Discussing Cultural Influences - (Studies in Judaism) by Rivka Ulmer (Paperback)

About the Book

Discussing Cultural Influences contextualizes Rabbinic Judaism by emphasizing that the framers of Rabbinic thought were in conversation with cultures different from their own as much as with their own tradition. In a series of seven essays, presented here for the first time, t...

Book Synopsis

This book contextualizes Rabbinic Judaism by emphasizing that the framers of Rabbinic thought were in conversation with cultures different from their own as much as with their own tradition. In a series of seven essays, presented here for the first time, the authors challenge the reader's assumptions about Judaism in the Second Temple period, late antiquity, and the early medieval era. Arranged in chronological order according to the period of time they focus on, the essays analyze texts such as the Hebrew Bible, Greco-Roman Egyptian texts, Greek and Latin works, the Dead Sea Scrolls, early and late midrashic texts, the New Testament, the Church fathers' writings, the Jerusalem and the Babylonian Talmuds, and Zoroastrian texts.

About the Author

Editor Rivka Ulmer holds the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Chair in Jewish Studies and Assistant Professor of Religion at Bucknell University. She received an M.A. in Jewish Studies and English, as well as a Dr.Phil. in Jewish Studies from the Johann Wolfgang Goethe-Universität. She is the author of numerous scholarly works, including A Synoptic Edition of Pesiqta Rabbati Based Upon All Extant Hebrew Manuscripts and the Editio Princeps also from the University Press of America.