published online:
    04 August 2021
    Print publication:
    23 September 2021, pp 223-238

  • Summary

    This chapter explores the question, using primarily epigraphic evidence, whether individual, localized Jewish communities, without any obvious connection to each other across the ethnically, linguistically and religiously diverse Roman Empire, can be said to have had, or displayed, a “micro-identity” in addition to their non-local ethnic one, or whether this feature, if not entirely absent in some cases, was indeed overshadowed by their shared history and ethnic origins. The answer offered: in some cases, maybe.

  • 24 - Women in Jewish life and law

  • Edited by Steven T. Katz, Boston University
  • Book:
    The Cambridge History of Judaism
    Published online:
    28 March 2008
    Print publication:
    22 June 2006, pp 627-646

  • Summary

    The Dead Sea documents are a major source of information regarding Jewish women's legal position. They include two archives that belonged to women, the Babatha archive and that of Salome Komaise, as well as numerous other documents that belonged to Jewish women. Scholars have attempted to harmonize the legal injunctions of the Dead Sea documents with rabbinic rulings found in the Mishnah. The idea that a woman's place is in the home is clearly espoused in rabbinic literature. A major duty envisioned by the Rabbis for the woman at home was the raising of children, particularly when they were very young and dependent on her for sustenance. The rabbinic imagination envisioned the working woman primarily at her spindle or loom. Much of the evidence for the ancient synagogue derives from epigraphic documents from Palestine and the Diaspora and indicates that women were significant donors in the financing of the construction of synagogues.

  • 22 - Rabbinic prayer in late antiquity

    • By Reuven Kimelman, Department of Near Eastern and Judaic Studies, Brandeis University, Boston
  • Edited by Steven T. Katz, Boston University
  • Book:
    The Cambridge History of Judaism
    Published online:
    28 March 2008
    Print publication:
    22 June 2006, pp 573-611

  • Summary

    Worship of God in the rabbinic period differs from that of the biblical period in its conceptualization of the synagogue and prayer. Practically, this shift is most noticeable in the role of the synagogue, the content and the modalities of the rabbinic liturgy, the role of the precentor, and that of the priests. Priests got priority in the public reading of the Torah as well as in leading congregational prayer. The single most important innovation of rabbinic liturgy is the focus on divine sovereignty. This is based on conceiving of the relationship to God primarily through the acceptance of divine sovereignty. Rabbinic prayer promoted the idea that the primary way of relating to God was through the acceptance of divine sovereignty, and thus the primary metaphor for the God of Israel is King of the world. This sovereignization of the liturgy was consonant with the emerging theological thinking of the late Roman Empire.

  • 27 - The late midrashic, paytanic, and targumic literature

    • By Avigdor Shinan, Department of Hebrew Literature, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem
  • Edited by Steven T. Katz, Boston University
  • Book:
    The Cambridge History of Judaism
    Published online:
    28 March 2008
    Print publication:
    22 June 2006, pp 678-698

  • Summary

    This chapter describes an important segment of the spiritual-literary activity of the Sages in the Land of Israel in the period beginning with the completion of the Mishnah in c. 200 CE and ending with the conquest of the Middle East by the Muslims. The question of where the aggadic literature, the targum and the piyyut, were created involves geographical and social-institutional issues. Two principal institutions, the synagogue and the house of study, influenced the Sitz im Leben of the aggadic, targumic, and poetic creativity in the Land of Israel. In the synagogue, Jews gathered in order to study Scripture, to pray, and to listen to sermons. The piyyut and the targum were created and flourished first of all in the synagogue, while aggadah existed both there and in the house of study. The great freedom exhibited by the Rabbis in their midrashic activity produced countless aggadic traditions resembling a giant upside-down pyramid with a small apex, the Bible.