Judaic Studies Program (JUDS) 1
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Introduction
© Copyright, Princeton University Press. No part of this book may be distributed, posted, or reproduced in any form by digital or mechanical means without prior written permission of the publisher. INTRODUCTION It belongs to the cherished traditions of Western civilization that Judaism “invented” monotheism. In the eyes of most Jews and Christians, as well as numerous scholars of religion, the “monotheistic revolution” of the Hebrew Bible represents a radi- cal break with the backward and underdeveloped abominations of the polytheistic cultures that surrounded—and continuously threatened—ancient Israel. As such, Jewish monotheism is con- sidered to be a decisive step in the development of humanity to- wards ever higher forms of religion. According to the triumphal- istic Christian view of history and its progress-oriented academic counterparts, this “evolution” reached its climax in Christianity (more precisely, in nineteenth-century Protestantism). Just as poly- theism inevitably lead to monotheism, so the remote and stern God of Judaism had to be replaced by the loving God of Chris- tianity. When Christianity adopted Jewish monotheism, it simul- taneously softened it by including the idea of God’s Trinity and his son’s incarnation on earth. Only through this “extension” of strict monotheism, it is argued, could Christianity liberate true faith from Jewish ossification and guarantee its survival and perfection. The notion of the necessary evolution of monotheism out of polytheism is as stereotyped as the conceit of its successful fulfill- ment in Christianity. Regarding the latter, the Christian doctrine of the Trinity can hardly claim, despite the efforts of the church fathers, to manifest the apex of monotheism. -
Reevaluating the Interaction Between Ancient Israel and Greece Mike Tolliver University of Missouri-St
University of Missouri, St. Louis IRL @ UMSL Theses Graduate Works 3-7-2014 The aS ges and Philosophers: Reevaluating the Interaction Between Ancient Israel and Greece Mike Tolliver University of Missouri-St. Louis, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: http://irl.umsl.edu/thesis Recommended Citation Tolliver, Mike, "The aS ges and Philosophers: Reevaluating the Interaction Between Ancient Israel and Greece" (2014). Theses. 257. http://irl.umsl.edu/thesis/257 This Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by the Graduate Works at IRL @ UMSL. It has been accepted for inclusion in Theses by an authorized administrator of IRL @ UMSL. For more information, please contact [email protected]. The Sages and Philosophers: Reevaluating the Interaction Between Ancient Israel and Greece Michael M. Tolliver Th.M., Covenant Theological Seminary, 2013 M.Div., Covenant Theological Seminary, 2010 B.S., Business Administration, Truman State University, 2005 A Thesis Submitted to The Graduate School at the University of Missouri – St. Louis in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Masters in Philosophy August 2014 Advisory Committee Jon D. McGinnis, Ph.D. Chairperson David Griesedieck, Ph.D. C. John Collins, Ph.D. Copyright, Michael M. Tolliver, 2014 Abstract: The previously assumed late development of the Jewish sacred writings led many to conclude that the Hellenistic world greatly influenced both the content and worldview of the Hebrew authors. Though the evidence for the historical reconstruction that required the Jewish texts to develop late has been called into question, scholars have yet to reconsider the implications this has for the antiquity of the ideas contained within the Jewish writings and their influence on surrounding cultures. -
Two Models of Jewish Philosophy Submitted for the Degree of Phd in Philosophy at the London School
Justifying One’s Practices: Two Models of Jewish Philosophy Submitted for the degree of PhD in Philosophy At the London School of Economics and Political Science Daniel Rynhold 2000 1 UMI Number: U120701 All rights reserved INFORMATION TO ALL USERS The quality of this reproduction is dependent upon the quality of the copy submitted. In the unlikely event that the author did not send a complete manuscript and there are missing pages, these will be noted. Also, if material had to be removed, a note will indicate the deletion. Dissertation Publishing UMI U120701 Published by ProQuest LLC 2014. Copyright in the Dissertation held by the Author. Microform Edition © ProQuest LLC. All rights reserved. This work is protected against unauthorized copying under Title 17, United States Code. ProQuest LLC 789 East Eisenhower Parkway P.O. Box 1346 Ann Arbor, Ml 48106-1346 773 ) Thesis Abstract Judaism is a religion that emphasises the importance of a set of practical commandments and in the history of Jewish philosophy various attempts have been made to rationalise or justify these commandments. In this thesis I try to establish a general model for the justification of practices through a critical examination of two such attempted rationalisations. However, the study is framed within the more general question of whether or not there can be such a thing as Jewish Philosophy as a genuinely substantive discipline. Thus, I take the particular topic of rationalising the commandments as a ‘case study’ in order to see whether we can do substantive Jewish philosophy at least in the practical sphere. In the main body of the thesis I look at the methods of rationalisation of Moses Maimonides and Joseph Soloveitchik and argue that despite being based on very different scientific models they share a central methodological presumption that I term the Priority of Theory (PoT). -
Pansacramentalism, Interreligious Theology, and Lived Religion
religions Article Pansacramentalism, Interreligious Theology, and Lived Religion Hans Gustafson College of Arts and Sciences, University of St. Thomas, 2115 Summit Avenue, Mail 57P, St. Paul, MN 55105, USA; [email protected] Received: 21 May 2019; Accepted: 26 June 2019; Published: 28 June 2019 Abstract: Opening with a philosophical definition of sacrament(ality) as a mediator (mediation) of the sacred in the concrete world, this article offers pansacramentalism as a promising worldview—especially for those rooted in or emerging from the Christian traditions (since, for them, the language of sacramentality may have a stronger resonance)—for bringing together interreligious theology and data mined by Lived Religion approaches to the study of religion. After articulating the concept of pansacramentalism and emphasizing interreligious theology as an emerging model for doing theology, growing trends and changing sensibilities among young people’s religious and spiritual lives (e.g., the “Nones”) is considered insofar as such trends remain relevant for making contemporary theology accessible to the next generation. The article then considers the intersection of pansacramentalism and interreligious theology, especially the issue of determining sacramental authenticity. To explain how this challenge might be met, Abraham Heschel’s theology of theomorphism is offered as but one example as a nuanced means for determining sacramental authenticity of the sacred in the world. Turning to “Lived Religion” approaches, rationale is offered for why pansacramentalism and interreligious theology ought to be taken seriously in the contemporary world, especially considering recent data about the nature of contemporary religious identities among young people living in the West. Keywords: pansacramentalism; sacramentality; interreligious; lived religion; interreligious studies 1. -
Death and Its Beyond in Early Judaism and Medieval Jewish Philosophy
University of Denver Digital Commons @ DU Electronic Theses and Dissertations Graduate Studies 3-1-2011 Death and Its Beyond in Early Judaism and Medieval Jewish Philosophy Adem Irmak University of Denver Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.du.edu/etd Part of the Jewish Studies Commons, and the Religion Commons Recommended Citation Irmak, Adem, "Death and Its Beyond in Early Judaism and Medieval Jewish Philosophy" (2011). Electronic Theses and Dissertations. 306. https://digitalcommons.du.edu/etd/306 This Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by the Graduate Studies at Digital Commons @ DU. It has been accepted for inclusion in Electronic Theses and Dissertations by an authorized administrator of Digital Commons @ DU. For more information, please contact [email protected],[email protected]. DEATH AND ITS BEYOND IN EARLY JUDAISM AND MEDIEVAL JEWISH PHILOSOPHY __________ A Thesis Presented to The Faculty of Arts and Humanities University of Denver __________ In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Master of Arts __________ by Adem Irmak March 2011 Advisor: Dr. Alison Schofield ©Copyright by Adem Irmak 2011 All Rights Reserved Author: Adem Irmak Title: DEATH AND ITS BEYOND IN EARLY JUDAISM AND MEDIEVAL JEWISH PHILOSOPHY Advisor: Dr. Alison Schofield Degree Date: March 2011 Abstract Afterlife and the concept of soul in Judaism is one of the main subjects that are discussed in the academia. There are some misassumptions related to hereafter and the fate of the soul after departing the body in Judaism. Since the Hebrew Bible does not talk about the death and afterlife clearly, some average people and some scholars claim that there is nothing relevant to the hereafter. -
Opening the Torah to Women: the Transformation of Tradition
Opening the Torah to Women: The Transformation of Tradition Women are a people by themselves -Talmud: Shabbat 62a Traditional Judaism believes that both men and women have differentiated and distinct roles delegated through the Torah. A man’s role is focused on positive time-bound mitzvot (commandments), which include but are not limited to, daily praying, wrapping tefillin and putting on a tallit; whereas a women’s role and mitzvot are not time bound and include lighting Shabbat candles, separating a piece of challah for G-d on Shabbat, and the laws of Niddah (menstruation purity). 1 Orthodox Judaism views the separate roles of men and women as a valued and crucial aspect of Jewish life and law, whereas Jewish feminism and more reform branches of Judaism believe these distinctions between men and women are representative of sexual discrimination and unequal opportunity in Judaism. The creation of the Reform and Conservative movement in the late 1800s paved the way for the rise of the Jewish feminist movement in the 1970s, which re-evaluated the classical Jewish texts and halakha (Jewish law) in relation to the role of women in Judaism. Due to Judaism’s ability to evolve and change throughout time, women associated with different Jewish denominations have been able to create their own place within Judaism while also maintaining the traditional aspects of Judaism in order to find a place which connects them most to their religiosity and femininity as modern Jewish women. In Kabbalah (Jewish mysticism), there is a teaching that states that when each soul is created it contains both a female and male soul. -
Jewish Mourning Traditions
JEWISH MOURNING TRADITIONS Shmira / The Vigil (From Chevra Kadisha) When a person dies, the soul or neshama hovers around the body. This neshama is the essence of the person, the consciousness and totality, the thoughts, deeds, experiences and relationships. The body was its container and the neshama, now on the way to the Eternal World, refuses to leave until the body is buried. In effect, the totality of the person who died continues to exist for a while in the vicinity of the body. Jewish mourning ritual is therefore most concerned with the feelings of the deceased, not only the feelings of the mourners. How we treat the body and how we behave around the body must reflect how we would act around the very person himself. IMMEDIATELY AFTER DEATH Jacob is promised that when he dies, “Joseph’s hand shall close your eyes.” (Genesis 46:4). The 16th century “Code of Jewish Law” dictated that the eyes should be closed, arms and hands extended and brought close to the body and the lower jaw closed and bound. The body was placed on the floor, with the feet towards the door. The body was covered with a sheet and a lit candle placed near the head. The Midrash states that on Shabbat one does not close the eyes, bind the jaw or light a candle. Some Jewish communities would place potsherds on the eyes; Russians placed coins. Ancient superstitions in many cultures held that if the eyes were opened, the ghost of the deceased would return to fetch away another of the household. -
Jewish Philosophy for the Twenty-First Century
Jewish Philosophy for the Twenty-First Century Personal Reflections Edited by Hava Tirosh-Samuelson and Aaron W. Hughes LEIDEN | BOSTON This is a digital offprint for restricted use only | © 2014 Koninklijke Brill NV Contents Acknowledgements ix Contributors x Introduction: Jewish Philosophy for the Twenty-First Century 1 Aaron W. Hughes and Hava Tirosh-Samuelson 1 The Historian as Thinker: Reflections on (Jewish) Intellectual History 11 Asher D. Biemann 2 After Germany: An American Jewish Philosophical Manifesto 42 Zachary J. Braiterman 3 Constructing a Jewish Philosophy of Being toward Death 61 James A. Diamond 4 Jewish Philosophy: Living Language at Its Limits 81 Cass Fisher 5 Toward a Synthetic Philosophy 101 Lenn Evan Goodman 6 Jewish Philosophy Tomorrow: Post-Messianic and Post-Lachrymose 119 Warren Zev Harvey 7 Transgressing Boundaries: Jewish Philosophy and the Palestinian-Israeli Conflict 133 Aaron W. Hughes 8 Philosophy, the Academy, and the Future of Jewish Learning 152 Claire E. Katz 9 Revisioning the Jewish Philosophical Encounter with Christianity 172 Martin Kavka and Randi Rashkover This is a digital offprint for restricted use only | © 2014 Koninklijke Brill NV vi contents 10 Doubt and Certainty in Contemporary Jewish Piety 205 Shaul Magid 11 Otherness and a Vital Jewish Religious Identity 229 Ephraim Meir 12 The Need for Jewish Philosophy 248 Alan Mittleman 13 Historicity, Dialogical Philosophy, and Moral Normativity: Discovering the Second Person 266 Michael L. Morgan 14 Feminism, Psychoanalysis, and the Jewish Philosophers of Encounter 296 Michael D. Oppenheim 15 A Shadowed Light: Continuity and New Directions in Jewish Philosophy 319 Sarah Pessin 16 Jewish Philosophy, Ethics, and the New Brain Sciences 343 Heidi M. -
Philosophy and Kabbalah. Elia Benamozegh (1823–1900), a Progressive/Traditional Thinker
religions Article Philosophy and Kabbalah. Elia Benamozegh (1823–1900), a Progressive/Traditional Thinker Alessandro Guetta Institut National des Langues et Civilisations Orientales, 75007 Paris, France; [email protected] Abstract: Elia Benamozegh (born—1823 in Livorno and died—1900 in Livorno)—philosopher, biblical exegete, teacher at the Rabbinical College—was an original and fruitful thinker. At a time when the Jewish kabbalah, or esoteric tradition, was considered by the protagonists of Jewish studies as the result of an era of intellectual and religious decadence, Benamozegh indicated it to be the authentic theology of Judaism. In numerous works of varying nature, in Italian, French and Hebrew, the kabbalah is studied by comparing it with the thought of Spinoza and with German idealism (Hegel in particular), and, at a later stage, also with positivism and evolutionism. Benamozegh formulated a pluralistic religious philosophy open to progress by constantly referring to the first phase of Vico’s historicist philosophy and above all to the work of Vincenzo Gioberti. We can read this philosophy as an original and consistent response to the challenges of Modern, secularized thought. Keywords: Judaism; philosophy; kabbalah 1. Elia Benamozegh, His Life and Cultural Context Elia Benamozegh (born—1823 in Livorno and died—1900 in Livorno) is probably the Citation: Guetta, Alessandro. 2021. last representative of the long Italian Jewish philosophical tradition of rabbinic inspiration, Philosophy and Kabbalah. Elia and also one of the rare modern Jewish philosophers of religion that doesn’t stem from the Benamozegh (1823–1900), a Progressive/Traditional Thinker. German or Polish–Lithuanian area. The son of Moroccan parents, he was trained in Jewish Religions 12: 625. -
Judaism Eliezer Segal
1 Judaism Eliezer Segal The term Judaism, which implies a definable belief-system, has no real equivalent in the traditional vocabulary of the reli gion itself. Its widespread use in European languages owes largely to the encounter with Christianity, which attaches greater im portance to creeds and doctrines. In Jewish tradition, theology and religious concepts rarely have been perceived as defining features. It is more accurate to employ the term Judaism in a broader cultural sense to denote the full range of religious expressions of the people of Israel (as they almost invariably have referred to themselves). This usage correctly underscores the national char acter of the religion, inextricably bound to historical experience, without attaching disproportionate weight to its theological com ponent. As we shall observe, Judaism contains a complex variety of elements, including law, ethics, morality, observances, wor ship, and beliefs. Technically, the wordJudaism-like its cognate termsJew and Jewish-refers to a more narrowly defined time frame within the longer national history, commencing at the conclusion of (he biblical era. Whereas earlier epochs had known of cwelve tribes of Israel, or of the cwo rival monarchies ofJudah and Israel, a sequence of conquests and exiles brought about a situation in 11 Judaism 13 12 ElrezerSegal Torah can refer to the rich spectrum of Jewish religious tradi which only a vestige of the original people, dominated by the tions as they evolved through the ages. The delicate interplay of ancient tribe of Judah and inhabiting its ancestral territory Oral and Written Torahs will be very much in evidence when we Uudea), was able to maintain its religious and cultural identity attempt to trace the evolution ofJewish conceptions of the after through subsequent generations. -
The “Golden Age” of Jewish-Muslim Relations: Myth and Reality Mark R
© Copyright, Princeton University Press. No part of this book may be distributed, posted, or reproduced in any form by digital or mechanical means without prior written permission of the publisher. Prologue The “Golden Age” of Jewish-Muslim Relations: Myth and Reality Mark R. Cohen In the nineteenth century there was nearly universal consensus that Jews in the Islamic Middle Ages—taking al-Andalus , or Muslim Spain , as the model—lived in a “Golden Age” of Jewish-Muslim harmony,1 an interfaith utopia of tolerance and convivencia.2 It was thought that Jews min- gled freely and comfortably with Muslims, Mark R. Cohen immersed in Arabic-Islamic culture, including Professor of Near Eastern Studies at the language, poetry, philosophy, science, med- Princeton University, he holds the Khe- douri A. Zilka Professorship of Jewish icine, and the study of Scripture—a society, Civilization in the Near East. His publi- furthermore, in which Jews could and many cations include Under Crescent and Cross: The Jews in the Middle Ages did ascend to the pinnacles of political power (Princeton University Press, 1994; re- in Muslim government. This idealized picture vised edition 2008). went beyond Spain to encompass the entire Muslim world, from Baghdad to Cordova , and extended over the long centuries, bracketed by the Islamic conquests at one end and the era of Moses Maimonides (1138–1204) at the other. The idea stemmed in the fi rst instance from disappointment felt by central European Jewish historians as Emancipation-era promises of political and cultural equality remained unfulfi lled. They exploited the tolerance they ascribed to Islam to chastise their Christian neighbors for failing to rise to the standards set by non- Christian society hundreds of years earlier.3 The interfaith utopia was to a certain extent a myth; it ignored, or left unmen- tioned, the legal inferiority of the Jews and periodic outbursts of violence. -
Jewish Studies (JST) 1
Jewish Studies (JST) 1 considers topics such as the attitudes other groups have had toward JEWISH STUDIES (JST) Jews (and vice-versa), the question of whether Jewish identity is a race, a religion, or an ethnicity, the dilemmas Jews face today, and the ways that Jews in many diverse settings have balanced change and continuity. We JST 4: Jewish and Christian Foundations will explore the factors that shape Jewish experience in different times 3 Credits and places, the diversities within and among Jewish lifestyles, and the ways in which events and interactions with other peoples have influenced This course seeks to help students better understand the Bible and the development of Jewish civilization. Finally, we will consider the appreciate its role as an authoritative collection of sacred texts for dilemmas Jews face today in terms of the preservation of their identity Jews and Christians. The Bible is a difficult book, one that is demanding and traditions. The course includes class discussion. Students are on many levels. In order to read the Bible intelligently, it is important evaluated on the basis of, essay exams, quizzes, in-class discussion and to understand the historical and cultural backgrounds of the biblical commentaries, and group projects. writings. This course explores the history and geography of ancient Near Eastern civilizations that shaped the experience of ancient Israel and, Cross-listed with: HEBR 10 later, the Greek and Roman imperial contexts that shaped Second Temple Bachelor of Arts: Humanities Judaism and early Christianity. The focus of the course, however, is on International Cultures (IL) the biblical narrative itself and the particular ways that the story of Israel General Education: Humanities (GH) and its covenant with God was represented in scripture: in tales, poems, GenEd Learning Objective: Effective Communication hymns, dialogues, and genealogies.