Aspects of Jewish Metarational Thought

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Publisher : iUniverse
ISBN 13 : 0595350348
Total Pages : 208 pages
Book Rating : 4.5/5 (953 download)

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Book Synopsis Aspects of Jewish Metarational Thought by : Martin Sicker

Download or read book Aspects of Jewish Metarational Thought written by Martin Sicker and published by iUniverse. This book was released on 2005 with total page 208 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Judaism has always had adherents that, driven by both awe and love of God, strove to penetrate the mystery of divine wisdom and grasp what the philosopher deemed to be beyond the reach of man's rational faculty, as well as to explore other mysteries that seem to leap out from the pages of Scripture. These metarational leaps of intellect and imagination generally fit into the categories of the exoteric and the esoteric, referring to teachings traditionally considered suitable for public instruction and those deemed inappropriate for such purpose. The exoteric includes those attempts at intellectually and spiritually bridging the gap between God and man, that one finds strewn throughout the pages of the classical literature of Judaism. The esoteric includes those speculations and practices that have been more or less systematized and formulated and presented as mystical doctrines, that have been characterized since the Middle Ages as Kabbalah. The opening chapters of Aspects of Jewish Metarational Thought consider the question of the relationship between finite man and the unknowable God, and how the divine-human communication essential to that relationship takes place. Other chapters consider the purpose behind human existence and the critical aspects of the biblical account of the creation, issues relating to the idea of a visionary ascent to the celestial realm, the influence of metarational considerations on normative Jewish religious practice, and the special attributes believed to inhere in the Hebrew language and the role that these have played in metarational biblical interpretation from antiquity to the present.

The Moral Philosophy of Judaism

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Publisher : iUniverse
ISBN 13 : 1450228232
Total Pages : 230 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (52 download)

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Book Synopsis The Moral Philosophy of Judaism by : Martin Sicker

Download or read book The Moral Philosophy of Judaism written by Martin Sicker and published by iUniverse. This book was released on 2010-05-14 with total page 230 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The concern of The Moral Philosophy of Judaism is with the first principles that underlie the approach of Judaic ethics to the manifold issues confronting mankind generally and adherents of Judaism in particular in the contemporary world. The book explores the fundamental biblical concept of mans moral autonomy and its implications, the meaning and significance of the fundamental biblical doctrine of man being created in the image of God, the nature of an individuals moral judgment, the complex issue of the relationship between natural morality and law and between law and justice in Judaism, the concept of imitatio Dei and its implications, the meaning of good and evil from a Judaic perspective, and biblical formulation of the Golden Rule and the reasons for its reformulation in later rabbinic literature as a general guide to the establishment of a socially harmonious moral and just society.

Pondering the Imponderable

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Publisher : iUniverse
ISBN 13 : 1450217443
Total Pages : 217 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (52 download)

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Book Synopsis Pondering the Imponderable by : Martin Sicker

Download or read book Pondering the Imponderable written by Martin Sicker and published by iUniverse. This book was released on 2010-03-25 with total page 217 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Pondering the Imponderable explores the philosophical and theological problems of God and their implications from a Judaic perspective including the attempts at knowing the unknowable and naming the unnamable that have been articulated over the course of some two millennia, as well as how the chasm between man and God is bridged through revelation and the implications of these ideas for the ultimate question of what takes place after death, resurrection, immortality of the soul, or transmigration or reincarnation. In discussing these issues, the non-specialized reader will be introduced to the vast corpus of rabbinic literature written over a period of some two millennia to the present day and to many works that have never been translated into English.

The Ten Commandments

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Publisher : iUniverse
ISBN 13 : 0595483194
Total Pages : 168 pages
Book Rating : 4.5/5 (954 download)

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Book Synopsis The Ten Commandments by : Martin Sicker

Download or read book The Ten Commandments written by Martin Sicker and published by iUniverse. This book was released on 2007-12 with total page 168 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Ten Commandments is an exploration into the background, meaning, and implications of the Decalogue from a Judaic perspective. Although they have become a universal symbol of Judeo-Christian civilization, it is only within Judaism that the Ten Commandments have a juridical function that goes beyond the mere announcement of a set of key precepts for man and society. In Judaism, the Ten Commandments are considered an epitome of the vast body of biblical legislation, a concise statement of a mere 172 Hebrew words that was presented as a credo that could easily be memorized and serve as a basic list of essentially easily understandable general rules. It was not expected that the ordinary citizen would remember or fully understand the plethora of commandments found in the Torah that demand compliance and observance by the children of Israel, their descendents, and those who chose to cast their lot in life with them. To understand the meaning and significance of the Ten Commandments in Judaic thought, it is therefore necessary to correlate them with the body of legislative enactments set forth in the Torah dealing with the same subject matter, a rather complex endeavor that this study hopes to facilitate.

Reflections on the Book of Numbers

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Publisher : Author House
ISBN 13 : 1496960998
Total Pages : 513 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (969 download)

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Book Synopsis Reflections on the Book of Numbers by : Martin Sicker

Download or read book Reflections on the Book of Numbers written by Martin Sicker and published by Author House. This book was released on 2014-12-30 with total page 513 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Perusing this biblical book through a theopolitical prism, it may be seen that another unifying theme that courses through the diverse contents of this biblical work is that of molding the diverse tribes of the children of Israel into a functioning confederacy presided over by an increasingly strong central authority. For forty years, Moses wrestled with the problem of retaining the tribal structure of the children of Israel as a vehicle for the transmission of traditional teachings and values from the generation of the exodus to their descendants and, at the same time, attempting to restructure intertribal relationships within the confederacy by the nationalization and centralization of the evolving religion, focused on the Tabernacle and its rites that served as the adhesive that bound them to each other. What the narrative also illustrates is the challenge of exercising the effective central leadership essential to containing the centripetal social forces that tended to impede the transition from a tribal confederacy to a unified nation, a challenge that purportedly caused an eleven-day trip from Mount Sinai to the Promised Land to take thirty-eight years to complete.

The Exodus and the Reluctant Prophet

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Publisher : iUniverse
ISBN 13 : 0595469035
Total Pages : 226 pages
Book Rating : 4.5/5 (954 download)

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Book Synopsis The Exodus and the Reluctant Prophet by : Martin Sicker

Download or read book The Exodus and the Reluctant Prophet written by Martin Sicker and published by iUniverse. This book was released on 2007-09 with total page 226 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The biblical narrative of the Exodus and of Moses, the reluctant prophet who was chosen to lead it, deals with the critical formative event in the history of ancient Israel. However, the narrative also contains a number of enigmatic passages as well as some seemingly unrelated episodes. In this book, the author undertakes to unravel the enigmas and show how the various disparate elements contribute to the narrative. The focus in The Exodus and the Reluctant Prophet is on what the biblical text is telling us, explicitly as well as implicitly, about the world in which the ancient Israelites became transformed from a mass of ethnically related people into a nation bound by a divine covenant, and the extraordinary role that the Exodus played in the process. In the effort to comprehend and explain the highly complex biblical text, the author has consulted a wide range of commentaries and studies written over a period of some two millennia that have sought to understand the biblical texts from a wide variety of perspectives, many of which are presented for the reader's consideration, including many sources inaccessible to those without a working knowledge of Hebrew.

Reflections on the Book of Leviticus

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Publisher : AuthorHouse
ISBN 13 : 1491827912
Total Pages : 541 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (918 download)

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Book Synopsis Reflections on the Book of Leviticus by : Martin Sicker

Download or read book Reflections on the Book of Leviticus written by Martin Sicker and published by AuthorHouse. This book was released on 2013-10-28 with total page 541 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The theme that unifies the diverse contents of this biblical work is that of holiness, as the text asserts: Ye shall be holy; for I the Lord your God am holy (Lev. 19:2). The burden of the work is set forth guidelines as to how the children of Israel were to attain that goal. One of the great practical issues dealt with in Leviticus is the problem of connecting with the one and only God through the practice of a form of worship that is superficially similar to but at the same time radically different from the modes of worship practiced by the other peoples of the ancient world, which almost universally included sacrificial rites. Because it was extremely difficult for one to relate to a deity that could not be depicted graphically, sacrificial rites were also prescribed for the children of Israel as a concession to human weakness, but were designed in a manner to leave little if any room for human inventiveness, which if left unchecked would likely result in idolatrous practices. Accordingly, the ancient rites were infused with layers of detailed instructions and obscure symbolisms that make the text difficult to comprehend, while raising important ethical considerations that are an essential aspect of the biblical concept of holiness. This study explores some of the profound ideas that lie buried beneath the surface of this extremely complex biblical text.

The Convocation at Sinai

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Publisher : iUniverse
ISBN 13 : 0595514812
Total Pages : 216 pages
Book Rating : 4.5/5 (955 download)

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Book Synopsis The Convocation at Sinai by : Martin Sicker

Download or read book The Convocation at Sinai written by Martin Sicker and published by iUniverse. This book was released on 2008 with total page 216 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The biblical narrative of the revelatory events at Mount Sinai, and the covenant with God entered into by the children of Israel, deals with the critical formative event in the religious and cultural history of ancient Israel. However, the narrative also contains a number of enigmatic passages that have long troubled readers of Scripture. In this book, the author undertakes to unravel some of these enigmas and to show how they contribute to a fuller understanding of the narrative. The focus in The Convocation at Sinai is on what the biblical text is telling us, explicitly as well as implicitly, about the world in which the ancient Israelites became transformed from a mass of ethnically related people into a nation bound by a divine covenant, and the extraordinary role that the covenant between God and Israel played in the creation of the religious civilization known as Judaism. In the effort to comprehend and explain the highly complex biblical text, the author has consulted a wide range of commentaries and studies written over a period of some two millennia that have sought to understand the biblical texts from a wide variety of perspectives, many of which are presented for the reader's consideration, including many sources inaccessible to those without a working knowledge of Hebrew.

The Book of Daniel

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Publisher : AuthorHouse
ISBN 13 : 147724803X
Total Pages : 241 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (772 download)

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Book Synopsis The Book of Daniel by : Martin Sicker

Download or read book The Book of Daniel written by Martin Sicker and published by AuthorHouse. This book was released on 2012-07-24 with total page 241 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Although there are numerous diverse aspects to Daniel, eschatological, theological, historical, and philological that have long engaged scholars of the work, this study of the text reads it as having a single overarching theme, an exposition of the implicit biblical philosophy of history, which posits the divine role in history as understood from a prophetic perspective. The prophetic idea of history is very different from the secular idea of history as a study of the past that helps explain the present. Prophetic history begins by postulating the end point towards which mankind should strive and records mankinds successes and failures in that regard. It also takes note of the patterns of past and present behavior that will likely cause further successes or failures in the future. In this respect the prophetic approach to history is truly reflected in the motto engraved on a keystone at the entrance to the National Archives in Washington, Past is Prologue.

Jacob and His Sons

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Publisher : iUniverse
ISBN 13 : 0595446159
Total Pages : 204 pages
Book Rating : 4.5/5 (954 download)

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Book Synopsis Jacob and His Sons by : Martin Sicker

Download or read book Jacob and His Sons written by Martin Sicker and published by iUniverse. This book was released on 2007 with total page 204 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The sagas of Jacob and his sons are presented in the biblical book of Genesis in a series of sometimes seemingly unrelated episodes. In this book, the author undertakes to show that these episodes are all intimately connected and were selected to illustrate the problems faced by Jacob in coping with the sibling rivalries among his dozen sons and welding them into a collective body capable of giving birth to a nation. The focus in Jacob and His Sons is on what the biblical text is telling us, explicitly as well as implicitly, about the world in which they lived and how the historical conditions came into being for them ultimately to become transformed into a nation. In the struggle to comprehend the biblical text, the author has consulted a wide range of commentaries and studies written over a period of some two millennia that have sought to understand the biblical texts from a wide variety of perspectives, many of which are presented for the reader's consideration, including many sources inaccessible to those without a working knowledge of Hebrew.

The Second Book of Samuel

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Publisher : Author House
ISBN 13 : 1491801905
Total Pages : 411 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (918 download)

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Book Synopsis The Second Book of Samuel by : Martin Sicker

Download or read book The Second Book of Samuel written by Martin Sicker and published by Author House. This book was released on 2013-08-05 with total page 411 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The subject of this study is the story of the rise of David to become the king of Judah and subsequently king of all Israel, and the anything but smooth transition from a tribal confederacy to a centralized state, from the ethnic kingdom of the Israelites to the territorial kingdom of Israel that also included numerous minority groups, as presented in the Masoretic text of the Second Book of Samuel. The term story rather than history of the transition is employed to describe the subject because the biblical book is a history only in the very special sense of prophetic history, which bears little relationship to history in the modern sense of the term. The distinguishing feature of prophetic history is that it is written from a prophetic perspective with a particular purpose in mind, namely, to illustrate to later generations of the children of Israel the historical consequences of failure by its political and religious leaders to observe and comply with the terms of the divine covenant entered into between God and the children of Israel. The story related in the Second Book of Samuel is based on events that were popularly believed to have taken place, but as perceived through a prophetic prism. Accordingly, the primary focus of these prophetic narratives is on the moral implications of the decisions and actions taken by men rather than the factual historical accuracy of the details of the events described.

Gates of Light

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Publisher : Rowman Altamira
ISBN 13 : 9780761990000
Total Pages : 440 pages
Book Rating : 4.9/5 (9 download)

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Book Synopsis Gates of Light by : Joseph ben Abraham Gikatilla

Download or read book Gates of Light written by Joseph ben Abraham Gikatilla and published by Rowman Altamira. This book was released on 1998 with total page 440 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This central text of Jewish mysticism was written in thirtenth-century Spain, where Kabbalah flourished. Considered to be the most articulate work on the mystical Kabbalah, Gates of Light provides a systematic and comprehensive explanation of the Names of God and their mystical applications. The Kabbalah presents a unique strategy for intimacy with the Creator and new insights into the Hebrew Scriptures. In the Kabbalah, aspects of God emanate from a hierarchy of Ten Spheres interconnected by channels that may be disrupted or repaired through human activity.

The Writers Directory

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Publisher :
ISBN 13 :
Total Pages : 680 pages
Book Rating : 4.:/5 (318 download)

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Book Synopsis The Writers Directory by :

Download or read book The Writers Directory written by and published by . This book was released on 2013 with total page 680 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Kohelet

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Publisher : iUniverse
ISBN 13 : 0595394884
Total Pages : 195 pages
Book Rating : 4.5/5 (953 download)

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Book Synopsis Kohelet by : Martin Sicker

Download or read book Kohelet written by Martin Sicker and published by iUniverse. This book was released on 2006 with total page 195 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Traditionalist commentators assume that the author of Kohelet was a man of deep religious sensibilities and that his words, as obscure as they sometimes may be, reflect profound religious insights. They therefore tend to read Kohelet as a series of non-literal homilies based on hidden meanings imbedded in the author's often less than clear expressions. By contrast, many modern commentators seem to approach it as a literary curiosity badly mishandled over the millennia, and have little or no reluctance to reconstruct, correct, and amend the received Hebrew text as it suits them. A common result of this scholarly tampering with an ancient text is translations that frequently seem to bear little resemblance to the Hebrew original. These conflicting approaches are for the most part a direct consequence of scholarship's inability to identify the author or when he lived. In this work, Sicker adopts the widely neglected thesis that identifies the author of the biblical work as Hyrcanus the Tobiad, who lived at the time of the transfer of ancient Palestine from the Ptolemaic to the Seleucid empires in 198 B.C.E., and was de facto ruler of Judea for a number of years before being forced into exile and eventual suicide. Directly related to the family of the hereditary high priesthood, he was quite familiar with the rites and traditions of Judaism, as well as with the Hellenistic culture that pervaded the area during the era in which he lived. As a result his thinking reflected an amalgam of both, neither of which provided satisfactory answers to the questions he raised about the meaning of the life he led and the end to which he had been brought by circumstances entirely beyond his control. When the biblical book is read with such a likely author in mind, many of the enigmas found in the work can be clarified, which is what Kohelet: The Reflections of a Judean Prince attempts to do.

The Five Books of Moses

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Author :
Publisher : Schocken
ISBN 13 :
Total Pages : 1064 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (97 download)

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Book Synopsis The Five Books of Moses by : Everett Fox

Download or read book The Five Books of Moses written by Everett Fox and published by Schocken. This book was released on 1997 with total page 1064 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Edited by Everett Fox Introductions Commentary Notes 1,056 pp.

Interpretation and Overinterpretation

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Publisher : Cambridge University Press
ISBN 13 : 9780521425544
Total Pages : 168 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (255 download)

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Book Synopsis Interpretation and Overinterpretation by : Umberto Eco

Download or read book Interpretation and Overinterpretation written by Umberto Eco and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 1992-03-05 with total page 168 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book brings together some of the most distinguished figures currently at work in philosophy, literary theory and criticism to debate the limits of interpretation.

The Way of Tarot

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Publisher : Simon and Schuster
ISBN 13 : 1594776563
Total Pages : 493 pages
Book Rating : 4.5/5 (947 download)

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Book Synopsis The Way of Tarot by : Alejandro Jodorowsky

Download or read book The Way of Tarot written by Alejandro Jodorowsky and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2009-11-17 with total page 493 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Filmmaker Alejandro Jodorowsky’s insights into the Tarot as a spiritual path • Works with the original Marseille Tarot to reveal the roots of Western wisdom • Provides the key to the symbolic language of the Tarot’s “nomadic cathedral” • Transforms a simple divination tool into a vehicle for self-realization and healing Alejandro Jodorowsky’s profound study of the Tarot, which began in the early 1950s, reveals it to be far more than a simple divination device. The Tarot is first and foremost a powerful instrument of self-knowledge and a representation of the structure of the soul. The Way of Tarot shows that the entire deck is structured like a temple, or a mandala, which is both an image of the world and a representation of the divine. The authors use the sacred art of the original Marseille Tarot--created during a time of religious tolerance in the 11th century--to reconnect with the roots of the Tarot’s Western esoteric wisdom. They explain that the Tarot is a “nomadic cathedral” whose parts--the 78 cards or “arcana”--should always be viewed with an awareness of the whole structure. This understanding is essential to fully grasp the Tarot’s hermetic symbolism. The authors explore the secret associations behind the hierarchy of the cards and the correspondences between the suits and energies within human beings. Each description of the Major Arcana includes key word summaries, symbolic meanings, traditional interpretations, and a section where the card speaks for itself. Jodorowsky and Costa then take the art of reading the Tarot to a depth never before possible. Using their work with Tarology, a new psychological approach that uses the symbolism and optical language of the Tarot to create a mirror image of the personality, they offer a powerful tool for self-realization, creativity, and healing.