Many books of the Hebrew Bible were either composed in some form or edited during the Exilic and post-Exilic periods among a community that was to identify itself as returning from Babylonian captivity. At the same time, a dearth of contemporary written evidence from Judah/Yehud and its environs renders any particular understanding of the process within its social, cultural and political context virtually impossible. This has led some to label the period a dark age or black box – as obscure as it is essential for understanding the history of Judaism. In recent years, however, archaeologists and historians have stepped up their effort to look for and study material remains from the period and integrate the local history of Yehud, the return from Exile, and the restoration of Jerusalem’s temple more firmly within the regional, and indeed global, developments of the time. At the same time, Assyriologists have also been introducing a wide range of cuneiform material that illuminates the economy, literary traditions, practices of literacy and the ideologies of the Babylonian host society – factors that affected those taken into Exile in variable, changing and multiple ways. This volume of essays seeks to exploit these various advances.

This innovative study of the modern Hebrew writer, S. Y. Agnon, offers new insight into his literary transformations of Jewish themes and sources. With particular attention to Kafka, Hoffman situates Agnon in the context of twentieth-century literature and examines such central issues in Agnon’s art as the relationship of the literary text to traditions of sacred writings, the place of the book in culture, and the relationship of writing to the body.

"Originally published in Great Britain by Persephone Books"--Title page verso.

Walk from creation to eternity in a way guaranteed to change your view of the world. You'll finally understand the war Satan is waging against God and how that conflict has affected history, including the persecution of Jewish people and Christians.

The Israeli, Palestinian, and American contributors to this volume consider the catastrophic failure of the Oslo peace process and the years of bloody violence that ensued.

This is the first comparative study of literature written by writers who fled from East-Central Europe during the twentieth century. It includes not only interpretations of individual lives and literary works, but also studies of the most important literary journals, publishers, radio programs, and other aspects of exile literary cultures. The theoretical part of introduction distinguishes between exiles, émigrés, and expatriates, while the historical part surveys the pre-twentieth-century exile traditions and provides an overview of the exilic events between 1919 and 1995; one section is devoted to exile cultures in Paris, London, and New York, as well as in Moscow, Madrid, Toronto, Buenos Aires and other cities. The studies focus on the factional divisions within each national exile culture and on the relationship between the various exiled national cultures among each other. They also investigate the relation of each exile national culture to the culture of its host country. Individual essays are devoted to Witold Gombrowicz, Paul Goma, Milan Kundera, Monica Lovincescu, Milos Crnjanski, Herta Müller, and to the "internal exile" of Imre Kertész. Special attention is devoted to the new forms of exile that emerged during the ex-Yugoslav wars, and to the problems of "homecoming" of exiled texts and writers.

In this study, Tobit, Judith, Esther, Ezra, Nehemiah, and 1 and 2 Maccabees tell us about the ways in which god worked in the lives of the Jewish people as they returned from their exile in Babylon. About the Series: Especially designed for families to do together, "Come and See" Catholic Bible Study series presents the rich heritage of the Catholic Faith in clear and simple language. With its practical direction for leaders, easy-to-use workbook format, and appealing design, this Bible study series is ideal for use in the classroom, home study, or parish catechesis.