This volume contains the proceedings of an international conference on Solomon that was held at the University of Leuven in 2009 and discussed various aspects of this multifaced character as he appears in Jewish, early Christian, and Islamic tradition.

This volume contains the proceedings of an international conference on Solomon that was held at the University of Leuven in 2009 and discussed various aspects of this multifaced character as he appears in Jewish, early Christian, and Islamic tradition.

"Perils of Wisdom engages the biblical Solomon narrative that appears in the Book of Kings and its reception by Jewish texts from scriptural sources through the traditional commentaries of the Middle Ages. By systematically following the thread of exegesis through biblical, rabbinic, targumic, and medieval Jewish texts, and by examining their interplay with other ancient, Christian, and Islamic treatments of Solomon, Keiter traces the emergence and ascendance of an apologetic image of Solomon that has colored Jewish perceptions of the biblical king ever since"--

One of the most central figures in monotheistic traditions is King David. The volume takes a new, critical look at the process of biblical creation and exegetical transformation of this character in the intertwined words of Judaism, Christianity and Islam.

The Jewish culture of the Hellenistic and early Roman periods established a basis for all monotheistic religions, but its main sources have been preserved to a great degree through Christian transmission. This Guide is devoted to problems of preservation, reception, and transformation of Jewish texts and traditions of the Second Temple period in the many Christian milieus from the ancient world to the late medieval era. It approaches this corpus not as an artificial collection of reconstructed texts--a body of hypothetical originals--but rather from the perspective of the preserved materials, examined in their religious, social, and political contexts. It also considers the other, non-Christian, channels of the survival of early Jewish materials, including Rabbinic, Gnostic, Manichaean, and Islamic. This unique project brings together scholars from many different fields in order to map the trajectories of early Jewish texts and traditions among diverse later cultures. It also provides a comprehensive and comparative introduction to this new field of study while bridging the gap between scholars of early Judaism and of medieval Christianity.

This remarkable literary journey of the enigmatic Samson' titillates the reader's curiosity. Blessed with a handsome and spectacular physique, and a naughty thirst for la dolce vita, Samson has served as a paradigm for many a well-meaning person who failed to teach himself self-restraint. Caspi and Greene chronicle the fascinating literary-historical development of the Samson figure and his significance through Jewish, Christian, and Islamic traditions, and during ancient, medieval, and modern times.

Tradition has it that King Solomon knew everything there was to know--the mysteries of nature, of love, of God himself--but what do we know of him? Esteemed biblical scholar Steven Weitzman reintroduces readers to Solomon's story and its surprising influence in shaping Western culture, and he also examines what Solomon's life, wisdom, and writings have come to mean for Jews, Christians, and Muslims over the past two thousand years. Weitzman's "Solomon" is populated by a colorful cast of ambitious characters--Byzantine emperors, explorers, rabbis, saints, scientists, poets, archaeologists, trial judges, reggae singers, and moviemakers among them--whose common goal is to unearth the truth about Solomon's life and wisdom. Filled with the Solomonic texts of the Bible, along with lesser-known magical texts and other writings, this book challenges both religious and secular assumptions. Even as it seeks to tell the story of ancient Israel's greatest ruler, this insightful book is also a meditation on the Solomonic desire to know all of life's secrets, and on the role of this desire in world history.

This book is the first of two volumes arguing that kingdom ethics is the core substance of the message of the historical Jesus. Paul and Matthew were influential voices in formative Christianity. Some prominent exegetes have tended to contrast Jesus and Paul, as well as Paul and Matthew. This volume demonstrates that Jesus’ kingdom ethics—based on divine wisdom, mercy and justice—originated in Stoic philosophy, and that it became a popular ethos of the first-century Graeco-Roman world. This common transformative ethos of crossing conventional boundaries regarding patriarchy, gender injustice and bigotry based on class and sexuality was articulated differently by Jesus, Paul and Matthew. The book will appeal to specialists in the fields of New Testament scholarship and ancient Graeco-Roman and Hellenistic-Semitic literature.

How do the senses shape the way we perceive, understand, and remember ritual experiences? This book applies cognitive and sensory approaches to Roman rituals, reconnecting readers with religious experiences as members of an embodied audience. These approaches allow us to move beyond the literate elites to examine broader audiences of diverse individuals, who experienced rituals as participants and/or performers. Case studies of ritual experiences from a variety of places, spaces, and contexts across the Roman world, including polytheistic and Christian rituals, state rituals, private rituals, performances, and processions, demonstrate the dynamic and broad-scale application that cognitive approaches offer for ancient religion, paving the way for future interdisciplinary engagement. This title is part of the Flip it Open Programme and may also be available Open Access. Check our website Cambridge Core for details.

This collection presents innovative research by scholars from across the globe in celebration of Gabriele Boccaccini’s sixtieth birthday and to honor his contribution to the study of early Judaism and Christianity. In harmony with Boccaccini’s determination to promote the study of Second Temple Judaism in its own right, this volume includes studies on various issues raised in early Jewish apocalyptic literature (e.g., 1 Enoch, 2 Baruch, 4 Ezra), the Dead Sea Scrolls, and other early Jewish texts, from Tobit to Ben Sira to Philo and beyond. The volume also provides several investigations on early Christianity in intimate conversation with its Jewish sources, consistent with Boccaccini’s efforts to transcend confessional and disciplinary divisions by situating the origins of Christianity firmly within Second Temple Judaism. Finally, the volume includes essays that look at Jewish-Christian relations in the centuries following the Second Temple period, a harvest of Boccaccini’s labor to rethink the relationship between Judaism and Christianity in light of their shared yet contested heritage.