Fresh translations of early Jewish texts 4 Ezra and 2 Baruch, written in the decades after the Judean War, which saw Jerusalem conquered, the temple destroyed, and Judaism changed forever. This handy volume makes these two important texts accessible to students, provides expert introductions, and illuminates the interrelationship of the texts through parallel columns.

In The Origins of the Canon of the Hebrew Bible: An Analysis of Josephus and 4 Ezra, Juan Carlos Ossandón Widow examines the thorny question of when, how, and why the collection of twenty-four books that today is known as the Hebrew Bible was formed. He carefully studies the two earliest testimonies in this regard—Josephus’ Against Apion and 4 Ezra—and proposes that, along with the tendency to idealize the past, which leads to consider that divine revelation to Israel has ceased, an important reason to specify a collection of Scriptures at the end of the first century CE consisted in the need to defend the received tradition to counter those that accepted more books.

This work stands among the most important publications in biblical studies over the past twenty-five years. Richard Bauckham, James Davila, and Alexander Panayotov’s new two-volume collection of Old Testament pseudepigrapha contains many previously unpublished and newly translated texts, complementing James Charlesworth’s Old Testament Pseudepigrapha and other earlier collections. Including virtually all known surviving pseudepigrapha written before the rise of Islam, this volume, among other things, presents the sacred legends and spiritual reflections of numerous long-dead authors whose works were lost, neglected, or suppressed for many centuries. Excellent English translations along with authoritative yet accessible introductions bring those ancient documents to life for readers today.

The Besora'oth is a collection of the Four Gospels of the Brit Chadasha (New Testament) set forth in a PaRDeS format, with Hebraic terms inter-lineated for key concepts. There are also direct Hebrew quotes in both the Hebrew language and transliterated Hebrew for the English reader. These portions include the prayer, called the "our Father," the statements made at the Last Supper, the statement at the cross, the quotation of Yesha'yahu (Isaiah) 61, plus others. One of the most important features is the inclusion of the fragments from the Gospel according to the Hebrews (Eusibeus/Jerome). This book is an indispensable resource for those who preach the Gospels and seek understanding from a Hebraic point of view.

One of the most widely praised studies of Jewish apocalyptic literature ever written, The Apocalyptic Imagination by John J. Collins has served for over thirty years as a helpful, relevant, comprehensive survey of the apocalyptic literary genre. After an initial overview of things apocalyptic, Collins proceeds to deal with individual apocalyptic texts — the early Enoch literature, the book of Daniel, the Dead Sea Scrolls, and others — concluding with an examination of apocalypticism in early Christianity. Collins has updated this third edition throughout to account for the recent profusion of studies germane to ancient Jewish apocalypticism, and he has also substantially revised and updated the bibliography.

The two Jewish works that are the subject of this volume, 4 Ezra and 2 Baruch, were written around the turn of the first century CE in the aftermath of the Roman destruction of the Second Temple. Both texts are apocalypses, and both occupy an important place in early Jewish literature and thought: they were composed right after the Second Temple period, as Rabbinic Judaism and early Christianity began to emerge. The twenty essays in this volume were first presented and discussed at the Sixth Enoch Seminar at the Villa Cagnola at Gazzada, near Milan, Italy, on June 26-30, 2011. Together they reflect the lively debate about 4 Ezra and 2 Baruch among the most distinguished specialists in the field. The Contributors are: Gabriele Boccaccini; Daniel Boyarin; John J. Collins; Devorah Dimant; Lutz Doering; Lorenzo DiTommaso; Steven Fraade; Lester L. Grabbe; Matthias Henze; Karina M. Hoogan; Liv Ingeborg Lied; Hindy Najman; George W.E. Nickelsburg; Eugen Pentiuc; Pierluigi Piovanelli; Benjamin Reynolds; Loren Stuckenbruck; Balázs Tamási; Alexander Toepel; Adela Yarbro Collins

"An emerging field of study that explores the Hispanic minority in the United States, Latino Studies is enriched by an interdisciplinary perspective. Historians, sociologists, anthropologists, political scientists, demographers, linguists, as well as religion, ethnicity, and culture scholars, among others, bring a varied, multifaceted approach to the understanding of a people whose roots are all over the Americas and whose permanent home is north of the Rio Grande. Oxford Bibliographies in Latino Studies offers an authoritative, trustworthy, and up-to-date intellectual map to this ever-changing discipline."--Editorial page.