In this volume, Douglas Yoder uses the tools of modern and postmodern philosophy and biblical criticism to elucidate the epistemology of the Tanakh, the collection of writings that comprise the Hebrew Bible. Despite the conceptual sophistication of the Tanakh, its epistemology has been overlooked in both religious and secular hermeneutics. The concept of revelation, the genre of apocalypse, and critiques of ideology and theory are all found within or derive from epistemic texts of the Tanakh. Yoder examines (...) how philosophers such as Spinoza, Hume, and Kant interacted with such matters. He also explores how the motifs of writing, reading, interpretation, image, and animals, topics that figure prominently in the work of Derrida, Foucault, and Nietzsche, appear also in the Tanakh. An understanding of Tanakh epistemology, he concludes, can lead to new appraisals of religious and secular life throughout the modern world. (shrink)

Sacred Tropes: Tanakh, New Testament, and Qurʾan as Literature and Culture. Edited by Roberta Sterman Sabbath. Biblical Interpretation Series, vol. 98. Leiden: Brill, 2010. Pp. xxii + 534. $241.

ALL THE MORE, by Avi Sion, Ph.D., comprises a merged list of 72 qal vachomer arguments in the Tanakh, i.e. of a fortiori arguments in the Hebrew Bible. This listing brings together lists proposed in past rabbinic literature and in more recent studies by the author. The literature research for it was carried out mainly by R. Yaakov Gabay, who looked into works in Hebrew by five rabbis who had proposed lists, namely: R. Shmuel Yaffe Ashkenazi (Yefeh Toar, 1597), (...) R. Zvi Hirsch Katzenellenbogen (Netivot Olam, 1822), R. Zeev Wolf Einhorn (Midrash Tannaim, 1839), R. Mattityahu Strashun (Mattat Yah, 1892), R. Chaim Hirschensohn (Berure HaMidot, 1928). The author of the present essay brought additional information from the Tanakh commentary of R. Shlomo Yitzchaki (Rashi, 11th Cent.) and an essay by R. Louis Jacobs (2005), as well as from his own past works (Judaic Logic, 1995, and A Fortiori Logic, 2013). The information thus gathered is here presented in a systematic manner, after careful evaluation by the author of each case with reference to narrative context, language used, and logical form. Efforts are made to identify which cases were known to each of the past authors, and to determine who found each case first and whether subsequent listings of the case (if any) were independent or derivative. (shrink)

Karaim is a severely endangered language belonging to the Turkic language family and its only surviving dialect is Northwest Karaim with speakers in Lithuania and Poland. In the past few years numerous Karaim translations of the Bible have been discovered. Some of these are among the oldest texts written in this language. The authors present some of the oldest Karaim texts known today as well as recently discovered Karaim translations of the entire Tanakh. It is shown how these recent (...) research results have broadened our knowledge regarding the Karaim written heritage. Furthermore, some preliminary conclusions are drawn on the relationships among the manuscripts and the biographies of the copyists and translators involved in their creation. Textual similarities between sources created separately in communities located far from one another in the regions of Crimea, Lithuania, Volhynia, and Galicia suggest that a common Karaim tradition of Bible translation must once have existed. Moreover, the textual complexity and the use of sophisticated translation techniques in the oldest known texts support the claim that they were based on older texts or on a well-established oral tradition of translation. (shrink)

The phenomenon of fallacy is directly related to the nature of the person himself and the environment in which he lives. Knowing in which situations and how people are wrong will greatly prevent them from making Fallacies. For this reason, one of the most important aims of religions is to bring their followers to the happiness in this world and the hereafter, to determine the Fallacies that people may fall into beforehand and to reveal their reasons and solutions. The religions (...) of Judaism, Christianity and Islam are basically divinely based religions based on oneness (tawḥīd). However, Judaism and Christianity have been distorted for various reasons and have come out of the creed of oneness. One of the main reasons for their distancing from this primary source is that they make Fallacies on many issues, insist on this and do not take the necessary studies for a realistic solution. Because it is not possible to eliminate the fallacy without identifying the causes and finding solutions. The human being in communication and interaction with the beings around him establishes connections with them and makes decisions by reaching some conclusions. Disturbances in these connections, which are based on previous knowledge and experience, may cause fallacies in humans. Since the Tanakh and the Bible are sacred texts with distortion dimensions, the connections established with these sources may lead people to false beliefs on some issues instead of saving them from their Fallacies. The biggest mistake of the People of the Book, which is also the source of others, is that they see themselves not as servants of Allah but as their sons, adopted sons and especially friends. This situation led them to the distortions that they are exempt from certain orders and prohibitions and that they will be treated with privilege on the day of reckoning, or only they can enter the Paradise or they will stay in Hell for a limited number of days. Unfortunately, one of the reasons that lead them to think like this is the statements about themselves in the holy books they distorted. However, the Qurʾān has clearly revealed that their belief that they will be punished for a short time in Hell is a mistake and the truth is not as they claim. One of the most important issues of the Christian faith is the belief in the Trinity, which is the subject of constant debate both in the Christian world and in the Islamic world. Christians' excessive love for Jesus led them to the mistake of seeing Jesus as a divine being sent to save people from original sin, by not assuming him a human being. These thoughts of theirs were rejected in many verses of the Qurʾān and it is emphasized that Jesus is the servant and messenger of Allah. Another important mistake of the People of the Book is claiming that they were descended from Prophet Abraham and claiming the supremacy of lineage and therefore they did not accept the invitation of the Prophet Mohammed. In our study, we have discussed some basic distortions in the light of the Qurʾān, such as thinking that they are the beloved servants of Allah, ascribing deity to other than Allah, saying that Allah is not generous and that Paradise belongs to them what the people of the Book have fallen into while distorting their religion. From this point of view, first of all, we tried to determine the factors that affect Jews and Christians to fall into distortion that is to make wrong decisions that may result in disaster both worldly and otherworldly. Next, we examined how these factors, which we determined, affect the decision-making process and voluntary behaviors of people. Finally, we tried to determine the distortions that the Qurʾān deals with and the solutions it offers to eliminate these distortions in terms of the People of the Book. Although the Qurʾān and tafsīr (exegesis of the Qurʾān) sources constitute the main axis of our study, we also benefited from the sources of science such as psychology, sociology and morality. Unfortunately, it is seen that the People of the Book do not accept the distortion despite all the evidences, they still continue to feel superiority and choice both in terms of material and lineage, which leads them to distortions, and they act according to their old beliefs and behaviors. In addition, the fact that some Muslims in the past and today are led to these distortions is an indicator of how important the issue is. (shrink)

sefer ḳeṭan ha-kamut ṿe-rav ha-eikhut kolel ʻinyene musar ṿe-hadrakhah be-ʻavodat ha-shem yitbarakh ṿe-hanhagot ṭovot...be-tosefet tsiyune marʼeh meḳomot mi-tanakh ume-ḥazal.

The idea of 'holiness' is central to religion, but it is also one of the hardest concepts to define. Is 'holiness' a synonym for Godliness, one of God's attributes, or does it have independent existence? What does it mean to say that both God and man are holy? What is the proper understanding of 'Be holy, because I the Lord your God am holy'? A Theology of Holiness analyzes the meaning of the Hebrew root k-d-sh from ancient sources, throughout (...) class='Hi'>Tanakh, the Talmud, Rashi, Maimonides, Nachmanides, Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch, and Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik. Ultimately, it is a work of theology, and helps the reader achieve a deeper understanding of holiness"--Page 4 of cover. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Wisdom Calls: The Moral Story of the Hebrew Bible by Paul LewisTherese LysaughtWisdom Calls: The Moral Story of the Hebrew Bible Paul Lewis MACON, GA: NURTURING FAITH, 2017. 99 pp. $18.00Paul Lewis invites us into a thought experiment: What can we discern about moral development from a "naive" reading of the Hebrew Scriptures as narrative, starting at Genesis and working our way through to Chronicles? If we remove (...) our presuppositions and eisegesis, ossified through centuries of familiarity, and read the stories at face value, what can we discern about character, virtue, and moral development via the human protagonists as well as God? In this book aimed at undergraduates and faith-seeking adults, Lewis provides an accessible introduction to both scripture and ethics, as well as a creative endeavor at the interface.Using an eclectic hermeneutical approach, Lewis offers a fresh reading of the Hebrew Scriptures. Fundamental to his thesis are two points. First, even though the Hebrew Scriptures are made up of a variety of texts in different genres written by different authors over almost a millennium, at some point, they were collated into the canonical, three-part sequence (Law, Prophets, and Writings—the Tanakh, TNK) by redactors who shaped the collection with a particular directionality. Pivotal to this process was the Babylonian Exile, which Lewis considers a crucial lens for reading a narrative arc across the collection. Second, he reminds Christian readers that the structure and sequence of texts in the Christian "Old Testament" differs from that of the Jewish TNK. As a result, "TNK and Old Testament, by the way they order the documents that make them up, thus tell different stories" (9).Lewis walks the reader through a series of ordered reflections on the three main sections of the Hebrew Scriptures. From Genesis to Chronicles, he charts a shift toward increasing moral complexity, finding in this narrative "a story of moral development" that begins with the need for and establishment of rules or laws (Torah—chap. 2), moves to the discernment of principles at the heart of the laws (Prophets—chap. 3), and culminates with a vision of wisdom captured in the multifaceted and sometimes conflicting texts in the Writings (chap. 4), complete with a controversial yet intriguing interpretation of Job. Wisdom, in his reading of these texts, is the practical skill needed to interpret the laws, rules, and principles of the tradition with the nuance necessary for the ever-changing sociocultural context of the "hard, cruel world" in which the Jews of ancient Palestine found themselves. [End Page 204]The book culminates with chapter 5, titled "Wisdom Calls," where he brings the multilayered Wisdom tradition (chochmah, in Hebrew) into conversation with the Aristotelian tradition of virtue and practical wisdom (phronesis), finding the analog for Aristotle's endpoint of eudaimonia in the Hebraic vision of shalom. Shalom is "the goal toward which wisdom strives and the good that it seeks to achieve" (p. 73). In a short appendix, he also brings chochmah into conversation with contemporary developments in the moral psychology of wisdom, drawing on the work of Darcia Narvaez and scholars at the Max Planck Institute, among others.Lewis's reading brings the Hebrew Scriptures alive, reminding us how wonderfully messy, interesting, and complicated its characters and stories are. By way of critique, one might ask: Can one read a scriptural text too naively? At points, this reader wished for a bit more historical-critical interpretation as a way of enhancing the conclusions being drawn. Integration of the material on the moral psychology of wisdom into the final chapter, rather than as an appendix, would also have been welcome. In the end, Wisdom Calls provides an engaging starting point for students and congregations.Therese LysaughtLoyola University ChicagoCopyright © 2018 Society of Christian Ethics... (shrink)

Suffering is a universal human phenomenon. In a time when religious differences are evident and often fuel conflict, shared narratives may provide common ground in which true understanding may take root. This paper will consider the problem of suffering and address how adherents of the three great monotheistic traditions seek understanding, comfort, and the believer’s appropriate response from the same story found within their respective sacred texts: the story of Job, the servant of Yahweh in the Tanakh/Old Testament of (...) Judaism and Christianity— known as Ayyub, prophet of Allah, in the Qur’an. The story of Job addresses more than the distribution of evil problem. At stake in the story is Job’s very relationship to his God. This paper will consider a few of the many Jewish, Christian, and Islamic insights from the ancient story, hopefully leading to mutual understanding and empathy. Keywords: suffering, Tanakh, Qur’an, Job, Ayyub. (shrink)

Martin (Mordechai) Buber was born in Vienna in 1878. He lived in Germany until 1933, then emigrated to Switzerland, and later to Palestine. After the Second World War, the philosopher condemned Arab-Jewish hostility and inhumane actions towards Palestinian Arabs. Buber died in 1965 in Jerusalem. The creative legacy of the philosopher is extremely popular in many countries. As a thinker, Buber combined many diverse interests and aspirations. He was a non-trivial sage-philosopher, a brilliant translator of the Tanakh, a researcher (...) of Hasidism, an outstanding educator and preacher, poet and writer. Buber's views are close to dialectical theology and existentialism. The central idea of Buber's philosophy is being as a dialogue between God and man, man and the world. Developing the concept of religious existentialism, the thinker significantly enriched philosophical anthropology. The insight expressed by him, rooted in the biblical tradition, is simple and majestic: a person's life is in dialogue with other people who are like him. This dialogue is creative and saving when it is carried out through the medium of God, his precepts about morality and love. It is in this dialogue that the vitality of God himself is revealed. Thus, Buber responded with all his creativity to the philosophical ideas of the XX century, to the ideas of "the death of God" and "the death of Man". (shrink)

The traditions about isrāʾīliyyāt that were seen almost in all the types of Islamic sciences appeared in the sources of tafsīr from early periods. These traditions that were generally used to explain the Qurʾān were seen problem and critisized by some exegetical specialists. Even though corresponding to a relative later period in the classical era, an approach was tried to put forward in view of the traditions about isrāʾīliyyāt. This methodological concern for isrāʾīliyyāt in classical period has increased and been (...) influential for many researchers from east and west to work on this issue in modern times. There has been reached to important results about the issues of the definition of isrāʾīliyyāt, the source of it, its spread in Islamic sciences, its aim of usage, the progress of these positive-negative attitudes against these traditions in historical process. But it is important to discuss some evaluations and analysis again that put forward in this process when different cases about the issue are taken into consideration. According to this, a series of problem, such as how the isrāʾīliyyāt can be defined in tafsīr, when the criticism of isrāʾīliyyāt started, whether Biqāʿī was the first exegete who made reference to Bible or not will be discussed considering relevant resources in this article.Summary: Since the early periods, isrā’īliyyāt narratives were used as a source of information in tafsīrs. These narratives, which are transmitted in various tafsīrs of the Qur’ān, one of the main sources of Islamic religion, have also taken the methodological interests of some exegete since the early periods. This interest continued in the modern period, and both Western and Eastern researchers made research on isrā’īliyyāt. Some of the findings, analyses, and claims available in researches on this subject will be reexamined in this article. The first of these is the problem of the definition of isrā’īliyyāt. In contemporary research, inclusive definitions are made for isrā’īliyyāt, seen in all sources. These definitions do not allow for a refined description of isrā’īliyyāt which is handled in terms of different intentions in the sources of each different field and which varies in terms of the issues it covers, leading to the underestimation of some of its aspects in relevant fields. In the definitions, it is stated that isrā’īliyyāt is mostly learned from the Ahl al-Kitāb, (the People of the Book) it became widespread along with Islām and it included narratives about caliphs, dynasties, and Mahdī, as well. Another issue is to be emphasized that they are fictive or mythological. In classical tafsīrs, isrā’īliyyāt is observed to be related mainly with the history of the Ahl al-Kitāb or with the subjects they know about. In the modern era, the narratives about the ancestors of the Arabs have been identified as isrā’īliyyāt. If some of the isrā’īliyyāt narratives are related to the history of Arabs, then their resource should be the historical-cultural memory of Arabs. However, as almost all Qur’ānic stories were somewhat known before the revelation period and relations with the Ahl al-Kitāb dated back to times long before the Islamic period, the claim that these narratives became widespread along with Islām should be revised. It is also problematic to emphasize the legendary nature of some of the isrā’īliyyāt and to make that as a reason to reject all. Such emphasis also leads to the underestimation of the functions of narratives in tafsīrs. In isrā’īliyyāt, tafsīr was used for i) interpreting the ambiguous words in the stories, ii) to bring evidence to the Ahl al-Kitāb, and ii) tarhīb-targhīb (encouragement-warning). These narratives can be used as a source in tafsīr unless they are explicitly falsified by the data of fields such as history, history of religions and archaeology as well as the Qur’ān and the true Sunnah. The first criticisms of isrā’īliyyāt are claimed to belong to exegete like Ibn al-‘Arabī (d. 543/148) or Ibn ‘Aṭīyah (d. 541/1147). However, criticism of isrā’īliyyāt is also observed in the tafsīrs of earlier exegete, such as al-Māturīdī (d. 333/944), al-Māwardī (d. 450/1058) or al-Ṭūsī (d. 460/1067). They do not necessarily have to use the term isrā’īliyyāt explicitly in their criticism like the later ones. If the narratives they criticize and the reasons for their criticism are the same as those of the later exegete, it will be necessary to date the criticism of isrā’īliyyāt back to the 4th Century of the Hegira. The understanding that "the expression in the story is sufficient, it is unnecessary to deal with the ambiguities; instead, it is necessary to deal with the lesson and wisdom in the story" is one of the criteria that Muḥammad ‘Abduh (d. 1905), who is deemed to be the pioneer of the strict criticism of isrā’īliyyāt in the modern period, took as basis in this criticism, is valid for the exegete of the classical period, as well. Although exegete, such as al-Ṭabarī (d. 310/923), al-Māturīdī, al-Rāzī (d. 606/1210), and Abū Ḥayyān (d. 745/1344) who had this understanding, gave place to isrā’īliyyāt, these people recognized that "these narratives were not final, binding or necessary”, indeed. The understanding that such expression in the story is sufficient, which is one of the reasons for such awareness in the classical period, seems to have turned into a strict rejection in the modern period. Another issue is the claim that Biqā‘ī (d. 885/1480) was the first exegete to systematically benefit from the Bible in tafsīr in the classical period. However, al-Daylamī (d. 593/1197) before Biqā‘ī, is also observed to have used the Old Testament systematically in tafsīr. He cited the Tanakh in his period in two ways. He either directly quoted from the translation of Tanakh or the Hebrew text written in Arabic letters. Another exegete who used the Tanakh as a source in his tafsīr was al-Ṣafadī (d. 696/1296). He enriched his tafsīr with systematic quotations from the Tanakh. Therefore, the use of the Bible as a source of interpretation in the classical period should not be started with Biqā‘ī. The reason why the pioneer exegete of the classical period did not directly use the Bible is claimed to be the fact that they falsified it and deemed the isrā’īliyyāt narrated from the predecessors to be more reliable. However, it is known that a significant portion of the isrā’īliyyāt, which was orally transferred from the predecessors, is based on written sources, particularly including the apocryphal texts. So just like the Bible, isrā’īliyyāt, which was orally transferred from the predecessors, is problematic in terms of authenticity. This allows us to argue that classical exegete have an inconsistent attitude, indeed. On the other hand, when we take into account the fact that classical exegetes criticize these narratives from time to time and believe that they are not final or binding, the problem of potential inconsistency disappears. Accordingly, they did not deem chain transmission of these narratives from the predecessors by reliable transmitters to be a sufficient reason for their acceptance and adoption for good and all. (shrink)

In contemporary Anglo-American philosophy, there has been substantial debate between religious and secular theorists about what would make life meaningful, with a large majority of the religious philosophers having drawn on Christianity. In this article, in contrast, I draw on Judaism, with the aims of articulating characteristically Jewish approaches to life's meaning, which is a kind of intellectual history, and of providing some support for them relative to familiar Christian and Islamic approaches (salient in the Tanakh, the New Testament, (...) and the Qur’an), which is more philosophical. Sometimes I point out that dominant views in contemporary philosophy favor a Jewish approach to meaning relative to rivals, e.g., insofar as Judaism contends that a merely earthly life can be meaningful. Other times I suggest that Judaism provides reason to doubt dominant views in recent analytic philosophy, e.g., to the extent that the former posits a people, not merely a person, as a bearer of meaning. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Did God Deprive Pharaoh of Free Will?Don LeviWhen Pharaoh was reeling from certain later plagues he agreed to free the Israelites. But each time after the plague stopped, God stiffened Pharaoh's heart, and he refused to let them go. Since it was God who did it, Pharaoh had to refuse to release the Israelites; he could not have let them go. So, he was deprived of free will by (...) God.In this article I question this reasoning. I question whether we can conclude from the fact that God did it that Pharaoh could not release them; and from the fact that Pharaoh could not release them, that he did not have free will. I also question whether it is possible to understand what the free will is that God is supposed to have given to all of us and taken from Pharaoh.IThe Exodus is the story of how the Israelites escaped from slavery and constituted themselves as a people. "I am the Lord your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt, the house of bondage" (Exodus 20.2).1 This is how God introduces the Ten Commandments: He is the One who led the Israelites out of Egypt; they are the people whom He freed.The stiffening motif underscores how much more powerful God is than Pharaoh. God tells Moses that Pharaoh will let the Israelites go "only because of a greater might" (3.19), and Pharaoh, replies: "Who is the Lord that I should heed Him and let Israel go?" (5.2). That God is by far the more powerful is underscored by having God say that He will "stiffen Pharaoh's heart so that he will not let the people go" (4.21), and by having Him do so, in the cases of several later plagues. After [End Page 58] each plague Pharaoh agrees to release them, only to change his mind when the plague lifted (or, in the case of the final one, when he has released the Israelites), either because he or God stiffened his heart. The disastrous consequences of these reversals reveal him to be concerned with his status as a god-king rather than with the welfare of his people. The motif is part of the developing argument in the Tanakh for a state ruled, not by a Pharaoh or king, but by God and His laws, as transmitted by His prophet, Moses.The problem of whether God deprived Pharaoh of free will by stiffening his heart is a version of the Problem of Evil, albeit with a focus on what God did, not what He did not do. And this focus on God's apparent misbehavior is not an isolated phenomenon. As Kaufman points out, "The Bible ascribes to God actions that, to our way of thinking, lack moral grounds, or even run counter to our moral sense. Indeed, at times they seem to reflect a ruthless, capricious, demonic being."2 To make God more powerful than Pharaoh the text seems to make God too much like Pharaoh.A different understanding of the story arises if we think of the Israelites as its audience, and if we remind ourselves that it is a stage in their developing relationship with God. As Kaufman explains it, the things said about God in the Exodus story as well as elsewhere "express in their own way boundless adoration and reverence of the One" (Religion, p. 75). Later, the Israelites may find different ways of expressing that adoration and reverence. However, what Kaufman is saying is that by making God's behavior towards Pharaoh seem supramoral and demonic, the Torah really is finding a way to express its awe of Him.Nevertheless, in what follows we will try to understand the text as telling us about God, independently of that developing relationship. We will confine our attention to the question of how God's actions deprived Pharaoh of free will. Is that what stiffening someone's heart does; or is it the fact that God did the stiffening? What is interesting is that those who have tried to offer solutions to the problem do not try to answer these questions... (shrink)

In the polemical literature against Judaism, it is stated that Islam is the last religion, Prophet Muhammad was foretold in the Bible, and the Bible is distorted. Among the authors of such works, there are many who embraced Islam from Jews and Christians. Through their works, these converts show Muslims how serious they are in embracing Islam. In this article, the treatise under the evaluation was first brought to the agenda in 1867 by Gustav Flügel (d. 1870). Flügel claimed that (...) the author of the treatise was a Spanish or Moroccan convert Jew named Rakili. However, recent researches have revealed that Rakili is the name of the copyist and the author is an unknown Jew. Due to the Hebrew words in the text of the treatise, the author is thought to be a Jewish convert. The author of the treatise makes use of intensive quotations from Tanakh. However, it seems that the criticism of the treatise is not as strong as Ibn Hazm. The author also quotes from the Jewish oral tradition. Although the author is thought to be a Jewish convert, it is difficult to say that there is a very strong polemic of Judaism. Rather than showing that the Torah has been tampered with, using the passages of Tanakh, he wants to demonstrate that the Israelites went astray. In doing so, he tries to refute the Jewish claim of chosenness. Instead of stating that the Jews were not at the point of religious representation of God’s message, the author claims that Muhammad's followers were the addressees of this election. This method, which we occasionally encounter in other polemical treatises, appears as a much more intense and central agenda in this treatise. The most original aspect of this treatise at issue is the Ishmael-Isaac, Hagar-Sarah and Moses- Muhammad comparisons. The author insistently emphasizes that the chosen line is not the lineage of Isaac, but the lineage of Ishmael. As a natural consequence of this, he tries to prove that Muhammad is the greatest prophet to be obeyed and followed. What is interesting here is that the author, as a Jewish convert, tried to refute the idea of the chosennes of Jewish nation. According to him, there is an election not through Sarah and Isaac, but through Hagar and Ishmael. It is seen that those who have converted do such things both to prove their sincerity and to be accepted by Muslim administrators. The author’s glorifications of the Prophet Muhammad and his miracles by scorning Moses' miracles and Jewish ancestors can be described as an extreme attitude in this sense. The author also devotes a place to the subject of Biblical prophecies about the Prophet Muhammad. In this part, the author of the treatise stated that the gematria (abjad) value of some words in the Torah and the word Muhammad are equal. He claims that there are passages pointing to Muhammad. However, these passages are known in the polemical literature and are issues that were mentioned before the author. Apart from these widely known passages, there are some other passages he quoted. But these passages are also based on strained interpretations. Again, in some passages he quoted from Tanakh, it is seen that he was flexible and not loyal to the text. One of the points that the author dwells upon is the sins committed by the Israelites and the curses that were inflicted on them. The author of treatise supports this with passages different from Tanakh. Drawing attention to the fact that the Jews were cursed in their own books, which they consider sacred, the author tries to show that a nation so cursed cannot be a chosen people. The author, contrary to the Jews' expectation of the Messiah, points out that Jesus will come back, break the cross, kill the pig, and rule the earth. The writer, who reported the hadith that the Jews would be killed in the End Times, even reports that when the Jews hid behind the stones, the stones would say "There is a Jew behind me, come and kill". According to him, the time for Jews to repent has passed, because they could not take this opportunity by denying Muhammad either. The author has an interesting explanation as to why the hereafter and resurrection are not mentioned in the Torah. According to this claim, when God sent down the Torah to Moses, he ordered the Israelites to keep their orders and refrain from their prohibitions. Since God knows the hardness and stubbornness of the hearts of the Israelites, that most of them are devilish, engaged in magic and pagan cults, and prefer the world to the hereafter, he did not mention the issues such as heaven, hell, reward and punishment in the Torah. On the contrary, in many parts of the Torah, God said to them if you keep my orders, your sustenance will increase, your generation will increase, fertility will increase, and you will win victories over your enemies. (shrink)

Thinking in Translation posits the Hebrew Bible as the fulcrum of the thought of Franz Rosenzweig (1886-1929), underpinning a unique synthesis between systematic thinking and biblical interpretation. Addressing a lacuna in Rosenzweig scholarship, the book offers a critical evaluation of his engagement with the Bible through a comparative study of The Star of Redemption and his Bible translation with Martin Buber. The book opens with Rosenzweig's rejection of German Idealism and fascination with the sources of Judaism. It then analyzes the (...) unique hermeneutic approach he developed to philosophy and scripture as a symbiosis of critique and cross-fertilization, facilitated by translation. An analysis of the Star exposes Rosenzweig's employment of translation in grafting biblical verses unto the philosophical discussion. It is followed by a reading that demonstrates how his Bible translation reflects an attempt to re-valorize the Tanakh as a distinctively Jewish scripture, over and against Christian appropriations. Thinking in Translation recasts Rosenzweig's life's work as a project of melding Judaism and modernity in an attempt to secure their spiritual and intellectual survival. (shrink)

There is an understanding that it is impossible for the Creator to have a proper name-proper noun on the grounds that there is only one Creator of the universe and that is for all religions. Biblical facts record in the OT-Hebrew or Tanakh, there are 6750 names of YHWH which appear as proper noun. The problem arises when the world of translation does not agree in transcribing or translating the name of the Creator. In the world of translation, grammatically, (...) any proper noun, especially those with a personality, is always copied according to the sound of the letters that compose it, different from the commom noun (general designation) which can be translated according to the corresponding (local) vocabulary of the language concerned. The facts show that most of the translations “change” the name YHWH to become a general designation but are written in all capital letters to avoid collisions with the common designation that already exists and is the same, namely Adonay (God) or in successive designations such as Adonay YHWH. The next misconception is that the name YHWH is said to have been known only in the time of Moses based on Exodus. 6: 3 (2). Re-translate Exodus 6: 3 (2) accurately states that the name YHWH was known to Abraham-Isaac-Jacob, even their ancestors, preceding His introduction by the name El-Shadday. This research uses qualitative methods with literature review approaches, grammatical studies, exegesis, and analysis. (shrink)

Judaic Logic is an original inquiry into the forms of thought determining Jewish law and belief, from the impartial perspective of a logician. Judaic Logic attempts to honestly estimate the extent to which the logic employed within Judaism fits into the general norms, and whether it has any contributions to make to them. The author ranges far and wide in Jewish lore, finding clear evidence of both inductive and deductive reasoning in the Torah and other books of the Bible, and (...) analyzing the methodology of the Talmud and other Rabbinic literature by means of formal tools which make possible its objective evaluation with reference to scientific logic. The result is a highly innovative work – incisive and open, free of clichés or manipulation. Judaic Logic succeeds in translating vague and confusing interpretative principles and examples into formulas with the clarity and precision of Aristotelean syllogism. Among the positive outcomes, for logic in general, are a thorough listing, analysis and validation of the various forms of a-fortiori argument, as well as a clarification of dialectic logic. However, on the negative side, this demystification of Talmudic/Rabbinic modes of thought (hermeneutic and heuristic) reveals most of them to be, contrary to the boasts of orthodox commentators, far from deductive and certain. They are often, legitimately enough, inductive. But they are also often unnatural and arbitrary constructs, supported by unverifiable claims and fallacious techniques. Many other thought-processes, used but not noticed or discussed by the Rabbis, are identified in this treatise, and subjected to logical review. Various more or less explicit Rabbinic doctrines, which have logical significance, are also examined in it. In particular, this work includes a formal study of the ethical logic (deontology) found in Jewish law, to elicit both its universal aspects and its peculiarities. With regard to Biblical studies, one notable finding is an explicit formulation (which, however, the Rabbis failed to take note of and stress) of the principles of adduction in the Torah, written long before the acknowledgement of these principles in Western philosophy and their assimilation in a developed theory of knowledge. Another surprise is that, in contrast to Midrashic claims, the Tanakh (Jewish Bible) contains a lot more than ten instances of qal vachomer (a-fortiori) reasoning. In sum, Judaic Logic elucidates and evaluates the epistemological assumptions which have generated the Halakhah (Jewish religious jurisprudence) and allied doctrines. Traditional justifications, or rationalizations, concerning Judaic law and belief, are carefully dissected and weighed at the level of logical process and structure, without concern for content. This foundational approach, devoid of any critical or supportive bias, clears the way for a timely reassessment of orthodox Judaism (and incidentally, other religious systems, by means of analogies or contrasts). Judaic Logic ought, therefore, to be read by all Halakhists, as well as Bible and Talmud scholars and students; and also by everyone interested in the theory, practise and history of logic. (shrink)

This is an exploration of women’s tradition of hospitality, the epistemic and moral contribution of their practices of welcoming the other and their historical experience as providers of care. The essay claims that female hospitality has largely consisted of care for others, which challenges a social model based on individualism and self-sufficiency. The argument is rooted in ethnography and Jewish thought and reclaims the home as an ethical space. This text analyses two disturbing and painful stories from the Tanakh (...) that are both examples of the consequences of extreme or absolute hospitality and violence against women. The famous works of Jacques Derrida and Emmanuel Lévinas on hospitality as ethics and hospitality as the feminine are discussed vis-à-vis anthropological and feminist approaches to the connection between the female welcoming of the other and the ethics of care. Finally, the reflections of the members of Beit Midrash Arevot shed light on a traditionist feminism that develops an ethics and practice of hospitality as welcoming otherness. (shrink)

The article «The scriptures of Judaism» of Shepetyak O.M. analyzes and brief systematization of the spiritual literature of Judaism, to study ways of its formation and the role of the Jewish religious environment, considered the scriptures Tanakh, the Talmud, the Mishnah, Midrash, Halacha, and others, the ways of their origin and role in religious operating time of Judaism.