Coherent Judaism

Coherent Judaism PDF Author: Shai Cherry
Publisher: Academic Studies PRess
ISBN: 1644693429
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 710

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Book Description
Coherent Judaism begins by excavating the theologies within the Torah and tracing their careers through the Jewish Enlightenment of the eighteenth century. Any compelling, contemporary Judaism must cohere as much as possible with traditional Judaism and everything else we believe to be true about our world. The challenge is that over the past two centuries, our understandings of both the Torah and nature have radically changed. Nevertheless, much Jewish wisdom can be translated into a contemporary idiom that both coheres with all that we believe and enriches our lives as individuals and within our communities. Coherent Judaism explains why pre-modern Judaism opted to privilege consensus around Jewish behavior (halakhah) over belief. The stresses of modernity have conspired to reveal the incoherence of that traditional approach. In our post-Darwinian and post-Holocaust world, theology must be able to withstand the challenges of science and history. Traditional Jewish theologies have the resources to meet those challenges. Coherent Judaism concludes by presenting a philosophy of halakhah that is faithful to the covenantal aspiration to live long on the land that the Lord, our God, has given us.

Coherent Judaism

Coherent Judaism PDF Author: Shai Cherry
Publisher: Academic Studies PRess
ISBN: 1644693429
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 710

Get Book Here

Book Description
Coherent Judaism begins by excavating the theologies within the Torah and tracing their careers through the Jewish Enlightenment of the eighteenth century. Any compelling, contemporary Judaism must cohere as much as possible with traditional Judaism and everything else we believe to be true about our world. The challenge is that over the past two centuries, our understandings of both the Torah and nature have radically changed. Nevertheless, much Jewish wisdom can be translated into a contemporary idiom that both coheres with all that we believe and enriches our lives as individuals and within our communities. Coherent Judaism explains why pre-modern Judaism opted to privilege consensus around Jewish behavior (halakhah) over belief. The stresses of modernity have conspired to reveal the incoherence of that traditional approach. In our post-Darwinian and post-Holocaust world, theology must be able to withstand the challenges of science and history. Traditional Jewish theologies have the resources to meet those challenges. Coherent Judaism concludes by presenting a philosophy of halakhah that is faithful to the covenantal aspiration to live long on the land that the Lord, our God, has given us.

American Judaism

American Judaism PDF Author: Jonathan D. Sarna
Publisher: Yale University Press
ISBN: 0300190395
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 558

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Book Description
Jonathan D. Sarna's award-winning American Judaism is now available in an updated and revised edition that summarizes recent scholarship and takes into account important historical, cultural, and political developments in American Judaism over the past fifteen years. Praise for the first edition: "Sarna . . . has written the first systematic, comprehensive, and coherent history of Judaism in America; one so well executed, it is likely to set the standard for the next fifty years."--Jacob Neusner, Jerusalem Post "A masterful overview."--Jeffrey S. Gurock, American Historical Review "This book is destined to be the new classic of American Jewish history."--Norman H. Finkelstein, Jewish Book World Winner of the 2004 National Jewish Book Award/Jewish Book of the Year

The Modes of Thought of Rabbinic Judaism

The Modes of Thought of Rabbinic Judaism PDF Author: Jacob Neusner
Publisher: Global Academic Publishing
ISBN: 9781586840587
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 230

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Book Description


The Classics of Judaism

The Classics of Judaism PDF Author: Jacob Neusner
Publisher: Westminster John Knox Press
ISBN: 9780664254551
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 516

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Book Description
Neusner introduces the reader to selections from all the documents of the Torah and Scripture that define the canon of Judaism in its formative stage

A Covenant of Creatures

A Covenant of Creatures PDF Author: Michael Fagenblat
Publisher: Stanford University Press
ISBN: 0804774684
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 319

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Book Description
"I am not a particularly Jewish thinker," said Emmanuel Levinas, "I am just a thinker." This book argues against the idea, affirmed by Levinas himself, that Totality and Infinity and Otherwise Than Being separate philosophy from Judaism. By reading Levinas's philosophical works through the prism of Judaic texts and ideas, Michael Fagenblat argues that what Levinas called "ethics" is as much a hermeneutical product wrought from the Judaic heritage as a series of phenomenological observations. Decoding the Levinas's philosophy of Judaism within a Heideggerian and Pauline framework, Fagenblat uses biblical, rabbinic, and Maimonidean texts to provide sustained interpretations of the philosopher's work. Ultimately he calls for a reconsideration of the relation between tradition and philosophy, and of the meaning of faith after the death of epistemology.

Three Questions of Formative Judaism

Three Questions of Formative Judaism PDF Author: Jacob Neusner
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9004494197
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 286

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Book Description
The academic study of Judaism requires a systematic inquiry into the history, literature, and religion—and eventually the theology—as revealed in the historical documents themselves. Under this premise, Three Questions of Formative Judaism encounters the canonical writings of Judaism in the context of their creation at a certain time and place. How something is said thus becomes as important as what is said. Bringing nearly fifty years of research to bear on these fundamental questions, Jacob Neusner challenges his readers to face the difficult, often unasked or neglected questions about the nature, background, and purposes of Rabbinic Judaism and rewards them with an enriched understanding and a stronger foundation for tackling the even more elusive questions concerning the theology of formative Judaism. This publication has also been published in paperback, please click here for details.

The Hidden Heritage of Diaspora Judaism

The Hidden Heritage of Diaspora Judaism PDF Author: Leonard Victor Rutgers
Publisher: Peeters Publishers
ISBN: 9789042906662
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 324

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Book Description
A collection of essays published previously. Ch. 8 (pp. 171-197), "Roman Policy towards the Jews: Expulsions from the City of Rome during the First Century C.E.", first appeared in "Classical Antiquity" 13 (1994). The present version contains an appendix: "Review of Botermann's Judenedikt der Kaisers Claudius (1996)" (pp. 191-197).

Judaism's Theological Voice

Judaism's Theological Voice PDF Author: Jacob Neusner
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 9780226576480
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 256

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Book Description
Distinguished historian of Judaism Jacob Neusner here ventures for the first time into constructive theology. Taking the everyday life of contemporary Judaism as his beginning, Neusner asks when in the life of the living faith of the Torah does Israel, the holy community, meet God? Where does the meeting take place? What is the medium of the encounter? In his attempt to answer these questions, Neusner sets forth the character and the form of the Torah as sung theology. Israel, the holy community, meets God in the synagogue, while at prayer, and in the yeshiva, when studying the Torah—at the moment in each setting when the Torah is received. In both circumstances people do not read but sing out its words. With the written part of the Torah sung in the synagogue, and the oral part declaimed in centers of sacred learning, music provides the medium for Judaism's theological voice. Neusner identifies a reciprocal exchange between the holy community Israel and God: Israel sings to God when the Torah is studied, and God sings to Israel when the Torah is declaimed. Through the metaphor of music, Neusner offers an account of how he believes those faithful to the Torah meet God in the Torah, and how they should listen to the melody of God's self-revelation. The result is an original theological reflection that will interest all students of Judaism.

Torah Through Time

Torah Through Time PDF Author: Shai Cherry
Publisher: Jewish Publication Society
ISBN: 0827609760
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 208

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Book Description
"This book provides a highly readable, engaging introduction to Jewish biblical interpretation." - Jewish Book World "Cherry has analyzed the biblical commentary of some of the renowned Jewish scholars of the last 2,000 years. The result is a work of excellent scholarship and imagination." - Booklist ?Cherry shows how the Torah functions as literature that is fluid, compelling, and persistently generative of new meanings.? ? Christian Century Every commentator, from the classical rabbi to the modern-day scholar, has brought his or her own worldview, with all of its assumptions, to bear on the reading of holy text. This relationship between the text itself and the reader's interpretation is the subject of Torah Through Time. Shai Cherry traces the development of Jewish Bible commentary through three pivotal periods in Jewish history: the rabbinic, medieval, and modern periods. The result is a fascinating and accessible guide to how some of the world's leading Jewish commentators read the Bible. Torah Through Time focuses on specific narrative sections of the Torah: the creation of humanity, the rivalry between Cain and Abel, Korah's rebellion, the claim of the daughters of Zelophechad, and legal matters concerning Hebrew slavery. Cherry closely examines several different commentaries for each of these source texts, and in so doing he analyzes how each commentator resolves questions raised by the texts and asks if and how the commentator's own historical frame of reference -- his own time and place -- contributes to the resolution. A chart at the end of each chapter provides a visual summary that helps the reader understand the many different elements at play.

A Short History of Judaism

A Short History of Judaism PDF Author: Jacob Neusner
Publisher: Fortress Press
ISBN: 9781451410181
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 256

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Book Description
One of the world's experts on classical Jewish history and literature offers an authoritative interpretation of the three major periods of Jewish history from the time of the Bible up to the present. What emerges is a captivating account of the life-forming nature of a dynamic religion in vastly differing historical contexts. Glossary, maps, illustrations, photographs.