USD $246.00
Search Results
The Song of Songs in the Early Synagogue
Author:
In A Vocabulary of Desire, Laura Lieber offers a nuanced, multifaceted and highly original study of how the Song of Songs was understood and deployed by Jewish liturgical poets in Late Antiquity (ca. 4th-7th centuries CE). Through her examination of poems which embellish and even rewrite the Song of Songs, Lieber brings the creative spirit-liturgical, intellectual, and exegetical-of these poems vividly to the fore. All who are interested in the early interpretation of the Song of Songs, the ancient synagogue, early Jewish and Christian hymnography, and Judaism in Late Antiquity will find this volume both enriching and accessible.
The volume consists of two interrelated halves. In the first section, four introductory essays establish the broad cultural context in which these poems emerged; in the second, each chapter consists of an analytical essay structured around a single, complete poetic cycle, presented in new Hebrew editions with annotated original English translations.
"The Hebrew text edition is accompanied by a lucid and poetic English translation with annotations and a commentary. In this excellent, scholarly text edition, the commentary is focused and to the point...This reviewer highly recommends this monograph to scholars interested in the early synagogue and its liturgy, late antique and medieval Hebrew poetry, rabbinic Judaism, and early Christianity. The book invites further comparative work in these areas." Rivka B. Ulmer, H-Judaic, H-Net Reviews. May, 2015.
The volume consists of two interrelated halves. In the first section, four introductory essays establish the broad cultural context in which these poems emerged; in the second, each chapter consists of an analytical essay structured around a single, complete poetic cycle, presented in new Hebrew editions with annotated original English translations.
"The Hebrew text edition is accompanied by a lucid and poetic English translation with annotations and a commentary. In this excellent, scholarly text edition, the commentary is focused and to the point...This reviewer highly recommends this monograph to scholars interested in the early synagogue and its liturgy, late antique and medieval Hebrew poetry, rabbinic Judaism, and early Christianity. The book invites further comparative work in these areas." Rivka B. Ulmer, H-Judaic, H-Net Reviews. May, 2015.
The Song of Songs in the Early Synagogue
Author:
In A Vocabulary of Desire, Laura Lieber offers a nuanced, multifaceted and highly original study of how the Song of Songs was understood and deployed by Jewish liturgical poets in Late Antiquity (ca. 4th-7th centuries CE). Through her examination of poems which embellish and even rewrite the Song of Songs, Lieber brings the creative spirit-liturgical, intellectual, and exegetical-of these poems vividly to the fore. All who are interested in the early interpretation of the Song of Songs, the ancient synagogue, early Jewish and Christian hymnography, and Judaism in Late Antiquity will find this volume both enriching and accessible.
The volume consists of two interrelated halves. In the first section, four introductory essays establish the broad cultural context in which these poems emerged; in the second, each chapter consists of an analytical essay structured around a single, complete poetic cycle, presented in new Hebrew editions with annotated original English translations.
"The Hebrew text edition is accompanied by a lucid and poetic English translation with annotations and a commentary. In this excellent, scholarly text edition, the commentary is focused and to the point...This reviewer highly recommends this monograph to scholars interested in the early synagogue and its liturgy, late antique and medieval Hebrew poetry, rabbinic Judaism, and early Christianity. The book invites further comparative work in these areas." Rivka B. Ulmer, H-Judaic, H-Net Reviews. May, 2015.
The volume consists of two interrelated halves. In the first section, four introductory essays establish the broad cultural context in which these poems emerged; in the second, each chapter consists of an analytical essay structured around a single, complete poetic cycle, presented in new Hebrew editions with annotated original English translations.
"The Hebrew text edition is accompanied by a lucid and poetic English translation with annotations and a commentary. In this excellent, scholarly text edition, the commentary is focused and to the point...This reviewer highly recommends this monograph to scholars interested in the early synagogue and its liturgy, late antique and medieval Hebrew poetry, rabbinic Judaism, and early Christianity. The book invites further comparative work in these areas." Rivka B. Ulmer, H-Judaic, H-Net Reviews. May, 2015.
Author:
Abstract: In this article, an exploration of the performative phenomenon labeled here as “multi-authorial vocality” will serve to highlight both the richness of the Samaritan poetic tradition on its own terms and to suggest significant future directions for comparative study that can integrate Samaritan hymnography and the Samaritan liturgy into their works. This analysis primarily underscores how scholars need to address the essential complexity of liturgical poetry as a performed genre. “Multi-authorial vocality” refers to the process by which multiple authors shape the received experience and significance of the composition as a whole. A single Samaritan hymn by Marqa, “This is His Great Writing,” provides a subject for the analysis, and a translation of the hymn is provided as an appendix. The rhetorical-performative dynamic examined here is not in any way unique to this poem, nor is it distinctive to Samaritans; it is precisely this more “universal” element of liturgical poetry that enables comparative (beyond noting parallel or divergent motifs, themes, and intertextual allusions) to be done. In Marqa’s poem, some figures are explicitly identified as authors or tradents, while others assume that role implicitly. The approach to liturgical texts modeled here does not deny the importance of the author to our text but raises our awareness of how complicated his role is. The poet is, to use an analogy, as much a conductor as a composer; he orchestrates the liturgical experience, but relies on other participants to complete it. Subsequent performers create their own arrangements of the existing words on the page but likewise need the involvement – physical, conceptual, and psychological – of the other participants for the liturgy to “work.” At the same time, it also argues for the importance of integrating Samaritan liturgical traditions into the larger comparative hymnography discussions now underway.
Author:
Abstract
This article analyzes two poetic units within a much longer composition (translated in full here) composed by Yannai (6th c. CE, Galilee) for recitation on Yom Kippur. Specifically, it offers readings of Unit 8, which prefaces the third blessing of the Amidah (the Qedushah), and Unit 15, which concludes the work. Both units dwell on the physical experience of Yom Kippur and the ways in which ritual affects the body, permitting us to consider the role of “kinesthetic theology” (borrowing Kathryn Reklis’ coinage) – i.e., how physical expression and embodied experiences not only reflect but shape belief – in the composition.
Author:
Abstract
In this essay, the varieties of refrain structures used in the body of Jewish Palestinian Aramaic poetry from late antiquity provide a laboratory for examining the intersection of acclamation structures and piyyutim. The fact that these poems were written in the vernacular of the community rather than in Hebrew complicates our understanding of their performative setting but at the same time may make it easier to consider a variety of potential modes of community engagement, as we are not constrained by the potential norms of a fixed liturgical setting. The analysis offered here, tentative as it may be, helps us understand both the auditory world of Late Antiquity and the active participation of Jews in the shaping of their soundscape.
In:
Aramaic Studies