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This book describes how medieval Jewish Bible scholars sought to answer the question of what is meant by the Angel’s message from God to Abraham: ‘Now I Know’, as written in Genesis 22 verse 12. It examines these scholars’ comments on the nineteen verses in Genesis that tell the story of Abraham’s readiness to sacrifice his own son Isaac, the Aqedat Yiṣḥaq. It explores the answers they found to the question of what, indeed, this story is trying to tell us. Is it a drastic way to condemn the practice of child sacrifice? Does it call for replacing human sacrifices with animal sacrifices? Is it a trial by which the Almighty tests the fidelity of one of His followers? Or is it His way to show the world the nature of true belief? The book starts with an introduction to familiarize readers with the many and varied manifestations of the Aqedah theme in Jewish culture and with the developments of medieval Jewish Bible exegesis in general. Next, it offers translations and analyses of the classical medieval Jewish Bible commentaries that deal with the exegesis of Genesis 22, exploring the many angles from which the Aqedah story has been understood. No less than five centuries of medieval Aqedah exegesis are reviewed, from Saadya (882-942) to Isaac Abrabanel (1437-1508). These texts from the commentaries are combined with hermeneutical key passages by Moses Maimonides, Joseph Ibn Kaspi, Ḥasdai Crescas, and others, which were familiar to the minds of the exegetes, or which, conversely, reflect the impact of biblical Aqedah exegesis on religious thought. Together, the passages discussed illustrate the growth and development of Jewish Bible exegesis in dialogue with the rabbinic sources and with the various trends of thought and theology of their times. The consistent focus on the Aqedah constitutes a unifying theme, while the insights presented here greatly advance our understanding of the various developments in medieval Jewish Bible exegesis.
It is traditional to think we should praise Abraham for his willingness to sacrifice his son as proof of his love for God. But have we misread the point of the story? Is it possible that a careful reading of Genesis 22 could reveal that God was not pleased with Abraham's silent obedience? Widely respected biblical theologian, creative thinker, and public speaker J. Richard Middleton suggests we have misread and misapplied the story of the binding of Isaac and shows that God desires something other than silent obedience in difficult times. Middleton focuses on the ethical and theological problem of Abraham's silence and explores the rich biblical tradition of vigorous prayer, including the lament psalms, as a resource for faith. Middleton also examines the book of Job in terms of God validating Job's lament as "right speech," showing how the vocal Job provides an alternative to the silent Abraham. This book provides a fresh interpretation of Genesis 22 and reinforces the church's resurgent interest in lament as an appropriate response to God.
Much post-Holocaust Jewish thought published in North America has assumed that the Holocaust shattered traditional religious categories that had been used by Jews to account for historical catastrophes. But most traditional Jewish thinkers during the war saw no such overwhelming of tradition in the death and suffering delivered to Jews by Nazis. Through a comparative reading of postwar North American and wartime Orthodox Jewish texts about the Holocaust, Barbara Krawcowicz shows that these sources differ in the paradigms—modern and historicist for North American thinkers, traditional and covenantal for Orthodox thinkers—in which they emplot historical events.
The idea of brotherhood has been an important philosophical concept for understanding community, equality, and justice. In Gendering Modern Jewish Thought, Andrea Dara Cooper offers a gendered reading that challenges the key figures of the all-male fraternity of twentieth-century Jewish philosophy to open up to the feminine. Cooper offers a feminist lens, which when applied to thinkers such as Franz Rosenzweig and Emmanuel Levinas, reveals new ways of illuminating questions of relational ethics, embodiment, politics, and positionality. She shows that patriarchal kinship as models of erotic love, brotherhood, and paternity are not accidental in Jewish philosophy, but serve as norms that have excluded women and non-normative individuals. Gendering Modern Jewish Thought suggests these fraternal models do real damage and must be brought to account in more broadly humanistic frameworks. For Cooper, a more responsible and ethical reading of Jewish philosophy comes forward when it is opened to the voices of mothers, sisters, and daughters.
Moses Maimonides (1138–1204) was arguably the single most important Jewish thinker of the Middle Ages, with an impact on the later Jewish tradition that was unparalleled by any of his contemporaries. In this volume of new essays, world-leading scholars address themes relevant to his philosophical outlook, including his relationship with his Islamicate surroundings and the impact of his work on subsequent Jewish and Christian writings, as well as his reception in twentieth-century scholarship. The essays also address the nature and aim of Maimonides' philosophical writing, including its connection with biblical exegesis, and the philosophical and theological arguments that are central to his work, such as revelation, ritual, divine providence, and teleology. Wide-ranging and fully up-to-date, the volume will be highly valuable for those interested in Jewish history and thought, medieval philosophy, and religious studies.
Ancient Literature for New Testament Studies is a multivolume series that seeks to introduce key ancient texts that form the cultural, historical, and literary context for the study of the New Testament. Each volume will feature introductory essays to the corpus, followed by articles on the relevant texts. Each article will address introductory matters, provenance, summary of content, interpretive issues, key passages for New Testament studies and their significance. Neither too technical to be used by students nor too thin on interpretive information to be useful for serious study of the New Testament, this series provides a much-needed resource for understanding the New Testament in its first-century Jewish and Greco-Roman context. Produced by an international team of leading experts in each corpus, Ancient Literature for New Testament Studies stands to become the standard resource for both scholars and students. Volumes include: Apocrypha and the Septuagint Old Testament Pseudepigrapha The Dead Sea Scrolls The Apostolic Fathers Philo and Josephus Greco-Roman Literature Targums and Early Rabbinic Literature Gnostic Literature New Testament Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha
2007 marked the 60th anniversary of the discovery of the first Dead Sea Scrolls. The 11th International Orion Symposium (January, 2007), “New Approaches to the Study of Biblical Interpretation in the Second Temple Period and in Early Christianity,” provided a measure of the ways in which the discovery of the scrolls has altered the paradigms for textual and historical studies in the intervening six decades. The papers in this volume address such issues as the connections and distinctions between Jewish interpretation within the Land of Israel and outside of it; between Jewish and Christian exegesis in earlier and later periods; between biblical interpretation in literature and in art; between interpretation and the formation of the biblical canon.
Series: Jewish and Christian Heritage Series, 2 Early Jewish Exegesis and Theological Controversy is an important collection of essays on aspects of Hebrew Bible/Old Testament theology, the reception of biblical texts in Judaism and Christianity; the Aqedah, and related topics. The book comprises three main parts: a) the Aqedah and the Temple, b) Biblical Texts in Polemical Contexts, and c) Biblical Theology, Judaism and Christianity. Although each part deals with a specifically defined topic, all are linked by some common themes: all the sections discuss early Jewish exegesis, namely the early scriptures’ interpretation in late Biblical literature, in the Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha, in Jewish-Hellenistic writings, the Dead Sea Scrolls, and a variety of Rabbinic sources, essentially the Targumim and midrashim. Each chapter of the book covers theological controversies, either among the Jewish groups themselves, and/or between Judaism and other religious denominations, especially Christianity. “By now Isaac Kalimi is recognized the world over as one of the last of the vanishing breed of biblical historians and as one of a handful of experts in the biblical books of Chronicles. Kalimi demonstrates in the first five chapters of Early Jewish Exegesis and Theological Controversy that he is also fully grounded in Second Temple literature and qualified to discuss the exegesis of Hebrew Scripture reflected in rabbinic literature, Samaritan lore, the New Testament, and the Nag Hammadi library. The message conveyed by prefacing five important studies on ancient exegesis—Jewish, Christian, and Samaritan—to his two essays on biblical theology at the dawn of the twenty-first century is that Kalimi’s mastery of all relevant dialects of Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek and his unquestioned competence as a historian of both events and ideas qualifies him to offer some very original and timely advice to the world community of biblical scholars concerning biblical theology.” – Mayer I. Gruber, In: Review of Biblical Literature (2004). “This book belongs on the shelves of every serious Judaica library; it also addresses a general readership, and it is of interest to undergraduate as well as graduate students... [it states] the important engagement and willingness of the author to approach the virtual minefield of discussion about biblical history and exegesis.” – Rivka Ulmer, In: Review of Rabbinic Judaism 7 (2004). “As is necessary in interdisciplinary studies, Isaac Kalimi emerges as a jack of many trades in this book: rabbinic, Samaritan studies, patristics and theology. He has also demonstrated that he is a master in biblical studies... Kalimi’s book is a necessary, timely and much appreciated offering. It serves as a model of mutual scholarly benefit for Jewish and Christian scholars engaged in the literature of their formative periods.” — T. Meacham, In: Biblical Interpretation in Judaism and Christianity (2006). “Kalimi’s argumentation is thorough, wide-ranging, and impressionistic. His technique is to collect evidence from a variety of sources, to construct a history, and then to propose a single circumstantial explanation... There is much to discuss in these essays. Kalimi is an energetic, thoughtful, and challenging scholar...a fine collection by a scholar who represents one of the most interesting traditions in Israeli biblical scholarship.” – Francis Landy, In: Journal of Hebrew Scriptures 4 (2002-2003).
In this Festschrift, James Kugel's creative scholarship in biblical interpretation provides the inspiration for a wide-ranging collection of essays that treat the history of Jewish and Christian scriptural interpretation from antiquity to the present
The story of the Binding of Isaac (Aqedah) has long attracted the attention of scholars. Jewish, Christian, and Muslim thinkers still search for the most significant interpretations in order to strengthen their unique theological perceptions of the tale. Christian scholars have often focused on parallels between the binding of Isaac and the crucifixion of Jesus. However, little serious research has been undertaken to examine the story of the binding as it appears in Jewish and Islamic traditions, and see whether the parallel components could be found in the binding of Isaac vis a vis the binding of Ishmael. The Koranic story does not mention a name for the one who is bound, and Muslim scholars until the 12th century disputed the missing name, some suggesting that it was Isaac, others arguing that it was Ishmael.