The Doctrine Of The Messiah In Medieval Jewish Literature

This Is A Solid Scholarly Book About The Messianic Views Of The Greatest Scholars And Thinkers Of The Middle Ages, Saadia, Gaon, Rash, Judah Halevi, To Name A Few.

Marks' painstaking investigation into the figure of Bar Kokhba in traditional Jewish literature has indeed provided a corrective to those on both sides of the Zionist political spectrum and in doing so he has once again shown that historical investigations are often quite useful in elucidating and clarifying various modern debates.-Jewish Political Studies Review"This is a very significant contribution to both Jewish literature and history. The materials which Marks works through are well-known, but at many points he offers original interpretations. He provides a comprehensive synthesis of all the historical interpretations of Bar Kokhba."-Richard D. Hecht, University of California, Santa BarbaraBar Kokhba led the Jewish rebellion against Rome in 132-135 A.D., which resulted in massive destruction and dislocation of the Jewish populace of Judea. In early rabbinic literature, Bar Kokhba was remembered in two ways: as an imposter claiming to be the Messiah and as a glorious military leader whose successes led Rabbi Akiva, one of the great rabbinic authorities of Jewish tradition, to acclaim him the Messiah. These two earliest images formed the core of most later perceptions of Bar Kokhba, so that he became the prototypical false messiah and the paradigmatic rebel of Jewish history.The Image of Bar Kokhba in Traditional Jewish Literature is a history of the perceptions that later Jewish writers living in the fourth through seventeenth centuries formed of this legendary hero-villain whose actions, in their eyes, had caused enormous suffering and disappointed messianic hopes. Richard Marks examines each writer's account individually and in the context of its period, exploring particularly political and religious implications. He builds a history of images and looks at larger patterns, such as the desacralizing of traditional imagery. His findings raise timely political questions about Bar Kokhba's image among Jews today.

Focusing on the rich context of esoteric Jerish literature, this collection presents in-depth analyses of Jewish-American poetry. Gitenstein defines Jewish messianism and the literary genre of the apocalyptic, describes historical movements and kabbalistic theories, and analyzes their influence as part of the post-Holocaust consciousness. Represented are works by such poets as Irving Feldman, Jack Hirschman, John Hollander, David Meltzer, and Jerome Rothenberg. Gitenstein recounts the lives of such spectacular eccentrics and holy men as the Abraham Abulafia (thirteenth century), Isaac Luria (sixteenth century), Shabbatai Zevi (seventeenth century), and Jacob Frank (eighteenth century) and identifies their theories as part of the history of the literary apocalyptic genre—the literature of exile, the literature of catastrophe.

Publisher Description

Provides sociological analyses of religious developments and identities in both historical and contemporary Jewish communities.