Moving away from focusing on wisdom as a literary genre, this book delves into the lived, embodied and formative dimensions of wisdom as they are delineated in Jewish sources from the Persian, Hellenistic and early Roman eras. Considering a diverse body of texts beyond later canonical boundaries, the book demonstrates that wisdom features not as an abstract quality, but as something to be performed and exercised at both the individual and community level. The analysis specifically concentrates on notions of a 'wise' person, including the rise of the sage as an exemplary figure. It also looks at how ancestral figures and contemporary teachers are imagined to manifest and practice wisdom, and considers communal portraits of a wise and virtuous life. In so doing, the author demonstrates that the previous focus on wisdom as a category of literature has overshadowed significant questions related to wisdom, behaviour and social life. Jewish wisdom is also contextualized in relation to its wider ancient Mediterranean milieu, making the book valuable for biblical scholars, classicists, scholars of religion and the ancient Near East and theologians.

Looks at the life and legacy of King Solomon, describing his temple, the nature of his wisdom, and his biblical writings.

When, if ever, should lying be permitted? If you've damaged a person's reputation unfairly, can the damage be undone? Is a person who sells weapons responsible for how those weapons are used? if the fetus is not a life, what is it? How, as an adult, can one carry out the command to honor one's parents when they make unreasonable demands? What are the nine biblical challenges a good person must meet? What do the great Jewish writings of the last 3,500 years tell us about these and all other vital questions about our lives? Rabbi Joseph Telushkin has devoted his life to the search for answers within the teachings of Judaism. In Jewish Wisdom, Rabbi Telushkin, the author of the highly acclaimed Jewish Literacy, weaves together a tapestry of stories from the Bible and Talmud, and the insights of Jewish commentators and writers from Maimonides, Rashi, and Hillel to Einstein, Isaac Bashevis Singer, and Elie Wiesel. A richer source of crucial life lessons would be hard to imagine. Accompanying this extraordinary compilation is Teluslikins compelling commentary, which reveals how these texts continue to instruct and challenge Jewsand all people concerned with leading ethical livestoday As he discusses these texts, Rabbi Telushkin addresses issues of fundamental interest to modern readers: how to live with honesty and integrity in an often dishonest world; how to care for the sick and dying; how to teach children to respect both themselves and others, how to understand and confront such great tragedies as antisemitism. and the Holocaust; what God wants from humankind. Within Jewish Wisdom's ninety chapters the reader will find extended sections illuminating Jewish perspectives on sex, romance, and marriage, what kind of belief in God a Jew can have after the Holocaust, how to use language ethically, the conflicting views of the Bible and Talmud on the death penalty, and much, much more. Jewish Wisdom adds a new dimension to the many widely read contemporary books that retell the stones and reveal the essence of classic religious and secular literature. Possibly the most far-ranging volume of stories and quotations from Jewish texts, Jewish Wisdom will itself become a classic, a book that not only has the capacity to transform how you view the world, but one that well might change how you choose to live your life.

This book moves beyond the debate on ‘wisdom literature’, ongoing in biblical studies, to demonstrate the productivity of ‘wisdom’ as a literary category. Featuring work by scholars of Egyptology, classics, biblical and Near Eastern studies, it offers fresh perspectives on what makes a text ‘wisdom’. This interdisciplinary volume widens the scope of the investigation into ‘wisdom literature’, chronologically, geographically, and methodologically. Readers are given insights into how the label ‘wisdom’ contributes to our understanding of diverse literary forms across time periods and cultural contexts. In the volume’s introduction, the editors consider ‘wisdom’ as a ‘discourse’, shifting the focus from the debate on whether ‘wisdom literature’ is a genre to the properties of the texts, namely exploring what makes a text ‘wisdom’. This offers a methodological backdrop against which the diverse approaches of the single authors productively coexist, showing how different methodologies can be integrated to reframe our conceptions of ancient literary genres. The chapters in this volume examine texts that are the products of different ancient cultures, with several of them bridging diverse cultural, social, and chronological contexts. By sampling how different methodologies interact both within individual interpretative efforts and in wider attempts to understand cross-cultural literary phenomena, this volume also contributes new perspectives to the scholarship on ancient literary genres. Wisdom Discourse in the Ancient World will interest both students and scholars of the ancient Near East, Egyptology, classical studies, biblical studies, and theology and religious studies, particularly those working on wisdom literature in antiquity. It will also appeal to readers with an interest in comparative approaches and genre studies more broadly.

This volume situates the Qumran Dead Sea Scrolls within Hellenistic Judea. By so doing, this volume shows how the Dead Sea Scrolls participate in broad, cross-cultural intellectual discourses that surpass the Jewish group that produced and collected these scrolls.

Over the first eight centuries CE, the religious cultures of Middle Eastern, Mediterranean and many European lands transformed. Worship of "the gods" largely gave way to the worship of YHWH, the God of Israel, under Christianity and Islam, both developments of contemporary Judaism, after Rome destroyed Judaism's central shrine, the Jerusalem Temple, in 70 CE. But concomitant changes occurred within contemporary Judaism. The events of 70 wiped away well-established Judaic institutions in the Land of Israel, and over time the authority of a cadre of new "masters" of Judaic law, life, and practice, the "rabbis," took hold. What was the core, professional-like profile of members of this emerging cadre in the late second and early third centuries, when this group first attained a level of stable institutionalization (even if not yet well-established authority)? What views did they promote about the authoritative basis of their profile? What in their surrounding and antecedent sociocultural contexts lent prima facie legitimacy and currency to that profile? Geared to a nonspecialist readership, What Were the Early Rabbis? addresses these questions and consequently sheds light on eventual shifts in power that came to underpin Judaic communal life, while Christianity and Islam "Judaized" non-Jews under their expansive hegemonies.

By integrating conversations across disciplines, especially focusing on classical studies and Jewish and Christian studies, this volume addresses several imbalances in scholarship on reading and textual activity in the ancient Mediterranean. Contributors intentionally place Jewish, Christian, Roman, Greek and other reading circles back into their encompassing historical context, avoiding subdivisions along modern subject lines, divisions still bearing marks of cultural and ideological interests. In their examination, contributors avoid dwelling upon traditional methodological debates over orality vs. literacy and social classifications of literacy, instead turning their attention to the social-historical: groups of people, circles and networks, strata and class, scribal culture, material culture, epigraphic and papyrological evidence, functions and types of literacy and the social relationships that all of these entail. Overall, the volume contributes to an emerging and important interdisciplinary collaboration between specialists in ancient literacy, encouraging future discussion between two currently divided fields.

Davina Grojnowski examines Life, the autobiographical text written by ancient Jewish historian Flavius Josephus, from a literary studies perspective and in relation to genre theory. In order to generate a framework of literary practices, Josephus' Life and other texts within Josephus' literary spheres-all associated with autobiography-are the focus of a detailed literary analysis which compares the texts in terms of established features, such as structure, topoi and subject. This methodological examination enables a better understanding of the literary boundaries of autobiography in antiquity and illustrates Josephus' thought-process during the composition of Life. Grojnowski also offers a comparative study of autobiographical practices in Greek and Roman literature, demonstrating the value of passive education supplementing what had been taught actively and its impact on authors and audiences. As a result, she provides insight into the development of literary practices in reaction to various forms of education and subsequently reflects on the religious (self-) views of authors and audiences. Simultaneously, Grojnowski reacts to current discourses on ancient literary genres and demonstrates that ancient autobiography existed as a teachable literary genre in classical literature.

We are taught to study, to learn, and to let ourselves grow Jewishly. But where does being the "people of the book" get us in the real world? David Wolpe's collection of essays responds to this question by exploring how Jewish values, such as scholarship and compassion, together with Jewish practice, enhance an individual's private and public life. How does Shabbat help deflect us from the pressures of the societal rat-race? How can Jewish learning subdue political unrest? Rabbi Wolpe draws the lessons of this collection from a variety of religious and historical sources, finding the importance of Israel in a Robert Frost poem, the nature of God in the words of Beowulf, and parenting lessons in the fatherly techniques of King David. The essays address diverse topics ranging from assimilation to Zionism to Jewish concepts of life and death. Rabbi Wolpe asks the questions, sometimes profound, sometimes light-hearted, that challenge us to consider how we live as Jews, how our Jewish lives are influenced by our secular surroundings, and how we can develop our Jewish souls by continuing to learn from new sources while remaining open to spiritual growth. Some of these questions include: Is it wrong to admire Kant, Voltaire, and Roald Dahl if they were anti-Semitic? How can we reconcile our American family traditions with our Jewish family traditions? In an evolutionary debate, do God and Steven Pinker stand behind opposite podiums? Do we need such a thing as a Jewish home? A Jewish homeland? Why does Walt Whitman think we should stay awake during the rabbi's sermon? What lessons of aging gracefully can we learn from Rabbi Akiba and Grandma Moses? An ideal gift for teachers, Confirmation students, grads, and new families that join the congregation.

In Exile, Incorporated, author Rosanne Liebermann argues that the biblical book of Ezekiel makes rhetorical use of the human body to construct a specific in-group identity for its ancient Judean audience--namely Judeans who experienced forced migration to Babylon in the sixth century BCE. As Liebermann shows, Ezekiel encourages certain bodily practices within this group that identifies them as "true" Judeans, while also evoking feelings of disgust regarding the bodies of those who do not conduct such practices. In this way, Ezekiel encouraged an isolationist Judean identity that could survive displacement from the homeland.