Jacob Neusner

Looks at the various religions in the United States and how they shape American life.

An Introduction

World Religions in America

"The Jerusalem Talmud," or "Yerushalmi," or "Talmud of the Land of Israel," is a commentary on the oral law (the Mishnah) of Israel that ties that oral law to the written law (the Torah, the Hebrew Scripture). Completed about 200 years prior to "The Babylonian Talmud (Bavli"), it records the first such compilation of Jewish scholarly thought. Jacob Neusner completed this monumental American translation and commentary of "The Jerusalem Talmud" in the last decade, but until now it has been expensive and difficult to obtain. Now all thirty-nine Yerushalmi tractates as translated by Professor Neusner and Tzvee Zahavy have been brought together in this CD-ROM. In addition to a preface and general introduction to the whole work, Professor Neusner has provided fresh and helpful introductions to each of the tractates. He has also provided within his translation the references to Bible verses alluded to in the "Yerushalmi." This electronic edition contains the full content of the translation, commentary on most of the tractates, and introductions to each. Enabling instantaneous searches by word or phrase, it has exceptional research capabilities--and opens swift avenues for exploration and discovery.

A Translation and Commentary

The Jerusalem Talmud

A Teaching Book

Invitation to the Talmud

Alan Avery-Peck

"The 27 contributions to this Companion and the selections in the associated Blackwell Reader in Judaism illustrate important points, with primary sources complementing the exposition. In this way, the editors talk about Judaism and let Judaism speak for itself. All the contributors, experts in their fields, address a broad audience, assuming an interest in the subject but no prior knowledge.

The Blackwell Companion to Judaism

[This book] introduces students to the major Western world religions - Judaism, Christianity, and Islam - their beliefs, key concepts, history, as well as the fundamental role they have played, and continue to play, in Western culture.-Back cover.

An Essential Guide

Rabbinic Literature

"Judaism and the Interpretation of Scripture is an indispensable tool for those seeking to understand the multiformity of interpretation used in the rabbinic midrash, a collection of commentary on the Hebrew Scriptures composed during the dynamic first six centuries of the Common Era. Because this magnificent work of ancient Jewish scholarship was composed using several methods of interpretation, it must be read with a thorough understanding of those methods. In this introduction to his translation and commentary, Jacob Neusner illustrates the hermeneutics used by the ancient rabbis by examining passages within their larger context. This is a valuable work for both beginners and scholars."--Jacket.

Introduction to the Rabbinic Midrash

Judaism and the Interpretation of Scripture

The Components of the Rabbinic Documents: Genesis Rabbah. pt. 1. Introduction and Genesis Rabbah chapters one through twenty-two. pt. 2. Chapters twenty-three through fifty. pt. 3. Chapters fifty-one through seventy-five. pt. 4. Chapters seventy-six through one hundred. pt. 5. A methodical and topical outline. Bereshit through Vaere. Chapters one through fifty-seven. pt. 6. A Methodical and topical outline. Hayye Sarah through Miqqes. Chapters fifty-eight through one hundred

This theological commentary to the Rabbinic Midrash explores a simple proposition, in three parts: I. The reading of Scripture by principal parts of the Rabbinic Midrash is formed by compositions and composites that are animated by a cogent theological system. II. These primary components of the Midrash-compilations, further, are in part aimed at systematic demonstrations of theorems of a theological character. III. While forming a principal part of a large theological structure and system, each document is unique.

A Theological Commentary to the Midrash: Genesis Rabbah

During the formative age of Judaism, rabbis endeavoured to describe the world as God had intended it to be, resulting in the "Halakhah," law, and "Aggadah," lore, which encompassed "Scripture." This volume provides five systematic accounts of the "Halakhah" and the "Aggadah."

Scripture, Halakhah, Aggadah

Judaism's Story of Creation

This collection of eight essays draws on a half-year of work, the second six months of 2009. Neusner takes up three problems in the history of Religions, four essays on fundamental issues in form-history and the documentary hypothesis of the Rabbinic canon, and one theological essay. The reason Neusner periodically collects and publishes essays and reviews is to give them a second life, after they have served as lectures or as summaries of monographs or as free-standing articles or as expositions of Judaism in collections of comparative religions. This re-presentation serves a readership to whom the initial presentation in lectures or specialized journals or short-run monographs is inaccessible. Some of the essays furthermore provide a précis, for colleagues in kindred fields, of fully worked out monographs, the comparative Midrash exercise, for example.

Fifth Series

Chapters in the Formative History of Judaism

This book expounds upon the Utopian vision of Rabbinic Judaism in its classical documents. Rabbinic Judaism carries forward, and itself forms, a massive Utopian enterprise, a design of an ideal condition for humanity. It carries forward the two matched Utopian projects of the Pentateuch_Eden, the Land of Israel_and on its own forms a system for an ideal social and metaphysical order. That is because the law of that Judaism set forth a plan for the construction of an ideal society in a perfect age. Over time, the Israelite community undertook to realize that plan in concrete ways: to build Utopia in the green and pleasant Land of Israel. So, normative Judaism assumes as its task to realize a Utopian vision. Its vision takes the form of law. Some of the law at the time of its presentation in the Mishnah in ca. 200 C.E. and successor documents of amplification could be realized. Some could not. But the whole of the law formed a statement of integrity. All the parts were essential to the system. By fulfilling the law, or Halakhah, the faithful Israelite would help realize in the here and now Utopia, an ideal world.

The Rabbinic Utopia

Classical Issues and Modern Perspectives

Understanding Jewish Theology

Reform, Orthodoxy, Conservatism, and Reconstructionism

Sectors of American Judaism

Edited by the acclaimed scholar Jacob Neusner, this thirty-five volume English translation of the Talmud Yerushalmi has been hailed by the Jewish Spectator as a "project...of immense benefit to students of rabbinic Judaism."

Yebamot

The Talmud of the Land of Israel, Volume 21

The history of Jews from the period of the Second Temple to the rise of Islam. From 'A History of the Mishnaic Law of Appointed Times, Part 1' This volume introduces the sources of Judaism in late antiquity to scholars in adjacent fields, such as the study of the Old and New Testaments, Ancient History, the ancient Near East, and the history of religion. In two volumes, leading American, Israeli, and European specialists in the history, literature, theology, and archaeology of Judaism offer factual answers to the two questions that the study of any religion in ancient times must raise. The first is, what are the sources -- written and in material culture -- that inform us about that religion? The second is, how have we to understand those sources in reconstructing the history of various Judaic systems in antiquity. The chapters set forth in simple statements, intelligible to non-specialists, the facts which the sources provide. Because of the nature of the subject and acute interest in it, the specialists also raise some questions particular to the study of Judaism, dealing with its historical relationship with nascent Christianity in New Testament times. The work forms the starting point for the study of all the principal questions concerning Judaism in late antiquity and sets forth the most current, critical results of scholarship.

A History of the Mishnaic Law of Purities, Volume 19: Tebul Yom and Yadayim

The history of Jews from the period of the Second Temple to the rise of Islam.

A History of the Mishnaic Law of Purities, Volume 7: Negaim. Sifra

Story as History in Ancient Judaism

Beyond Historicism, After Structuralism

First published in 1993, Israel and Zion in American Judaism: The Zionist Fulfillment is a collection of 24 essays exploring the concept of who or what is "Israel" following the establishment of the Jewish State in 1948 and the subsequent crisis of self-definition in American Jewry.

The Zionist Fulfillment

Israel and Zion in American Judaism

In this book Jacob Neusner analyzes the text of Sifra, a commentary on the book of Leviticus, arguing that Sifra should be understood as successfully relating the Mishnah, the authoritative writing down of the Oral Torah, to Jewish Scripture, or the written Torah. Neusner shows how Sifra's authors adopted a mediating position between the written Torah and the Mishnah, reconstructing large tracts of the Mishnah according to the logic and program of the written Torah of Leviticus.

Sifra and the Problem of the Mishnah

Uniting the Dual Torah

This is the second volume of a set of anthologies that sets forth the statements of the formative canon of influential Rabbinic Judaism on three large topics: the calendar, the life cycle, and theology. Focusing on the seminal period of normative Judaism, Jacob Neusner presents in three parts the teachings of Rabbinic Judaism in late antiquity, the first six centuries of the Common Era. The topical abstracts, which deal with the sacred calendar (volume one), events in the life cycle (volume two), and theological expositions (volume three), are presented in documentary sequence, from the Mishnah, ca. 200, through the Bavli or Talmud of Babylonia, ca. 600. This is the story told in abundant selections of Rabbinic classics of the age, the first centuries C.E., in which the two Talmuds and Midrash came to closure. Book jacket.

Jacob Neusner

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