Jewish Studies

Envisioning Judaism

Studies in Honor of Peter Schäfer on the Occasion of his Seventieth Birthday
Ed. by Ra'anan S. Boustan, Klaus Herrmann, Reimund Leicht, Annette Y. Reed and Giuseppe Veltri, with the collaboration of Alex Ramos

[Die Vergegenwärtigung des Judentums. Studien anlässlich des 70. Geburtstags von Peter Schäfer.]

2013. LI, 1399 pages.
519,00 €
including VAT
cloth
ISBN 978-3-16-152227-7
available
Published in English.
This volume collects cutting-edge articles reflecting the broad scope of Peter Schäfer's scholarship. It explores dynamics of continuity and change in Judaism from the Second Temple period to the rise of Islam, while also tracing shared traditions among Jews, Christians, and Muslims in the medieval and early modern periods.
This volume offers an extensive collection of cutting-edge articles in Jewish studies and related areas that celebrate Peter Schäfer and take their lead from his groundbreaking scholarship. Among the topics addressed are Jewish material culture in the Graeco-Roman world; the evolution of rabbinic literature and thought; the appropriate methods for producing editions of pre-modern texts; gender, embodiment, and the nature of the divine; Jewish representations of Jesus; and the reception of Hebrew sources by Christian scholars in the early modern period. The collection lays particular emphasis on the dynamics of continuity and change in Jewish society, culture, and religion in the ancient Mediterranean world, from the Second Temple period to the rise of Islam. It also traces how in the course of the medieval and early modern periods Jews, Christians, and Muslims came to participate in—and contest—shared literary, intellectual, and religious traditions. The contributions to this Festschrift transcend the entrenched divisions that too often fracture scholarly dialogue among specialists. Its broad scope reflects the startling breadth of Schäfer's own research interests as well as the lasting impact of his contributions to the academic study of Jewish literature and history, which have made visible the inner diversity of Judaism and stressed the essential place of Jewish studies within the humanities.
Survey of contents
Volume 1

Imre Shefer: For Peter Schäfer on the Occasion of his 70th Birthday

Part I
The History of the Jews in Antiquity

Seth Schwartz: Was there a »Common Judaism« after the Destruction? – Philip S. Alexander: Was the Ninth of Av Observed in the Second Temple Period? Reflections on the Concept of Continuing Exile in Early Judaism – Doron Mendels: Can We Read a Historical Text as a Musical Score? A New Approach to Polyphony and Simultaneity in 1 Maccabees – Tessa Rajak: The Maccabaean Martyrs in Jewish Memory: Jerusalem and Antioch – Daniel R. Schwartz: Humbly Second-Rate in the Diaspora? Philo and Stephen on the Tabernacle and the Temple – Werner Eck: Wie römisch war das caput Iudaeae, die Colonia Prima Flavia Caesariensis? – Catherine Hezser: Dirt and Garbage in the Ancient Jewish Religious Imagination and in Daily Life – Joshua Schwartz: Jews at the Dice Table: Gambling in Ancient Jewish Society Revisited – David Goodblatt: Who is the Brother of Jesus? On Tripartite Naming Formulas in Ancient Jewish and Middle Aramaic Inscriptions – Nicholas de Lange: Reflections on Jewish Identity in Late Antiquity

Part II
History and Theology of Rabbinic Judaism

Steven D. Fraade: Moses and Adam as Polyglots – Aharon Oppenheimer: Burial: Rules and Practice in the Tannaitic Period – Gregg E. Gardner: Cornering Poverty: Mishnah Pe'ah, Tosefta Pe'ah, and the Re-imagination of Society in Late Antiquity – David Kraemer: Adornment and Gender in Rabbinic Judaism – Lee I. Levine: The Emergence of the Patriarchate in the Third Century – Maren R. Niehoff: Biographical Sketches in Genesis RabbahMoulie Vidas: Greek Wisdom in Babylonia – Ronen Reichman: Aspects of Judicial and Legislative Decision-Making in the Talmudic Legal Discourse – Holger M. Zellentin: Jerusalem Fell after Betar: The Christian Josephus and Rabbinic Memory – Ra'anan Boustan: The Contested Reception of The Story of the Ten Martyrs in Medieval Midrash – Martin Jacobs: The Sacred Text as a Mental Map: Biblical and Rabbinic »Place« in Medieval Jewish Travel Writing

Part III
Tradition and Redaction in Rabbinic Literature

Gottfried Reeg: The First Chapter of Berakhot: A Compendium of Mishnaic Essentials – Hayim Lapin: Towards a Digital Critical Edition of the Mishnah – Günter Stemberger: Mekhilta de-R. Yishmael: Some Aspects of its Redaction – Judith Hauptman: A Synchronic and Diachronic Reading of Mishnah Shabbat 2:6. On the Topic of Why Women Die in Childbirth – Leib Moscovitz: Shemu῾ata Kan: Towards the Resolution of a Terminological Crux in the Talmud Yerushalmi – Richard Kalmin: Targum in the Babylonian Talmud

Part IV
Hekhalot and Magical Studies

Michael D. Swartz: Three-Dimensional Philology: Some Implications of the Synopse zur Hekhalot-LiteraturAnnelies Kuyt: Visions in Hekhalot Literature: Reflections on Terminology – Michael Meerson: Physiognomy and Somatomancy: The Ways That Never Crossed – Yaacov Shavit: »He was Thoth in Everything«: Why and When King Solomon Became Both Magister omnium physicorum and Master of Magic – Gideon Bohak and Mark Geller: Babylonian Astrology in the Cairo Genizah – Dorothea M. Salzer: How to Use the Hebrew Bible to Harm Your Neighbor: The Use of Biblical Quotations in Curse Texts Found in the Cairo Genizah – Gideon Bohak and Klaus Herrmann: Tefillat Rav Hamnuna Sava: Genizah Fragments and Medieval Manuscripts – Ulrike Hirschfelder: Torat ha-Mashiah in the Context of Apocalyptic Traditions in Ashkenazi Hekhalot Manuscripts – Bill Rebiger: Non-European Traditions of Hekhalot Literature: The Yemenite Evidence

Volume 2

Part V
Paths to the Divine

Giuseppe Veltri: Do/Did the Jews Believe in God? The Skeptical Ambivalence of Jewish Philosophy of Religion – William Horbury: Benjamin the Mystic (Ps 67:28 LXX) – Eduard Iricinschi: Interroga Matricem Mulieris: The Secret Life of the Womb in 4 Ezra and Sethian Cosmology – Martha Himmelfarb: The Messiah Son of Joseph in Ancient Judaism – Rainer Enskat: Demiurg, Saviour, or …? Remarks on Platonic Alternatives to Gnostic Conceptions of God and Piety – Elaine Pagels: How Athanasius, Subject to Christian Emperors, Read John's Apocalypse into His Canon – Carlos Fraenkel: Philo of Alexandria, Hasdai Crescas, and Spinoza on God's Body – Joseph Dan: Conflicting Views of the Origins of Evil in Thirteenth-Century Kabbalah – Gerold Necker: The Female Messiah: Gender Perspectives in Kabbalistic Eschatology and Christian Soteriology

Part VI
The Birth of Judaism from the Spirit of Christianity?
Annette Yoshiko Reed: When did Rabbis become Pharisees? Reflections on Christian Evidence for Post-70 Judaism – Adam H. Becker: Polishing the Mirror: Some Thoughts on Syriac Sources and Early Judaism – Azzan Yadin-Israel: Qabbalah, Deuterôsis, and Semantic Incommensurability: A Preliminary Study – Daniel Boyarin: The Talmud in Jesus: How Much Jewishness in Mark's Christ? – Shaye J. D. Cohen: Antipodal Texts: B. Eruvin 21b-22a and Mark 7:1–23 on the Tradition of the Elders and the Commandment of God – Tal Ilan: Jesus and Joshua ben Perahiah: A Jewish-Christian Dialogue on Magic in Babylonia – John G. Gager and Mika Ahuvia: Some Notes on Jesus and his Parents: From the New Testament Gospels to the Toledot YeshuSarit Kattan Gribetz: Jesus and the Clay Birds: Reading Toledot Yeshu in Light of the Infancy Gospels – Elliot R. Wolfson: Patriarchy and the Motherhood of God in Zoharic Kabbalah and Meister Eckhart

Part VII
Jews and Christians in the Middle Ages and Beyond

Michael Fishbane: Polysystem and Piyyut: The Poetics of a Yotzer by R. Meshullam b. Qalonymos – Hanna Liss: »Like a Camel Carrying Silk«: Initial Considerations on the Use of the Masorah in Medieval Hebrew Commentaries – Andreas Lehnardt: Meshal Qadmonim: A Newly Discovered Ashkenazic Binding Fragment of an Unknown Maqama from the Cathedral Library of Freising, Germany – Yaacob Dweck: A Hebrew Book List by Leon Modena – Peter Kuhn: Steinchen, Gras und Erdenstaub: Ursprung und Bedeutung jüdischer Friedhofsbräuche – Matthias B. Lehmann: Rabbinic Emissaries from Palestine and the Making of a Modern Jewish Diaspora: A Philanthropic Network in the Eighteenth Century – William Chester Jordan: Learning about Jews in the Classroom: A Thirteenth-Century Witness, UCLA Library, Rouse MS 17 – David Stern: Erhard von Pappenheim: A Portrait of a Hitherto Unstudied Early Christian Hebraist – Reimund Leicht: Johannes Reuchlin's Lost Polemical Manuscript and the Archetype of the Nizzahon Vetus: A Reconstruction – Wilhelm Schmidt-Biggemann: Eine Wiedergeburt des Judentums aus dem Geist des Christentums: Schellings und Rosenzweigs spekulative Philologie der Unverfügbarkeit – Stefan C. Reif: Has More than a Century of Genizah Research Adjusted Jewish Notions of Scholarship, History, and Identity? Some Reflections and Speculations

List of Publications by Peter Schäfer
Authors/Editors

Ra'anan S. Boustan Born 1971; 2004 PhD from Princeton University; 2004–06 Assistant Professor of Early Judaism at the University of Minnesota; 2006–10 Assistant Professor of Ancient and Jewish History at the University of California, Los Angeles; 2010–17 Associate Professor of Ancient and Jewish History at the University of California, Los Angeles; 2009–12 Director at the Center for the Study of Religion; since 2017 Research Scholar in the Program for Judaic Studies at Princeton University.

Klaus Herrmann is a lecturer at the Institute for Jewish Studies at the Freie Universität, Berlin.

Reimund Leicht is a Senior Lecturer in the Department for Jewish Thought and in the Program for the History, Philosophy, and Sociology of Science at the Hebrew University, Jerusalem.

Annette Yoshiko Reed Born 1973; Krister Stendahl Professor of Divinity and Professor of New Testament and Early Christianity at Harvard University.

Giuseppe Veltri is the Leopold Zunz Chair for Jewish Studies at the Martin-Luther-Universität Halle-Wittenberg.

Alex Ramos B.A. from University of Nebraska-Lincoln; M.T.S. from Harvard Divinity School; currently a PhD candidate in the Department of Religious Studies at the University of Pennsylvania.

Reviews

The following reviews are known:

In: Revue d'histoire et de Philosophie Religieuses — 94 (2014), S. 335–337 (Ch. Grappe)
In: Journal of Transcultural Medieval Studies — 1 (2014), S. 301–302 (Görge K. Hasselhoff)
In: Theologische Literaturzeitung — 140 (2015), S. 1073–1075 (Beate Ego)
In: Salesianum — 76 (2014), S. 731–733 (Rafael Vicent)
In: Revue Théologique de Louvain — 48 (2017), pp. 123–124 (Didier Luciani)
In: Vigiliae Christianae — 68 (2014), S. 113 (J. van Oort)
In: Journal for the Study of Judaism — 52 (2021), pp. 465–468 (Evenline van Staalduine-Sulman)