Elisha ben Abuya is one of the most intriguing figures in early rabbinic literature, consistently capturing the Jewish imagination as the arch-heretic, apostate, and great sinner. Because of the vague nature of the rabbinic sources relating to him, later generations, particularly in modern times, have been able to project upon him the visions of whatever they saw as either negative or ideal in the figure of the rebel apostate. This book systematically analyzes all sources referring to Elisha ben Abuya, and in so doing, confronts the difficulties of deriving reliable information from rabbinic...

Despite the rousing stories of male heroism in battles, the Trojan War transcended the activities of its human participants. For Homer, it was the gods who conducted and accounted for what happened. In the first part of this book, the authors find in Homer's Iliad material for exploring the everyday life of the Greek gods: what their bodies were made of and how they were nourished, the organization of their society, and the sort of life they led both in Olympus and in the human world. The gods are divided in their human nature: at once a fantasized model of infinite joys and an...