Most studies of how early Judaism related to the non-Jewish world and how it was perceived by others start no earlier than the Hellenistic period. Joseph Blenkinsopp argues that we must go further back, to the Babylonian destruction of Jerusalem and its temple and the liquidation of the political and religious infrastructure monarchy, priesthood, scribalism, prophecy which had sustained the Judean state for centuries. / Moving beyond the ideologically driven approaches of scholars over the past two centuries, he explores such pragmatic issues as the emergence of a distinctive group identity in the aftermath of the fall of the Judean state, the degree of continuity-discontinuity between national identity before the exile and competition among distinct group for legitimacy after it, and the historical realities behind the idea of a restoration in a fundamentally different world, with neither monarchy nor statehood and a much-diminished temple. / Judaism, the First Phase is a fresh and potentially stunning look at Jewish origins, tracing the legacy of Ezra and Nehemiah. Ideal for scholars and students.

A comprehensive and readable introduction to the Judaism of the Second Temple period.

How are martyrs made, and how do the memories of martyrs express, nourish, and mold the ideals of the community? Sanctifying the Name of God wrestles with these questions against the background of the massacres of Jews in the Rhineland during the outbreak of the First Crusade. Marking the first extensive wave of anti-Jewish violence in medieval Christian Europe, these "Persecutions of 1096" exerted a profound influence on the course of European Jewish history. When the crusaders demanded that Jews choose between Christianity and death, many opted for baptism. Many others, however, chose to die as Jews rather than to live as Christians, and of these, many actually inflicted death upon themselves and their loved ones. Stories of their self-sacrifice ushered the Jewish ideal of martyrdom—kiddush ha-Shem, the sanctification of God's holy name—into a new phase, conditioning the collective memory and mindset of Ashkenazic Jewry for centuries to come, during the Holocaust, and even today. The Jewish survivors of 1096 memorialized the victims as martyrs as they rebuilt their communities during the decades following the Crusade. Three twelfth-century Hebrew chronicles of the persecutions preserve their memories of martyrdom and self-sacrifice, tales fraught with symbolic meaning that constitute one of the earliest Jewish attempts at local, contemporary historiography. Reading and analyzing these stories through the prism of Jewish and Christian religious and literary traditions, Jeremy Cohen shows how these persecution chronicles reveal much more about the storytellers, the martyrologists, than about the martyrs themselves. While they extol the glorious heroism of the martyrs, they also air the doubts, guilt, and conflicts of those who, by submitting temporarily to the Christian crusaders, survived.

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.

"Judaism is one of the oldest religions in the world, and it has preserved its distinctive identity despite the extraordinarily diverse forms and beliefs it has embodied over the course of more than three millennia. A History of Judaism provides the first truly comprehensive look in one volume at how this great religion came to be, how it has evolved from one age to the next, and how its various strains, sects, and traditions have related to each other. In this magisterial and elegantly written book, Martin Goodman takes readers from Judaism's origins in the polytheistic world of the second and first millennia BCE to the temple cult at the time of Jesus. He tells the stories of the rabbis, mystics, and messiahs of the medieval and early modern periods and guides us through the many varieties of Judaism today. Goodman's compelling narrative spans the globe, from the Middle East, Europe, and America to North Africa, China, and India. He explains the institutions and ideas on which all forms of Judaism are based, and masterfully weaves together the different threads of doctrinal and philosophical debate that run throughout its history."--

This completely revised and updated classic resource serves as an introduction to the Jewish life cycle. The first part of the book uses a question and answer format to introduce ideas about moments in the Jewish life cycle, including birth, Jewish education, bar/bat mitzvah, the Jewish home, marriage, divorce, conversion, death, and mourning. With new essays on topics such as mitzvah, infertility, the ketubah, b'rit milah, welcoming converts, tzedakah, Jewish voices on sexuality, and more, by rabbis and scholars such as Rabbis Aaron Panken, Rachel Mikva, Amy Schienerman, A. Brian Stoller, Lisa Grushcow, Mary Zamore, and Elyse Goldstein. This is the essential resource you've been waiting for!

In der Reihe Beihefte zur Zeitschrift für die alttestamentliche Wissenschaft (BZAW) erscheinen Arbeiten zu sämtlichen Gebieten der alttestamentlichen Wissenschaft. Im Zentrum steht die Hebräische Bibel, ihr Vor- und Nachleben im antiken Judentum sowie ihre vielfache Verzweigung in die benachbarten Kulturen der altorientalischen und hellenistisch-römischen Welt. Die BZAW akzeptiert Manuskriptvorschläge, die einen innovativen und signifikanten Beitrag zu Erforschung des Alten Testaments und seiner Umwelt leisten, sich intensiv mit der bestehenden Forschungsliteratur auseinandersetzen, stringent aufgebaut und flüssig geschrieben sind.