The Dead Sea Scrolls in Scholarly Perspective offers a unique look at the history of research on the scrolls from the Judean desert. The field of Dead Sea Scrolls scholarship is in a time of transition from the second generation of scholars who had close personal contact with the members of the original international team of editors to a third ...

Recasting Moses, a slightly revised version of author Finn Damgaard’s doctoral thesis, explores how the figure of Moses was shaped in Jewish and Christian discourse. It is not an exhaustive study of Moses traditions but rather an examination of the particular ways Moses is used in biography and autobiography. Damgaard focuses on three types of texts: biographies of Moses, biographies ...

The relationship between wisdom and Torah in Second Temple Judaism continues to fascinate scholars—and not surprisingly, given the centrality and vast influence of these two concepts in the intellectual culture and literatures of that period. The recent volume Wisdom and Torah: The Reception of ‘Torah’ in the Wisdom Literature of the Second Temple Period forms the most substantial collection of ...

The Melchizedek episode in Gen 14:18-20 lacks nearly everything a proper story needs. An enigmatic pagan priest-king appears out of nowhere, serves a deity named God-Most-High, brings along bread and wine, and, having blessed Abraham, is accepted by him as his superior. No wonder that readers of the text have attempted to fill in these gaps, in former times by ...

In this text, Peter Schäfer attempts a programmatic analysis of the early forms of Jewish mysticism. The text analyses different forms of mystical writing, beginning with the biblical vision of Ezekiel, before moving on to 1 and 2 Enoch, the Common Era apocalypses of Abraham, Zephaniah, John, and the Ascension of Isaiah, Qumran literature, Philo, the Talmud and finally the ...

I spent the academic year of 2000–2001 studying at a prominent school of theology in Argentina. During one public presentation, I was shocked to hear the dean of the school of theology, a specialist in New Testament studies, claim that the Jews had undergone the Holocaust as divine punishment for their supposed crucifixion of Jesus Christ. As a Brazilian-American Jew, ...

The main thrust of Olson’s argument is that the Animal Apocalypse of 1 En. 85-90 (hereafter AnAp) “can be read as a sophisticated theological interpretation of human history as well as a contemporary political document” (235). More specifically, Olson proposes a reading strategy for AnAp based on the following interrelated points. First, AnAp envisages salvation that is universal in scope. ...

This short book (112 pages, 21cm.) offers the text of all eighteen letters related to Bar Kokhba, leader of the second Jewish revolt against Rome, found in Wadi Murabba‘at and Naḥal Ḥever. Each letter is given in its original language (Hebrew, Aramaic, or Greek) and is followed by an Italian translation with historical and linguistic notes.

This is a volume of essays edited by Larry Hurtado, professor emeritus of New Testament Language, Literature and Theology at University of Edinburgh, and Paul Owen, associate professor of Biblical and Religious Studies at Montreat College. The title, Who Is This Son of Man?, indicates what one is to expect, a collection of essays exploring the current state of the ...

On the Origins of Judaism, by Philip R. Davies, professor emeritus at University of Sheffield, addresses key challenges facing scholars of early Judaism. This book enters several discussions that have arisen from the publications of the Scrolls in the early 1990’s. One example pertains to the incredible, although much rehearsed, diversity of first century B.C.E./C.E. Judaism.