Abraham Ibn Ezra was “reborn” in the Latin West in the last decades of the thirteenth century thanks to a plethora of authored and anonymous Latin translations of his astrological writings. The present volume offers the first critical edition, accompanied by an English translation, a commentary, and an introductory study, of
Liber nativitatum (Book of Nativities) and
Liber Abraham Iudei de nativitatibus (Book on Nativities by Abraham the Jew), two astrological treatises in Latin that were written by Abraham Ibn Ezra or attributed to him, and whose Hebrew source-text or archetype has not survived. The first is undoubtedly an anonymous Latin translation of the second version of Ibn Ezra’s
Sefer ha-moladot (Book of Nativities), whose Hebrew source text is otherwise lost. The second is the most mysterious specimen among the Latin works attributed to Ibn Ezra that have no extant Hebrew counterpart. The present volume shows not only that the
Liber Abraham Iudei de nativitatibus underwent a significant metamorphosis over time and was transmitted in four significantly different versions, but also that its date of composition is not that previously accepted by modern scholarship.
Abraham Ibn Ezra Latinus on Nativities
A Parallel Latin-English Critical Edition of Liber Nativitatum and Liber Abraham Iudei de Nativitatibus. Abraham Ibn Ezra’s Astrological Writings, Volume 6
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Edited by Shlomo Sela
Targum Song of Songs and Late Jewish Literary Aramaic
Language, Lexicon, Text, and Translation
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Andrew Litke
In
Targum Song of Songs and Late Jewish Literary Aramaic, Andrew W. Litke offers the first language analysis of Targum Song of Songs. The Targum utilizes grammatical and lexical features from different Aramaic dialects, as is the case with other Late Jewish Literary Aramaic (LJLA) texts. The study is laid out as a descriptive grammar and glossary, and in the analysis, each grammatical feature and lexical item is compared with the pre-modern Aramaic dialects and other exemplars of LJLA. By clearly laying out the linguistic character of this Targum in this manner, Litke is able to provide added clarity to our understanding of LJLA more broadly. Litke also provides a new transcription and translation of the Paris Héb. 110 manuscript.
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Linda M.A. Stone
Linda Stone’s analysis of the anti-Jewish polemic present in three closely-linked twelfth-century Psalms glosses brings a new source to the study of medieval Christian-Jewish relations. She reveals how its presence, within the
parva,
media and
magna glosses compiled respectively, by Anselm of Laon, Gilbert of Poitiers and Peter Lombard, illuminates the various societal challenges facing the twelfth-century Church. She shows that, rather than a twelfth-century phenomenon, using such anti-Jewish terminology in Christian Psalms exegesis was a long-standing reflection of Christianity’s ambivalence towards Judaism. Moreover, demonstrating how her analysis of anti-Jewish terminology unravelled the Psalm glosses’ textual relationships, she suggests that analysis of its presence in other glossed books of the Bible could offer a further resource for uncovering their complexities.
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Edited by Stanley E. Porter and Christopher D. Land
In
Paul and Scripture, an international group of scholars discuss a range of topics related to the Apostle Paul and his relationship(s) with Jewish Scripture. The essays represent a broad spectrum of viewpoints, with some devoted to methodological issues, others to general patterns in Paul’s uses of Scripture, and still others to specific letters or passages within the traditional Pauline canon (inclusive of the disputed letters). The end result is an overview of the various ways in which Paul the Apostle weaves into his writings the authority, content, and even wording of Jewish Scriptures.
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Barbara Baert
Interruptions and Transitions: Essays on the Senses in Medieval and Early Modern Visual Culture is an anthology of the most recent works by Barbara Baert, discussing the connection between the experiences of the senses in the medieval and early modern visual culture, the hermeneutics of imagery, and the limits and possibilities of contemporary Art Sciences.
The six chapters include Pentecost, Noli me tangere, the woman with an issue of blood, the Johannesschüssel, the dancing Salome, and the role of the wind.
The reader is shown a medieval and early modern visual culture as a history of artistic solutions, as the fascinating approach between biblical texts, plastic imagination, and the art-scientific métier. This makes him a privileged guest in a unique in-between space where humans and their artistic expression can meet existentially.
The six chapters include Pentecost, Noli me tangere, the woman with an issue of blood, the Johannesschüssel, the dancing Salome, and the role of the wind.
The reader is shown a medieval and early modern visual culture as a history of artistic solutions, as the fascinating approach between biblical texts, plastic imagination, and the art-scientific métier. This makes him a privileged guest in a unique in-between space where humans and their artistic expression can meet existentially.
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Hannah W. Matis
In
The Song of Songs in the Early Middle Ages, Hannah W. Matis examines how the Song of Songs, the collection of Hebrew love poetry, was understood in the Latin West as an allegory of Christ and the church. This reading of the biblical text was passed down via the patristic tradition, established by the Venerable Bede, and promoted by the chief architects of the Carolingian reform. Throughout the ninth century, the Song of Songs became a text that Carolingian churchmen used to think about the nature of Christ and to conceptualize their own roles and duties within the church. This study examines the many different ways that the Song of Songs was read within its early medieval historical context.
Jesus the Samaritan
Ethnic Labeling in the Gospel of John
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Stewart Penwell
In
Jesus the Samaritan: Ethnic Labelling in the Gospel of John, Stewart Penwell examines how ethnic labels function in the Gospel of John. After a review of the discourse history between “the Jews” and “Samaritans,” the dual ethnic labelling in John 4:9 and 8:48 are examined and, in each instance, members from “the Jews” and the “Samaritans” label Jesus as a member of each other’s group for deviating from what was deemed acceptable practices as a member of “the Jews.” The intra-textual links between John 4 and 8 reveals that the function of Jesus’s dual ethnic labelling is to establish a new pattern of practices and categories for the “children of God” (1:12; 11:52) who are a trans-ethnic group united in fictive-kinship and embedded within the Judean ethnic group’s cultural and traditions.
Scriptural Interpretation at the Interface between Education and Religion
In Memory of Hans Conzelmann
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Edited by Florian Wilk
Scriptural Interpretation at the Interface between Education and Religion examines prominent texts from Jewish, Christian, and Islamic communities with a view to determining to what extent education (
Bildung) represents the precondition, the central feature and/or the aim of the interpretation of 'Holy Scripture' in antiquity. In particular, consideration is given to the exegetical techniques, the hermeneutical convictions and the contexts of intercultural exchange which determine the process of interpretation. The volume contains a methodological reflection as well as investigations of scriptural interpretation in Jewish texts from the 2nd and 1st centuries B.C.E., in New Testament writings, and in witnesses from late ancient Christianity and in the Qur’an. Finally, it contains a critical appraisal of the scholarly oeuvre of Hans Conzelmann. This work thus fosters scholarly understanding of the function of scriptural interpretation at the interface between education and religion.
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Sean Durbin
In
Righteous Gentiles: Religion, Identity, and Myth in John Hagee’s Christians United for Israel, Sean Durbin offers a critical analysis of America’s largest Pro-Israel organization, Christians United for Israel, along with its critics and collaborators. Although many observers focus Christian Zionism’s influence on American foreign policy, or whether or not Christian Zionism is ‘truly’ religious,
Righteous Gentiles takes a different approach.
Through his creative and critical analysis of Christian Zionists’ rhetoric and mythmaking strategies, Durbin demonstrates how they represent their identities and political activities as authentically religious. At the same time, Durbin examines the role that Jews and the state of Israel have as vehicles or empty signifiers through which Christian Zionist truth claims are represented as manifestly real.
Through his creative and critical analysis of Christian Zionists’ rhetoric and mythmaking strategies, Durbin demonstrates how they represent their identities and political activities as authentically religious. At the same time, Durbin examines the role that Jews and the state of Israel have as vehicles or empty signifiers through which Christian Zionist truth claims are represented as manifestly real.
Maarten van Heemskerck’s Rome
Antiquity, Memory, and the Cult of Ruins
Arthur J. Di Furia
This book presents the first sustained study of the stunning drawings of Roman ruins by Haarlem artist Maarten van Heemskerck (1498–1574; in Rome, 1532–ca. 1537). In three parts, Arthur J. Di Furia describes Van Heemskerck’s pre-Roman training, his time in Rome, and his use his ruinscapes for the art he made during his forty-year post-Roman phase.
Building on the methods of his predecessors, Van Heemskerck mastered a dazzling array of methods to portray Rome in compelling fashion. Upon his return home, his Roman drawings sustained him for the duration of his prolific career. Maarten van Heemskerck’s Rome concludes with the first ever catalog to bring together all of Van Heemskerck’s ruin drawings in state-of-the-art digital photography.
Building on the methods of his predecessors, Van Heemskerck mastered a dazzling array of methods to portray Rome in compelling fashion. Upon his return home, his Roman drawings sustained him for the duration of his prolific career. Maarten van Heemskerck’s Rome concludes with the first ever catalog to bring together all of Van Heemskerck’s ruin drawings in state-of-the-art digital photography.