The origins of the synagogue remain shrouded in mystery and its development in its early centuries is only slightly better understood. This book brings together over twenty essays from Israeli, British, and American scholars to explore the development of the ancient synagogue. Combining original articles with the best of earlier studies--including nine articles here translated from the Hebrew for the first time--this collection presents the fullest critical picture of the early synagogue and the scholarly discussions concerning it. The book focuses on two central questions. First, what were...

This volume deals with the three stories about the creation of man and woman in the Hebrew Bible (Genesis 1:26-27; 2:7; and 2:18-25) and with diverse interpretations of these narratives in Judaism and Christianity, particularly in ancient Jewish and Christian texts: Old Testament Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha, Philo, the apostle Paul, Patristic, Rabbinic, and Gnostic texts. Other chapters are devoted to John Milton's recreation of Eve and Adam, to a psycho-analytical reconsideration of the biblical creation stories, and to divine creation as a model for human creation in theatre and other art...

The central theme of the papers read at the conference about the Aqedah is the history of reception of Genesis 22: The Sacrifice of Isaac.
After observations related to the biblical text and human sacrifice in Ancient Israel, the sacrifice of Iphigeneia is studied, followed by papers about the reception of the Aqedah in Qumran, in Jubilees, in Rabbinical and in Christian Syriac traditions, finally in a recently published poem in the Bodmer papyri and in the Koran. Important contributions are made by the history of art. Two essays in this volume study the older iconography and the Aqedah...

This volume is devoted to the biblical stories about Eve's children, Cain, Abel, and Seth, and to the rewritings and explanations of these stories in a variety of early Jewish and Christian sources (Old Testament Apocrypha, Philo of Alexandria, Targumim, the New Testament, Rabbinic and Kabbalistic texts, Christian-Gnostic and Patristic Literature). Attention is given also to post-biblical stories speaking about Eve's daughters and to traditions in which Cain is viewed as the son of the Devil. Three essays examine how the biblical stories were re-used and evaluated in modern fiction, from...

The fall of the angels is one of the biblical narratives which, above all in the history of the bible's reception, have developed an extraordinary effect: In the biblical canon they appear just as hints (Gen. 6; Isaiah 14; Apocalypse 12). Little concern for the text as well as a tradition and reception not covered by the canon makes the narrative grow and change considerably, as well as freely negotiate in the popular media of iconography, liturgy and theatre. As a completed narrative the fall of the angels appears only in the literature of the apocalyptic movement. The so-called Henoch...

This volume is devoted to the receptions of and reflections on the story of Sodom and Gomorrah as told in Genesis 18 and 19. Two articles discuss intertextual reactions to the Sodom narrative within the Hebrew Bible. Five contributions examine readings and rewritings of the Sodom narrative in early Jewish, Christian and Islamic writings: Jubilees, the Dead Sea Scrolls, the New Testament (Revelation 11), Targumim and early Koran commentaries. Two articles focus on separate themes, the punishment of the Dead Sea and the prohibition on looking back. Finally, two articles that focus on Peter...