Rabbinic theological language has made possible a vast range of discourse, on many subjects over long spans of recorded time and in diverse cultural settings. This theological dictionary defines the principal theological usages of Rabbinic Judaism as set forth in the Rabbinic canon of late antiquity, Mishnah, Talmuds, and Midrash-compilations. It systematically lays 1] the theological categories that are native to those writings; 2] cogent statements that can be made with them; 3] coherent propositions that those statements set forth and (within their own terms and framework) logically demonstrate as true and self-evident, both. Volume One of this dictionary covers vocabulary that permits the classification of religious knowledge and experience, and the organization and categorization of those data into intelligible and cogent sense-units. Volume Two shows how these classifications combine and recombine in sentences. We may deem these rules of theological discourse concerning religious experience to be the counterpart of syntax which words combine (or do not combine) with which other words, in what inflection or signaled relationship, and why. Volume Three shows how the theology accomplishes its goals of analysis, explanation, and anticipation in order to make sense of and impose meaning upon a subject. That marks the point at which constructive theology commences and systematic theology will find its language.

Rabbinic theological language has made possible a vast range of discourse, on many subjects over long spans of recorded time and in diverse cultural settings. This theological dictionary defines the principal theological usages of Rabbinic Judaism as set forth in the Rabbinic canon of late antiquity, Mishnah, Talmuds, and Midrash-compilations. It systematically lays [1] the theological categories that are native to those writings; [2] cogent statements that can be made with them; [3] coherent propositions that those statements set forth and (within their own terms and framework) logically demonstrate as true and self-evident, both. Volume One of this dictionary covers vocabulary that permits the classification of religious knowledge and experience, and the organization and categorization of those data into intelligible and cogent sense-units. Volume Two shows how these classifications combine and recombine in sentences. We may deem these rules of theological discourse concerning religious experience to be the counterpart of syntax which words combine (or do not combine) with which other words, in what inflection or signaled relationship, and why. Volume Three shows how the theology accomplishes its goals of analysis, explanation, and anticipation in order to make sense of and impose meaning upon a subject. That marks the point at which constructive theology commences and systematic theology will find its language.

Rabbinic theological language has made possible a vast range of discourse, on many subjects over long spans of recorded time and in diverse cultural settings. This theological dictionary defines the principal theological usages of Rabbinic Judaism as set forth in the Rabbinic canon of late antiquity, Mishnah, Talmuds, and Midrash-compilations. It systematically lays [1] the theological categories that are native to those writings; [2] cogent statements that can be made with them; [3] coherent propositions that those statements set forth and (within their own terms and framework) logically demonstrate as true and self-evident, both. Volume One of this dictionary covers vocabulary that permits the classification of religious knowledge and experience, and the organization and categorization of those data into intelligible and cogent sense-units. Volume Two shows how these classifications combine and recombine in sentences. We may deem these rules of theological discourse concerning religious experience to be the counterpart of syntax which words combine (or do not combine) with which other words, in what inflection or signaled relationship, and why. Volume Three shows how the theology accomplishes its goals of analysis, explanation, and anticipation in order to make sense of and impose meaning upon a subject. That marks the point at which constructive theology commences and systematic theology will find its language.

Until the 19th century, women were regularly excluded from graduate education. When this convention changed, it was largely thanks to Jewish women from Russia. Raised to be strong and independent, the daughters of Jewish businesswomen were able to utilize this cultural capital to fight their way into the universities of Switzerland and Germany. They became trailblazers, ensuring regular admission for women who followed their example. This book tells the story of Russian and German Jews who became the first female professionals in modern history. It describes their childhoods—whether in Berlin or in a Russian shtetl—their schooling, and their experiences at German universities. A final chapter traces their careers as the first female professionals and details how they were tragically destroyed by the Nazis.

While in contemporary culture we tend to resort to a single, if broadly defined, range of discourse for the results of systematic thought about public matters of the social order, this is not the case in Rabbinic Judaism. Judaism's authoritative documents set forth the entire structure of belief and system of behavior in two distinct modes of discourse, Halakhic and Aggadic, or broadly construed, statements of law and lore. Theology in Action shows how the Talmud of Babylonia (a.k.a., the Bavli) account of normative action sets forth in a dual discourse the single, coherent theology of Rabbinic Judaism.

This book is an exercise in the systematic recourse to anachronism as a theological-exegetical mode of apologetics. Specifically, Neusner demonstrates the capacity of the Rabbinic sages to read ideas attested in their own day as authoritative testaments to — to them — ancient times. Thus, Scripture was read as integral testimony to the contemporary scene. About a millennium — 750 B.C. E. to 350 C. E. — separates Scripture’s prophets from the later sages of the Mishnah and the Talmud. It is quite natural to recognize evidence for differences over a long period of time. Yet Judaism sees itself as a continuum and overcomes difference. The latecomers portray the ancients like themselves. “In our image, after our likeness” captures the current aspiration. The sages accommodated the later documents in their canon by finding the traits of their own time in the record of the remote past. They met the challenges to perfection that the sages brought about. Of what does the process of harmonization consist? To answer that question the author surveys the presentation of the prophets by the rabbis, beginning with Moses. To overcome the gap, Rabbinic sages turn Moses into a sage like themselves. The prophet performs wonders. The sage sets forth reasonable rulings. The conclusion expands on this account of matters to show the categorical solution that the sages adopted for themselves, and that is the happy outcome of the study.

This study of the inclusion of biographical narratives examines sage-stories, anecdotes about the life and deeds of Rabbinic sages, in components of the unfolding canon of Rabbinic Judaism during the formative age. These documents, from the first six centuries C.E., are exclusive of the two Talmuds.

Rabbinic documents about David, progenitor of the Messiah, relay the scriptural narrative of David the king. But, he is also transformed into a sage by Rabbinic writings of late antiquity: the Mishnah, the Yerushalmi, and the Bavli. Consequently, the Rabbis' Messiah becomes a ...

This collection of eight essays draws on a half-year of work, the second six months of 2009. Neusner takes up three problems in the history of Religions, four essays on fundamental issues in form-history and the documentary hypothesis of the Rabbinic canon, and one theological essay. The reason Neusner periodically collects and publishes essays and reviews is to give them a second life, after they have served as lectures or as summaries of monographs or as free-standing articles or as expositions of Judaism in collections of comparative religions. This re-presentation serves a readership to whom the initial presentation in lectures or specialized journals or short-run monographs is inaccessible. Some of the essays furthermore provide a prZcis, for colleagues in kindred fields, of fully worked out monographs, the comparative Midrash exercise, for example.

Scholars have questioned every aspect of the story of Mattathias in 1 Maccabees; the revisionist narrative turns Mattathias and his Maccabees from the heroes of the Jewish holiday of Hanukkah and idealistic fighters for religious freedom, into merely ambitious men who ruthlessly strove for power and usurped the high priesthood of Judaea. Dr. Benjamin Edidin Scolnic takes a fresh, unbiased approach to every element of the story: the incident at Mode n, Mattathias's priestly credentials and their implications for his beliefs, the meaning of personal ambition and the greater ambition to create the Jewish kingdom promised by the sacred biblical texts, the meaning of circumcision in his time, and the decision to fight on the Sabbath. Mattathias's actions of zealous violence, as controversial as they were in both his day and as they often are seen today, were primarily for the preservation of his religion and people. Dr. Scolnic asserts that it was Mattathias who defined Judaism and Jewishness for his time.