This volume contains articles by Martha Himmelfarb on topics in Second Temple Judaism and the development and reception of Second Temple traditions in late antiquity and the Middle Ages. The section on Priests, Temples, and Torah addresses the themes of its title in texts from the Bible to the Mishnah. Purity in the Dead Sea Scrolls contains articles analyzing the intensification of the biblical purity laws, particularly the laws for genital discharge, in the major legal documents from the Scrolls. In Judaism and Hellenism the author explores the relationship between these two ancient...

The contributors to this book analyze how the redactors of the Talmud transformed and reworked earlier aggadic (non-legal) traditions. Critical study of the Babylonian Talmud is founded on the distinction between two literary strata: traditions attributed to named sages (the Amoraim, c. 200-450 CE) and setam hatalmud, the unattributed or anonymous material. The conclusion of modern scholars is that the anonymous stratum postdates the Amoraic stratum and should be attributed to the Talmudic redactors, also known as Stammaim (c. 450-700 CE.) The contribution of the Stammaim to the aggadic...

Ra'anan S. Boustan traces the historical emergence of the specific form of 'mystical' discourse found in Heikhalot Rabbati . He argues that the creators of Heikhalot Rabbati sought to fashion a myth of origins for their distinctive brand of heavenly ascent practice by radically reworking the narrative framework of the widely disseminated post-talmudic martyrology The Story of the Ten Martyrs . Heikhalot Rabbati not only renders redundant the notion of atoning self-sacrifice that is central to the martyrology, but also ascribes to the Heikhalot visionary the intercessory function of the martyr...

This volume is the first study of the Aramaic Dead Sea New Jerusalem text conducted in light of the complete extent of the preserved manuscript copies and with full reference to previous reconstructions. In addition to presenting an edition of the Cave Four copies (4Q554, 4Q554a, 4Q555), Lorenzo DiTommaso discusses the genre of the NJ, the order of its material, and its antecedents and parallels in ancient urban design. He suggests that its New Jerusalem is not a heavenly city and that categories of earthly and heavenly Jerusalems perhaps impose an inappropriate taxonomy on the various...

Subdivided into three segments (Hebrew Bible, Greek Bible, Qumran), this updated and revised collection of essays represents the work of Emanuel Tov in the past seventeen years. He focuses on various aspects of the textual analysis of the Hebrew and Greek Bible, as well as the Qumran biblical manuscripts in Hebrew and Greek. Further he takes a special interest in the orthography of biblical manuscripts, the nature of the early Masoretic Text, the nature of the Qumran biblical texts and their importance for our understanding of the history of the biblical text, the editions of the Hebrew...

English summary: Die Erforschung des Bar Kokhba-Aufstandes, des zweiten grossen Krieges der Juden Palastinas gegen Rom (132-135 n.Chr.), hat in den letzten zehn Jahren gewaltige Fortschritte gemacht, nicht zuletzt dank neuer archaologischer Funde. Der Band geht auf eine Konferenz an der Universitat Princeton im November 2001 zuruck, bei der die international fuhrenden Erforscher der Bar Kokhba-Periode ihre neuesten Arbeitsergebnisse vorlegten. Er bietet somit den aktuellen Diskussionsstand uber den Aufstand selbst (Vorgeschichte, Grunde, Verlauf) sowie uber seine Nachwirkungen fur die weitere...