Exploring Mishnah S World S

This book provides a new conceptual and methodological framework the social scientific study of Mishnah, as well as a series of case studies that apply social science perspectives to the analysis of Mishnah's evidence. The framework is one that takes full account of the historical and literary-historical issues that impinge upon the use of Mishnah for any scholarly purposes beyond philological study, including social scientific approaches to the materials. Based on the framework, each chapter undertakes, with appropriate methodological caveats, an avenue of inquiry open to the social scientist that brings to bear social scientific questions and modes of inquiry to Mishnaic evidence.

In the Seat of Moses offers readers a unique, frank, and penetrating analysis of the rise of rabbinic Judaism in the late Roman period. Over time and through masterly rhetorical strategy, rabbinic writings in post-temple Judaism come to occupy an authoritarian place within a pluralistic tradition. Slowly, the rabbis occupy the seat of Moses, and Lightstone introduces readers to this process, to the most significant texts, to the rhetorical styles and appeals to authority, and even to how authority came to be authority. As a seasoned and honest scholar, Lightstone achieves his goal of introducing novice readers to the often obscure world of rabbinic literary conventions with astounding success. This book is an excellent contribution to the Westar Studies series focused on religious literacy.

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.

In his brilliant introduction on the Mishnah, Jacob Neusner asks: How do you read a book that does not identify its author, tell you where it comes from, or explain why it was written – a book without a preface? And how do you identify a book with neither a beginning nor end, lacking table of contents and title? The answer is you just begin and let the author of the book lead you by paying attention to the information that the author does give, to the signals that the writer sets out. As Neusner goes on to explain, the Mishnah portrays the world in a special way, in a kind of code that makes it a difficult work for the modern reader to understand. Without knowing how to decode the Mishnah, we may read its works without receiving its message. Neusner, one of the world’s foremost Mishnaic scholars, demonstrated that the Mishnah’s own internal logic and structure form a solid foundation on which to build an understanding of this vitally important Jewish work. Using examples of how the Mishnah’s language, logic, and discourse associate and categorize behaviors, events, and objects, Neusner opens the Mishnah to readers who would not otherwise be able to grasp its most fundamental concepts. Since the Mishnah forms the basis of both the Babylonian and the Palestinian Talmuds (which are, in Neusner’s elegant terms, “the core curriculum of Judaism as a living religion”), study of the Mishnah is essential to an understanding of Judaism. Drawing on his own new translation of the Mishnah and displaying the enthusiastic dedication that has sparked a whole new body of Mishnaic research, Neusner allows readers with no previous background to join Jews who have studied, analyzed, and delighted in the wisdom of Mishnah for centuries. In addition to giving us a thorough exploration of the Mishnah’s language, contents, organization, and inner logic, Neusner also provides us with a broad understanding of how it communicated its own world view – its vision of both the concrete an spiritual worlds. The Mishnah: An Introduction gives us a tour of this sacred Jewish text, shedding light on its many facets – from its view of life to its conception of God and His relation to our world.

This book explores the period from the 160s to 63 B.C.E., when the Maccabees ruled the Jews, up to the publication of the Mishnah in the second century C.E.

Blood for Thought delves into a relatively unexplored area of rabbinic literature: the vast corpus of laws, regulations, and instructions pertaining to sacrificial rituals. Mira Balberg traces and analyzes the ways in which the early rabbis interpreted and conceived of biblical sacrifices, reinventing them as a site through which to negotiate intellectual, cultural, and religious trends and practices in their surrounding world. Rather than viewing the rabbinic project as an attempt to generate a nonsacrificial version of Judaism, she argues that the rabbis developed a new sacrificial Jewish tradition altogether, consisting of not merely substitutes to sacrifice but elaborate practical manuals that redefined the processes themselves, radically transforming the meanings of sacrifice, its efficacy, and its value.

This book is an insightful guide to the diverse ways that religious faith is practiced and spirituality is understood. Discussing contemporary issues such as post-modernism and the emergence of a "new paradigm," the new realities of geopolitics, globalization and global warming, this book explores the importance of religion in people's lives to provide direction in the society today. This book demonstrates the common quest among the world religions for a deeper and more profound spirituality. Describing the spiritual pathways of the various world religions, it assesses the ways that the beliefs, values and practices of these traditions can be life-giving, leading to personal and social responsibility and transformation, but also sometimes harmful and divisive, even used for dangerous purposes. Promoting constructive engagements between the world's religions, this book will connect social justice and ethical engagements with core religious practices and spiritualities. This is an ideal introductory text for students of world religions, spirituality and interfaith relations, broadening their understanding of these lived faiths.

Religious Rivalries in the Early Roman Empire and the Rise of Christianity discusses the diverse cultural destinies of early Christianity, early Judaism, and other ancient religious groups as a question of social rivalry. The book is divided into three main sections. The first section debates the degree to which the category of rivalry adequately names the issue(s) that must be addressed when comparing and contrasting the social “success” of different religious groups in antiquity. The second is a critical assessment of the common modern category of “mission” to describe the inner dynamic of such a process; it discusses the early Christian apostle Paul, the early Jewish historian Josephus, and ancient Mithraism. The third section of the book is devoted to “the rise of Christianity,” primarily in response to the similarly titled work of the American sociologist of religion Rodney Stark. While it is not clear that any of these groups imagined its own success necessarily entailing the elimination of others, it does seem that early Christianity had certain habits, both of speech and practice, which made it particularly apt to succeed (in) the Roman Empire.