This volume contains a critical edition of the Arabic translation and commentary on the Abraham narratives in the Book of Genesis (chs. 11-25) by the most prominent and prolific commentator of the Karaite "Golden Age," Yefet ben ʻEli ha-Levi (10-11 C.E.). Yefet's interpretation of the Abraham cycle establishes him as a highly original commentator and provides new insights into the history of exegesis of the book of Genesis. The edition is preceded by a comprehensive study of Yefet's hermeneutic approach in comparison to that of other medieval commentators. Among the subjects discussed...

This book consists of a previously unidentified corpus of literature that contains an edition of eighty-four testimonies of the sixteenth-century responsa. An overview of the responsa literature in the relevant context and aspects of Ottoman Jewish life are discussed. The author describes the merit of the Judeo-Spanish testimonies in terms of the insight they offer into the society, economy, religion and responsa literature of sixteenth-century Ottoman Jewry. The study of these texts from a linguistic perspective constitutes the main aim of the book yet the result is a valuable and intriguing...

This volume offers the first critical edition of the Hebrew text, with English translation and commentary, of seven astrological treatises by Abraham Ibn Ezra: the Book of Elections (3 versions); the Book of Interrogations (3 versions); and the Book of the Luminaries. This volume, then, covers the astrological doctrine of elections, which is concerned with finding the best time to begin a particular activity; the doctrine of interrogations, designed to allow astrologers to reply to questions related to daily life; and the astrological theory behind the doctrine of the...

Notwithstanding its early origins and its importance for the history of Hebrew linguistics, the Karaite grammatical tradition has received insufficient scholarly attention, mainly due to the scarcity of reconstructed primary sources emanating from this school of Hebrew grammar. This book reconstructs from unpublished manuscripts a medieval Karaite treatise on the grammar of Biblical Hebrew in Judaeo-Arabic Kitāb al-ʿUqūd fī Taṣārīf al-Luġa al-ʿIbrāniyya and studies verbal morphological theories expressed in this and related Karaite works....

Studying responsa fragments from the Cairo Genizah, one travels through a virtual time machine of Jewish history, discovering the rich facets of private and public Jewish medieval life. From the cradle to the coffin, responsa regulate domestic affairs and reflect all manner of human merits, convictions and flaws. Many responsa contain real-life accounts of household intrigue, infidelity, solemn oaths, and sibling rivalry. Seride Teshuvot is a descriptive catalogue of responsa fragments from the Jacques Mosseri Genizah Collection at Cambridge University Library. This book includes...

The Hebrew Bible in Fifteenth-Century Spain: Exegesis, Literature, Philosophy, and the Arts investigates the relationship between the Bible and the cultural production of Iberian societies between the anti-Jewish riots of 1391 and the Expulsion of 1492. During this turbulent and transformative period, the Bible intersected with virtually all aspects of late medieval Iberian culture: its languages of expression, its material and artistic production, and its intellectual output in literary, philosophical, exegetic, and polemical spheres. The articles in this cross-cultural and...

The Genizah Psalms (MS 798 of the Antonin Collection) is a Hebrew document of messianic character, apparently presenting itself as the work of David. It is taken by some to date to the time of the second temple, and to be approximately contemporary with some of the literature of Qumran, while others regard it as a medieval composition. From the point of view of a classical hebraist, David M. Stec explores how this text relates to classical Hebrew literature as a whole and considers how viable it is to regard it as a genuine constituent of that body of literature. He presents an edition...

The Economic History of European Jews attempts to make sense of the economic foundations of Jewish life in the different parts of late antique and early medieval Europe. In the first part Michael Toch describes the demographic arc, decline, subsequent rise, and spatial distribution of Jewish populations. This data is then broadened to include the range of economic activities. The second part analyses the actual share of Jews in different branches of the economy. This includes the idea of their pioneer role and the notion of an intercontinental network of Jewish commerce, the phenomenon...