Zutot 2004

The yearbook Zutot serves as a platform for small but incisive contributions on Jewish Studies. It covers Jewish Culture in its broadest sense, encompassing various academic disciplines such as literature, languages and linguistics, philosophy, art, sociology, politics, and history. It also reflects binary oppositions such as religious and secular, high and low, written and oral, male and female culture.

"Zutot: Perspectives on Jewish Culture" aims to fill a gap that has become more and more conspicuous among the wealth of scholarly periodicals in the field of Jewish Studies. Whereas existing journals provide space to medium - and large sized articles, they neglect the small but poignant contributions, which may be as important as the extended, detailed study. The yearbook "Zutot" serves as a platform for small but incisive contributions, and provides them with a distinct context. The substance of these contributions is derived from larger perspectives and, though not always presented in an exhaustive way, will have an impact on contemporary discussions. "Zutot" covers Jewish Culture in its broadest sense, i.e. encompassing various academic disciplines - literature, languages and linguistics, philosophy, art, sociology, politics and history - and reflects binary oppositions such as religious and secular, high and low, written and oral, male and female culture.

The Hebrew book of Job is by all accounts an exquisite piece of literary art that holds its rightful place among the most outstanding compositions in world literature. Yet it is also widely recognized as an immensely difficult text to understand. In elucidating that ancient text, this inaugural Illuminations commentary by C. L. Seow pays close attention to the reception history of Job, including Jewish, Muslim, Christian, and Western secular interpretations as expressed in theological, philosophical, and literary writings and in the visual and performing arts. Seow offers a primarily literary-theological interpretation of Job, a new translation, and detailed commentary.

Zutot: Perspectives on Jewish Culture aims to fill a gap that has become more and more conspicuous among the wealth of scholarly periodicals in the field of Jewish Studies. Whereas existing journals provide space to medium - and large sized articles, they neglect the small but poignant contributions, which may be as important as the extended, detailed study. The yearbook Zutot serves as a platform for small but incisive contributions, and provides them with a distinct context. The substance of these contributions is derived from larger perspectives and, though not always presented in an exhaustive way, will have an impact on contemporary discussions. Zutot covers Jewish Culture in its broadest sense, i.e. encompassing various academic disciplines - literature, languages and linguistics, philosophy, art, sociology, politics and history - and reflects binary oppositions such as religious and secular, high and low, written and oral, male and female culture.

This volume offers a comprehensive discussion of all relevant sources concerning Jewish martyrdom in Antiquity. By viewing these narratives together, tracing their development and comparing them to other traditions, the authors seek to explore how Jewish is Jewish martyrdom? To this end, they analyse the impact of the changing social and religious-cultural circumstances and the interactions with Graeco-Roman and Christian traditions. This results in the identification of important continuities and discontinuities. Consequently, while political ideals that are prominent in 2 and 4 Maccabees are remarkably absent from rabbinic sources, the latter reveal a growing awareness of Christian motifs and discourse.

A collection of seventeen essays on pre-modern Hebrew poetry in honor of Wout van Bekkum. The articles in this volume all seek to examine how the religious, cultural, and social context in which the poet functioned impacted on and is visible, either explicitly or more elliptically, in their poetical oeuvre. For this purposes a broad understanding of "world" has been accepted, including both the natural world and the constructed one (society, culture, language) as well as the spiritual and emotional world. History, a pillar of the man-made constructed world, has been used to determine the boundaries: from Late Antiquity to the Middle Ages, and—in instances where the topic connects to older traditions—to Early Modern Judaism, i.e. pre-modern Hebrew (and Aramaic) poetry. The articles in this volume, in the breadth of their temporal and spatial range and their multiplicity of approaches and methodologies, highlight the richness of contemporary scholarship on Hebrew poetry. The volume invites the reader to engage with this astonishing body of poetry, while providing a glimpse into the world of the payṭanim, and the cultures and societies from which they drew their ininspiration and to which they made such important contributions.

In the Roman and Byzantine Near East, the holy fool emerged in Christianity as a way of describing individuals whose apparent madness allowed them to achieve a higher level of spirituality. Youval Rotman examines how the figure of the mad saint or mystic was used as a means of individual and collective transformation prior to the rise is Islam.

This text underlines the importance for scholars to have at their disposal reliable scientific text editions of Aristotle's works in the Semitico-Latin, and the Graeco-Latin, translation and commentary traditions.