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3 books match the query 'Ancient Judaism'

cover of Levirate Marriage and the Family in Ancient Judaism

Levirate Marriage and the Family in Ancient Judaism

Dvora E. Weisberg

Brandeis University Press, 2009

In this study, Weisberg uses levirate marriage (an institution that involves the union of a man and the widow of his childless brother) as described in biblical law and explicated in rabbinic Judaism as a lens to examine the status of women and attitudes toward marriage, sexuality, and reproduction in early Jewish society. While marriage generally marks the beginning of a new family unit, levirate comes into play when a family’s life is cut short. As such, it offers an opportunity to study the family at a moment of breakdown and restructuring. With her discussion rooted in rabbinic sources and commentary, Weisberg explores kinship structure and descent, the relationship between a family unit created through levirate marriage and the extended family, and the roles of individuals within the family. She also considers the position of women, asking whether it is through marriage or the bearing of children that a woman becomes part of her husband’s family, and to what degree a married woman remains part of her natal family. She argues that rabbinic responses to levirate suggest that a family is an evolving entity, one that can preserve itself through realignment and redefinition.
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cover of Pedagogy in Ancient Judaism and Early Christianity

Pedagogy in Ancient Judaism and Early Christianity

Karina Martin Hogan

SBL Press, 2017

Engage fourteen essays from an international group of experts

There is little direct evidence for formal education in the Bible and in the texts of Second Temple Judaism and early Christianity. At the same time, pedagogy and character formation are important themes in many of these texts. This book explores the pedagogical purpose of wisdom literature, in which the concept of discipline (Hebrew musar) is closely tied to the acquisition of wisdom. It examines how and why the concept of musar came to be translated as paideia (education, enculturation) in the Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible (Septuagint), and how the concept of paideia was deployed by ancient Jewish authors writing in Greek. The different understandings of paideia in wisdom and apocalyptic writings of Second Temple Judaism are this book's primary focus. It also examines how early Christians adapted the concept of paideia, influenced by both the Septuagint and Greco-Roman understandings of this concept.

Features

  • A thorough lexical study of the term paideia in the Septuagint
  • Exploration of the relationship of wisdom and Torah in Second Temple Judaism
  • Examination of how Christians developed new forms of pedagogy in competition with Jewish and pagan systems of education
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    cover of Studies in Josephus and the Varieties of Ancient Judaism: Louis H. Feldman Jubilee Volume

    Studies in Josephus and the Varieties of Ancient Judaism

    Louis H. Feldman Jubilee Volume

    Shaye J. D. Cohen

    SBL Press, 2016

    Now in paperback!

    Former students, colleagues and friends of the eminent classicist and historian Louis H. Feldman are pleased to honor him with a Jubilee volume. While Feldman has long been considered an outstanding scholar of Josephus, his scholarly interests and research interests pertain to almost all aspects of the ancient world and Jews.

    Features:

    • Paperback format of an essential Brill resource
    • Articles cover topics such as biblical interpretation, Judaism and Hellenism, Jews and Gentiles, history of the Mishnah and Talmud periods, and Jerusalem
    • Contributors include the most prominent international scholars
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