Rabbinic Narrative A Documentary Perspective Volume Two

Download Rabbinic Narrative A Documentary Perspective Volume Two full books in PDF, epub, and Kindle. Read online Rabbinic Narrative A Documentary Perspective Volume Two ebook anywhere anytime directly on your device. Fast Download speed and no annoying ads. We cannot guarantee that every ebooks is available!

Rabbinic Narrative: A Documentary Perspective, Volume Two

Author : Jacob Neusner
Publisher : BRILL
ISBN 13 : 9047402235
Total Pages : 268 pages
Book Rating : 4.0/5 (474 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Book Synopsis Rabbinic Narrative: A Documentary Perspective, Volume Two by : Jacob Neusner

Download or read book Rabbinic Narrative: A Documentary Perspective, Volume Two written by Jacob Neusner and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2003-07-01 with total page 268 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Each Rabbinic document, from the Mishnah through the Bavli, defines itself by a unique combination of indicative traits of rhetoric, topic, and particular logic that governs its coherent discourse. But narratives in the same canonical compilations do not conform to the documentary indicators that govern in these compilations, respectively. They form an anomaly for the documentary reading of the Rabbinic canon of the formative age. To remove that anomaly, this project classifies the types and forms of narratives and shows that particular documents exhibit distinctive preferences among those types. This detailed, systematic classification of Rabbinic narrative supplies these facts concerning the classification of narratives and their regularities: [1] what are the types and forms of narrative in a given document? [2] how are these distinctive types and forms of narrative distributed across the canonical documents of the formative age, the first six centuries C.E.? The answers for the documentary preferences are in Volumes One through Three, for the Mishnah-Tosefta, the Tannaite Midrash-compilations, and Rabbah-Midrash-compilations, respectively. Volume Four then sets forth the documentary history of each of the types of Rabbinic narrative, including the authentic narrative, the ma'aseh and the mashal. How the traits of the several types of narratives shift as the respective types move from document to document is spelled out in complete detail. This project opens an entirely new road toward the documentary analysis of Rabbinic narrative. It fills out an important chapter in the documentary hypothesis of the Rabbinic canon in the formative age.

Rabbinic Narrative: A Documentary Perspective, Volume Four

Author : Jacob Neusner
Publisher : BRILL
ISBN 13 : 9004493921
Total Pages : 304 pages
Book Rating : 4.0/5 (44 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Book Synopsis Rabbinic Narrative: A Documentary Perspective, Volume Four by : Jacob Neusner

Download or read book Rabbinic Narrative: A Documentary Perspective, Volume Four written by Jacob Neusner and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2021-11-22 with total page 304 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Each Rabbinic document, from the Mishnah through the Bavli, defines itself by a unique combination of indicative traits of rhetoric, topic, and particular logic that governs its coherent discourse. But narratives in the same canonical compilations do not conform to the documentary indicators that govern in these compilations, respectively. They form an anomaly for the documentary reading of the Rabbinic canon of the formative age. To remove that anomaly, this project classifies the types and forms of narratives and shows that particular documents exhibit distinctive preferences among those types. This detailed, systematic classification of Rabbinic narrative supplies these facts concerning the classification of narratives and their regularities: [1] what are the types and forms of narrative in a given document? [2] how are these distinctive types and forms of narrative distributed across the canonical documents of the formative age, the first six centuries C.E.? The answers for the documentary preferences are in Volumes One through Three, for the Mishnah-Tosefta, the Tannaite Midrash-compilations, and Rabbah-Midrash-compilations, respectively. Volume Four then sets forth the documentary history of each of the types of Rabbinic narrative, including the authentic narrative, the ma'aseh and the mashal. How the traits of the several types of narratives shift as the respective types move from document to document is spelled out in complete detail. This project opens an entirely new road toward the documentary analysis of Rabbinic narrative. It fills out an important chapter in the documentary hypothesis of the Rabbinic canon in the formative age.

Rabbinic Narrative: A Documentary Perspective, Volume Three

Author : Jacob Neusner
Publisher : BRILL
ISBN 13 : 9004494545
Total Pages : 354 pages
Book Rating : 4.0/5 (44 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Book Synopsis Rabbinic Narrative: A Documentary Perspective, Volume Three by : Jacob Neusner

Download or read book Rabbinic Narrative: A Documentary Perspective, Volume Three written by Jacob Neusner and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2021-11-22 with total page 354 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Each Rabbinic document, from the Mishnah through the Bavli, defines itself by a unique combination of indicative traits of rhetoric, topic, and particular logic that governs its coherent discourse. But narratives in the same canonical compilations do not conform to the documentary indicators that govern in these compilations, respectively. They form an anomaly for the documentary reading of the Rabbinic canon of the formative age. To remove that anomaly, this project classifies the types and forms of narratives and shows that particular documents exhibit distinctive preferences among those types. This detailed, systematic classification of Rabbinic narrative supplies these facts concerning the classification of narratives and their regularities: [1] what are the types and forms of narrative in a given document? [2] how are these distinctive types and forms of narrative distributed across the canonical documents of the formative age, the first six centuries C.E.? The answers for the documentary preferences are in Volumes One through Three, for the Mishnah-Tosefta, the Tannaite Midrash-compilations, and Rabbah-Midrash-compilations, respectively. Volume Four then sets forth the documentary history of each of the types of Rabbinic narrative, including the authentic narrative, the ma'aseh and the mashal. How the traits of the several types of narratives shift as the respective types move from document to document is spelled out in complete detail. This project opens an entirely new road toward the documentary analysis of Rabbinic narrative. It fills out an important chapter in the documentary hypothesis of the Rabbinic canon in the formative age.

Rabbinic Narrative: A Documentary Perspective, Volume One

Author : Jacob Neusner
Publisher : BRILL
ISBN 13 : 9047402200
Total Pages : 350 pages
Book Rating : 4.0/5 (474 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Book Synopsis Rabbinic Narrative: A Documentary Perspective, Volume One by : Jacob Neusner

Download or read book Rabbinic Narrative: A Documentary Perspective, Volume One written by Jacob Neusner and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2003-07-01 with total page 350 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Each Rabbinic document, from the Mishnah through the Bavli, defines itself by a unique combination of indicative traits of rhetoric, topic, and particular logic that governs its coherent discourse. But narratives in the same canonical compilations do not conform to the documentary indicators that govern in these compilations, respectively. They form an anomaly for the documentary reading of the Rabbinic canon of the formative age. To remove that anomaly, this project classifies the types and forms of narratives and shows that particular documents exhibit distinctive preferences among those types. This detailed, systematic classification of Rabbinic narrative supplies these facts concerning the classification of narratives and their regularities: [1] what are the types and forms of narrative in a given document? [2] how are these distinctive types and forms of narrative distributed across the canonical documents of the formative age, the first six centuries C.E.? The answers for the documentary preferences are in Volumes One through Three, for the Mishnah-Tosefta, the Tannaite Midrash-compilations, and Rabbah-Midrash-compilations, respectively. Volume Four then sets forth the documentary history of each of the types of Rabbinic narrative, including the authentic narrative, the ma'aseh and the mashal. How the traits of the several types of narratives shift as the respective types move from document to document is spelled out in complete detail. This project opens an entirely new road toward the documentary analysis of Rabbinic narrative. It fills out an important chapter in the documentary hypothesis of the Rabbinic canon in the formative age.

The Documentary History of Judaism and Its Recent Interpreters

Author : Jacob Neusner
Publisher : University Press of America
ISBN 13 : 0761849793
Total Pages : 263 pages
Book Rating : 4.7/5 (618 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Book Synopsis The Documentary History of Judaism and Its Recent Interpreters by : Jacob Neusner

Download or read book The Documentary History of Judaism and Its Recent Interpreters written by Jacob Neusner and published by University Press of America. This book was released on 2012-07-10 with total page 263 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The result for the history of Judaism of a documentary reading of the Rabbinic canonical sources illustrates the working of that hypothesis. It is the first major outcome of that hypothesis, but there are other implications, and a variety of new problems emerge from time to time as the work proceeds. In the recent past, Neusner has continued to explore special problems of the documentary hypothesis of the Rabbinic canon. At the same time, Neusner notes, others join in the discussion that have produced important and ambitious analyses of the thesis and its implications. Here, Neuser has collected some of the more ambitious ventures into the hypothesis and its current recapitulations. Neusner begins with the article written by Professor William Scott Green for the Encyclopaedia Judaica second edition, as Green places the documentary hypothesis into the context of Neusner's entire oeuvre. Neuser then reproduces what he regards as the single most successful venture of the documentary hypothesis, contrasting between the Mishnah's and the Talmuds' programs for the social order of Israel, the doctrines of economics, politics, and philosophy set forth in those documents, respectively. Then come the two foci of discourse: Halakhah or normative law and Aggadah or normative theology. Professors Bernard Jackson of the University of Manchester, England and Mayer Gruber of Ben Gurion University of the Negev treat the Halakhic program that Neusner has devised, and Kevin Edgecomb of the University of California, Berkeley, has produced a remarkable summary of the theological system Neusner discerns in the Aggadic documents. Neusner concludes with a review of a book by a critic of the documentary hypothesis.

Contours of Coherence in Rabbinic Judaism

Author : Jacob Neusner
Publisher : BRILL
ISBN 13 : 9004531572
Total Pages : 510 pages
Book Rating : 4.0/5 (45 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Book Synopsis Contours of Coherence in Rabbinic Judaism by : Jacob Neusner

Download or read book Contours of Coherence in Rabbinic Judaism written by Jacob Neusner and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2022-11-28 with total page 510 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A three part set of monographs on the coherence of Rabbinic Judaism in its literature: Part one: In the Rabbinic literature of late antiquity disputes and alternative interpretations of a common datum form a medium of expressing coherence. Part two, system over self, asks about the role of individual sayings and traditions. The Bavli imposes on received sayings and stories its forms and topical Halakhic program. Part three: Talmudic knowledge, asks, do the types ands forms of Mishnah-exegesis and Halakhah-analysis of the Bavli make possible a sequential history of the Talmudic knowledge, layer by layer, for example, generation by generation? With adequately classified data in hand, we may describe the generative logic of Talmudic analysis as that exegetical and analytical process unfolding in sequences is signified by the requirements of a pure, atemporal dialectics. The print edition is available as a set of two volumes (9789004142312).

The Idea of History in Rabbinic Judaism

Author : Jacob Neusner
Publisher : BRILL
ISBN 13 : 9047402782
Total Pages : 360 pages
Book Rating : 4.0/5 (474 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Book Synopsis The Idea of History in Rabbinic Judaism by : Jacob Neusner

Download or read book The Idea of History in Rabbinic Judaism written by Jacob Neusner and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2003-12-01 with total page 360 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: History provides one way of marking time. But there are others, and the Judaism of the dual Torah, set forth in the Rabbinic literature from the Mishnah through the Talmud of Babylonia, ca. 200-600 C.E., defines one such alternative. This book tells the story of how a historical way of thinking about past, present, and future, time and eternity, the here and now in relationship to the ages, « that is, Scripture's way of thinking » gave way to another mode of thought altogether. This other model Neusner calls a paradigm, because a pattern imposed meaning and order on things that happened. Paradigmatic modes of thought took the place of historical ones. Thinking through paradigms, with a conception of time that elides past and present and removes all barriers between them, in fact governs the reception of Scripture in Judaism until nearly our own time. Neusner here explains through the single case of Rabbinic Judaism, precisely how that other way of reading Scripture did its work, and why, for so many centuries, that reading of the heritage of ancient Israel governed. At stake are [1] a conception of time different from the historical one and [2] premises on how to take the measure of time that form a legitimate alternative to those that define the foundations of the historical way of measuring time. Fully exposed, those alternative premises may prove as logical and compelling as the historical ones. The approach follows the documentary history of ideas, and individual chapters describe the treatment of historical topics in the Mishnah, the Talmud of the Land of Israel (a.k.a., the Yerushalmi), Genesis Rabbah, that is, ca. 200, 400, and 450 CE, and Pesiqta deRab Kahana, ca. 500 CE.

Sparks of the Logos

Author : Daniel Boyarin
Publisher : BRILL
ISBN 13 : 9789004126282
Total Pages : 324 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (262 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Book Synopsis Sparks of the Logos by : Daniel Boyarin

Download or read book Sparks of the Logos written by Daniel Boyarin and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2003 with total page 324 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This work covers the typological relation of rabbinic Judaism to Christianity, and provides a re-examination, by going back to the roots, of a rabbinic Judaism that would not manifest some of the deleterious social ideologies and practices that modern orthodox Judaism generally does.

Struggling with Tradition

Author : Abraham Gross
Publisher : BRILL
ISBN 13 : 9047413784
Total Pages : 148 pages
Book Rating : 4.0/5 (474 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Book Synopsis Struggling with Tradition by : Abraham Gross

Download or read book Struggling with Tradition written by Abraham Gross and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2021-11-22 with total page 148 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This monograph discusses the disagreement within the Jewish community concerning the medieval practice of active martyrdom, including slaughter of children and suicide, from the 11th until the 16th centuries. It covers the mainly implicit reservations about and objections in Jewish society to this practice. It is suggested that such opinions existed throughout the period when this practice was accepted in halakhic (legal) terms and by the most outstanding Jurists. It is argued that this was the case during the persecutions of the First Crusade in Germany and in the following centuries in the Ashkenazic cultural sphere. This is complemented by a survey and analysis of the situation in the Iberian peninsula during the 14th-15th centuries, when such phenomenon is detected during the persecutions in 1391 and during the so-called "expulsion" from Portugal in 1497. A series of appendices discuss a variety of related topics and all main texts discussed in the book in the original Hebrew. While many scholars discussed the phenomenon of active martyrdom and described its status among medieval Jewry as positive and monolithic, this book proposes a different angle which reveals the ongoing objections of scholars and parts of Jewish society who opposed active martyrdom on legal as well as on emotional grounds until the eventual waning and disappearance of this practice. It is suggested that this actual change set the background for an explicit and total legal rejection of a tradition which lasted and was admired and hailed for more than 400 years.

The Perfect Torah

Author : Jacob Neusner
Publisher : BRILL
ISBN 13 : 9047402227
Total Pages : 236 pages
Book Rating : 4.0/5 (474 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Book Synopsis The Perfect Torah by : Jacob Neusner

Download or read book The Perfect Torah written by Jacob Neusner and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2003-06-01 with total page 236 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The perfect Torah is the medium through which the one, unique God makes himself known. The Judaic statement of monotheism comes to expression in Scripture as perfected by the Oral Torah in its native category-formations, Halakhah, norms of behavior, and Aggadah norms of belief. The Halakhah of the oral Torah conveys monotheism in a philosophical mode, and the Aggadah, monotheism in a mythic mode. What is perfect about the dual Torah, written and oral, is the perfect match between the message and the medium, Halakhah for the philosophical monotheism, Aggadah for the mythic statement of the same monotheism. Chapters One and Two explain the former, Chapters Three and Four the latter. The question answered here concerns how one canonical corpus perfects its companion and produces in consequence perfection: the realization of the initial intent and program of the Written by the Oral Torah. That is addressed by the construction of large exemplary structures of comparison and contrast in the shank of the book. Four principles are established: [1] the perfection through the systematization of the law of the Written Torah by the Oral Torah, in Chapter One; [2] the perfection of the medium of the Halakhah for the message of philosophical monotheism, in Chapter Two; [3] the perfection of Scripture's anomalous writings through the dismantling of one document and the systematic recasting of another, in Chapter Three; [4] the perfection of the medium of Aggadah in its form of narrative for the message of theology concerning God's personality and activity, in Chapter Four.

Chapters in the Formative History of Judaism

Author : Jacob Neusner
Publisher : Studies in Judaism
ISBN 13 :
Total Pages : 294 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (91 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Book Synopsis Chapters in the Formative History of Judaism by : Jacob Neusner

Download or read book Chapters in the Formative History of Judaism written by Jacob Neusner and published by Studies in Judaism. This book was released on 2009 with total page 294 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This collection of ten essays and five book reviews draws on three years of work, from late 2005 through mid-2008. Included are Halakhic essays, essays on Classical Judaism, and two literary studies. Five book reviews conclude the collection, one of them a review essay, coveri...

Building Blocks of Rabbinic Tradition

Author : Jacob Neusner
Publisher :
ISBN 13 :
Total Pages : 312 pages
Book Rating : 4.F/5 ( download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Book Synopsis Building Blocks of Rabbinic Tradition by : Jacob Neusner

Download or read book Building Blocks of Rabbinic Tradition written by Jacob Neusner and published by . This book was released on 2008 with total page 312 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book responds to a question that came to the author from Professor Maren Niehoff of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem: 'Have you written a simple introduction to your documentary theory and method, which can serve as a starting point for my students?' In this book are gathered eight of the more fundamental items of documentary theory and practice_three in theory, five in practice_for Professor Neihoff's students and anyone else who takes an interest in the formative history of Judaism. The documentary thesis of Rabbinic literature holds that the document_the Mishnah, Sifra, Lamentations, Rabbah, the Bavli, for example_forms the basic building block of the Rabbinic tradition. Excluded by that definition are sayings attributed to, and stories told about, named sages. These cannot serve in the reconstruction of the Rabbinic tradition, its literature, history, religion, and theology.

How Not to Study Judaism: Parables, rabbinic narratives, rabbis' biographies, rabbis' disputes

Author : Jacob Neusner
Publisher : University Press of America
ISBN 13 : 9780761827825
Total Pages : 318 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (278 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Book Synopsis How Not to Study Judaism: Parables, rabbinic narratives, rabbis' biographies, rabbis' disputes by : Jacob Neusner

Download or read book How Not to Study Judaism: Parables, rabbinic narratives, rabbis' biographies, rabbis' disputes written by Jacob Neusner and published by University Press of America. This book was released on 2004 with total page 318 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In How Not to Study Judaism : Examples and Counter-Examples, Jacob Neusner presents a collection of essays and book reviews that identify the wrong way of conducting the academic study of Judaism. Pointing readers toward the right way to pursue the academic study of Judaism, Nuesner's focus is on the study of the literature of Judaism and the culture of the Jewish community.

Contours of Coherence in Rabbinic Judaism: System over self : the limited role of the sage in the Bavli

Author : Jacob Neusner
Publisher :
ISBN 13 :
Total Pages : 520 pages
Book Rating : 4.X/5 (4 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Book Synopsis Contours of Coherence in Rabbinic Judaism: System over self : the limited role of the sage in the Bavli by : Jacob Neusner

Download or read book Contours of Coherence in Rabbinic Judaism: System over self : the limited role of the sage in the Bavli written by Jacob Neusner and published by . This book was released on 2005 with total page 520 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book shows that the disputes that characterize Rabbinic writings in the formative age underscore the coherence of Rabbinic Judaism. It is in three separate monographs. The first shows that disagreements concern secondary and tertiary issues. They therefore reinforce the primary norm by identifying as moot only trivial details. The second demonstrates, alternatively, that Halakhic disputes articulate unresolved conflict over generative principles. Sometimes, in the presentation of topics of the law, disputes not only indicate the range of consensus but bring to expression conflicting alternatives, theories that claim equal validity but contradict one another. Third, in some presentations of the law and in all presentations of theology where disputes occur, disputes simply gloss details in the application of accepted principles. They form a part of the exercise of legal or theological exegesis, filling in gaps with alternative facts.

Reading Scripture with the Rabbis

Author : Jacob Neusner
Publisher : Studies in Judaism
ISBN 13 :
Total Pages : 234 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 ( download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Book Synopsis Reading Scripture with the Rabbis by : Jacob Neusner

Download or read book Reading Scripture with the Rabbis written by Jacob Neusner and published by Studies in Judaism. This book was released on 2007 with total page 234 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This anthology illustrates how Judaism's classical rabbis of the first seven centuries of the Common Era read the ancient Israelite scriptures. It presents, in particular, a selection of writings that show what happens to the five books of Moses at the hands of the Rabbinical sages of the formative age of Judaism. Each Midrash-compilation takes up a book of Scripture and systematically expounds the message that the Rabbis derive from that particular book. No statement by the rabbis of the meaning of a biblical book emerges as a mere paraphrase of the plain sense of Scripture itself. The compiler introduces the Rabbinic reading of the Five books of Moses, Genesis through Genesis Rabbah, Exodus through Mekhilta attributed to R. Ishmael, Leviticus through Leviticus Rabbah, Numbers through Sifré to Numbers, and Deuteronomy through Sifré to Deuteronomy. Genesis Rabbah shows how the rabbis found in the book of Genesis lessons of history realized in their own times. That approach to Scripture will not surprise Bible-believing Christians. Mekhilta attributed to R. Ishmael shows how the Ten Commandments are expounded in an inclusive spirit, so that the Commandments cover important aspects of everyday life. Leviticus Rabbah shows how the rabbis found in the laws of animal sacrifice lessons of both history and morality, once more an approach Christians will find congenial. The book of Numbers illustrates how the ancient rabbis read Scripture in such a way as to validate and justify rules that on the surface do not seem valid and just at all. In the case I have chosen, the treatment of the wife accused of infidelity, Numbers Chpater Five, the law of the Mishnah and the Tosefta affords to the accused wife rights that Scripture does not on the surface provide for her. We consider both the legal and the exegetical treatment of the topic, with its emphasis, for both norms of conduct and norms of conviction, upon God's justice. The book of Deuteronomy at Chapter Thirty-Two contains Moses's profound reflection on the me

A Legacy of Learning

Author : Alan Avery-Peck
Publisher : BRILL
ISBN 13 : 9004284281
Total Pages : 446 pages
Book Rating : 4.0/5 (42 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Book Synopsis A Legacy of Learning by : Alan Avery-Peck

Download or read book A Legacy of Learning written by Alan Avery-Peck and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2014-10-16 with total page 446 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In a career spanning over fifty years, the questions Jacob Neusner has asked and the critical methodologies he has developed have shaped the way scholars have come to approach the rabbinic literature as well as the diverse manifestations of Judaism from rabbinic times until the present. The essays collected here honor that legacy, illustrating an influence that is so pervasive that scholars today who engage in the critical study of Judaism and the history of religions more generally work in a laboratory that Professor Neusner created. Addressing topics in ancient and Rabbinic Judaism, the Judaic context of early Christianity, American Judaism, World Religions, and the academic study of the humanities, these essays demarcate the current state of Judaic and religious studies in the academy today.

The Story of the Jews

Author : Simon Schama
Publisher : Harper Collins
ISBN 13 : 0062339443
Total Pages : 513 pages
Book Rating : 4.0/5 (623 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Book Synopsis The Story of the Jews by : Simon Schama

Download or read book The Story of the Jews written by Simon Schama and published by Harper Collins. This book was released on 2014-03-18 with total page 513 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this magnificently illustrated cultural history—the tie-in to the pbs and bbc series The Story of the Jews—simon schama details the story of the jewish people, tracing their experience across three millennia, from their beginnings as an ancient tribal people to the opening of the new world in 1492 It is a story like no other: an epic of endurance in the face of destruction, of creativity in the face of oppression, joy amidst grief, the affirmation of life despite the steepest of odds. It spans the millennia and the continents—from India to Andalusia and from the bazaars of Cairo to the streets of Oxford. It takes you to unimagined places: to a Jewish kingdom in the mountains of southern Arabia; a Syrian synagogue glowing with radiant wall paintings; the palm groves of the Jewish dead in the Roman catacombs. And its voices ring loud and clear, from the severities and ecstasies of the Bible writers to the love poems of wine bibbers in a garden in Muslim Spain. In The Story of the Jews, the Talmud burns in the streets of Paris, massed gibbets hang over the streets of medieval London, a Majorcan illuminator redraws the world; candles are lit, chants are sung, mules are packed, ships loaded with gems and spices founder at sea. And a great story unfolds. Not—as often imagined—of a culture apart, but of a Jewish world immersed in and imprinted by the peoples among whom they have dwelled, from the Egyptians to the Greeks, from the Arabs to the Christians. Which makes the story of the Jews everyone's story, too.