Burton L. Visotzky

"Hard to believe but true: - The Passover Seder is a Greco-Roman symposium banquet - The Talmud rabbis presented themselves as Stoic philosophers - Synagogue buildings were Roman basilicas - Hellenistic rhetoric professors educated sons of well-to-do Jews - Zeus-Helios is depicted in synagogue mosaics across ancient Israel - The Jewish courts were named after the Roman political institution, the Sanhedrin - In Israel there were synagogues where the prayers were recited in Greek. Historians have long debated the (re)birth of Judaism in the wake of the destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple cult by the Romans in 70 CE. What replaced that sacrificial cult was at once something new-indebted to the very culture of the Roman overlords-even as it also sought to preserve what little it could of the old Israelite religion. The Greco-Roman culture in which rabbinic Judaism grew in the first five centuries of the Common Era nurtured the development of Judaism as we still know and celebrate it today. Arguing that its transformation from a Jerusalem-centered cult to a world religion was made possible by the Roman Empire, Rabbi Burton Visotzky presents Judaism as a distinctly Roman religion. Full of fascinating detail from the daily life and culture of Jewish communities across the Hellenistic world, Aphrodite and the Rabbis will appeal to anyone interested in the development of Judaism, religion, history, art and architecture. "--

how the Jews adapted Roman culture to create Judaism as we know it

Aphrodite and the rabbis

"Midrash Mishle is a watershed in midrashic literature, for it marks the point at which broader forms of classical midrash on the Scriptures gave way to verse-by-verse commentary. It is unlike most earlier midrash in that it regularly pays attention to context, relates verses to each other, provides comments on apparently simple meanings of verses, and philologically considers the meaning of specific terms. At the same time, it resembles earlier midrash by considering narrative legends--offering, for example, fanciful versions of Solomon's meeting with the Queen of Sheba, the death of Moses, and Joseph's encounter with his brothers. It also alludes to medieval Jewish law and custom, anti-Karaite polemic, and rabbinic mysticism (with its esoteric speculations on such subjects as the measurements of God's body). Visotzky's volume illuminates all these subjects for the scholar and non-specialist alike in a prose translation that mirrors the style of the original Midrash Mishle text.

The Midrash on Proverbs

Michael Tilly

Judaism, the oldest of the Abrahamic religions, is one of the pillars of modern civilization. A collective of internationally renowned experts cooperated in a singular academic enterprise to portray Judaism from its transformation as a Temple cult to its broad contemporary varieties. In three volumes the long-running book series "Die Religionen der Menschheit" (Religions of Humanity) presents for the first time a complete and compelling view on Jewish life now and then - a fascinating portrait of the Jewish people with its ability to adapt itself to most different cultural settings, always maintaining its strong and unique identity. Volume II presents Jewish literature and thinking: the Jewish Bible; Hellenistic, Tannaitic, Amoraic and Gaonic literature to medieval and modern genres. Chapters on mysticism, Piyyut, Liturgy and Prayer complete the volume.

Literature

Judaism II

Judaism, the oldest of the Abrahamic religions, is one of the pillars of modern civilization. A collective of internationally renowned experts cooperated in a singular academic enterprise to portray Judaism from its transformation as a Temple cult to its broad contemporary varieties. In three volumes the long-running book series "Die Religionen der Menschheit" (Religions of Humanity) presents for the first time a complete and compelling view on Jewish life now and then - a fascinating portrait of the Jewish people with its ability to adapt itself to most different cultural settings, always maintaining its strong and unique identity. Volume III completes this ambitious project with profound chapters on Modern Jewish Culture, Halakhah (Jewish Law), Jewish Languages, Jewish Philosophy, Modern Jewish Literature, Feminism and Gender, and on Judaism and inter-faith relations.

Culture and Modernity

Judaism III

Burton Visotzky studies the 5th Century rabbinic anthology Midrash Leviticus Rabbah. He outlines the content of this text, its novel elements of style, structure and redation, and places it at a turning point in rabbinic literature in the Greco-Roman milieu.

Burton L. Visotzky

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