Ancient Jewish Novels: An Anthology: (Oxford University Press) Publisher's Comments: This volume brings together for the first time all of the ancient Jewish novels and fragments of novels. Written at about the same time as the Dead Sea Scrolls and the New Testament, but before the period of Rabbinic Judaism, these texts reveal the ambiguit... Details...

Between the Babylonian and Palestinian Talmuds: Accounting for Halakhic Difference in Selected Sugyot from Tractate Avodah Zarah: (Oxford University Press) Publisher's Comments: In this book, Hayes addresses the central concern in talmudic studies over the genesis of halakhic (legal) divergence between the Talmuds produced by the Palestinian rabbinic community (c. 370 C.E.) and the Babylonian rabbinic community (c. 650 C.E.). Hayes... Details...

Biblical Myth and Rabbinic Mythmaking: (Oxford University Press) Publisher's Comments: This is a comprehensive study of myth in the Hebrew Bible and myth and mythmaking in classical rabbinic literature (Midrash and Talmud) and in the classical work of medieval Jewish mysticism (the book of Zohar). Michael Fishbane provides a close study of th... Details...

Chattel or Person? The Status of Women in the Mishnah: (Oxford University Press) Publisher's Comments: Exploring the place of women in the socioeconomic system formulated in the Mishnah, a book of legal rules with a spiritual basis compiled by Jewish sages in second-century Palestine, this study reveals a fundamental ambiguity in the role of women. Both the ... Details...

Peshat and Derash Plain and Applied Meaning in Rabbinic Exegesis: (Oxford University Press) Publisher's Comments: This comprehensive and critical narration of the history and repercussions of Rabbinic exegesis of the Bible and Talmud investigates the tension that has often existed between the plain sense of the divine text and its creative interpretation. Details...

Rabbinic Authority: (Oxford University Press) Publisher's Comments: This book examines the nature and sources of the unique authority accorded in Judaism to the Sages of the first five centuries C.E. These teachers--often referred to reverentially as Chazal, a Hebrew acronym for "our Sages of blessed memory"--occupy a centr... Details...

Rabbinic Interpretation of Scripture in the Mishnah: (Oxford University Press) Publisher's Comments: This volume offers a systematic and detailed description of early rabbinic hermeneutics as it can be reconstructed from the Mishnah (third century c.e.). Samely clarifies the conditions of a modern appreciation of rabbinic hermeneutics and provides a unifie... Details...

Reimagining the Bible The Storytelling of the Rabbis: (Oxford University Press) Publisher's Comments: This collection is a unique contribution to Jewish studies by one of its leading scholars. Re-imagining the Bible presents a dozen essays from Howard Schwartz's published work. Some of them appeared as introductions to his books; others are taken from journ... Details...

Reimagining the Bible The Storytelling of the Rabbis: (Oxford University Press) Publisher's Comments: This collection is a unique contribution to Jewish studies by one of its leading scholars. Re-imagining the Bible presents a dozen essays from Howard Schwartz's published work. Some of them appeared as introductions to his books; others are taken from journ... Details...

Religion & Power: Pagans, Jews, and Christians in the Greek East: (Oxford University Press) Publisher's Comments: This book contributes to the small but growing literature on the interaction between religion and power in antiquity. Edwards focuses on the eastern "Greek" provinces in the first and second centuries A.D.--the period during which Christianity, Judaism, and... Details...