Was there science in ancient Judaism? Historical and cross-cultural reflections on "religion" and "science"

2007 ◽  
Vol 36 (3-4) ◽  
pp. 461-495
Author(s):  
Annette Yoshiko Reed
Keyword(s):  
Scientific Inquiry ◽  
Biblical Interpretation ◽  
Second Temple ◽  
Science And Religion ◽  
Religion And Science ◽  
Second Temple Period ◽  
Rabbinic Judaism ◽  
Ancient Judaism ◽  
Jewish Intellectual ◽  
And Mathematics

This article considers the place of scientific inquiry in ancient Judaism with a focus on astronomy and cosmology. It explores how ancient Jews used biblical interpretation to situate "scientific" knowledge in relation to "religious" concerns. In the Second Temple period (538 B.C.E.-70 C.E.) biblical interpretation is often used to integrate insights from Mesopotamian and Greek scientific traditions. In classical rabbinic Judaism (70-600 C.E.) astronomy became marked as an esoteric discipline, and cosmology is understood in terms of Ma'aseh Bereshit, a category that blurs the boundaries between "science" and "religion." Whereas modern thinkers often see Judaism and "science" as incompatible, medieval Jewish thinkers built on these ancient traditions; some even viewed themselves as heirs to a Jewish intellectual tradition that included astronomy, cosmology, medicine and mathematics.

The Son of Man in the Vision of Daniel

2020 ◽  
pp. 19-24
Author(s):  
Peter Schäfer
Keyword(s):  
Second Temple ◽  
Second Century ◽  
Human Being ◽  
Second Temple Period ◽  
Rabbinic Judaism ◽  
Son Of Man ◽  
Book Of Daniel ◽  
The One ◽  
Point Of Departure

This chapter is devoted to the continuation of the Son of Man tradition in rabbinic Judaism. It explains how the Son of Man is virtually irrelevant among the rabbis of Palestine, in contrast to the Second Temple period. The point of departure of all binitarian speculations in Judaism is the enigmatic “Son of Man” in the biblical Book of Daniel. This book consists of various parts that were written at different times. It is certain that its final editing took place during the Maccabean period, which is in the first half of the second century BCE. The chapter also discusses who exactly is the Ancient One, who is the “one like a human being,” and who are the holy ones of the Most High.

The Vow-Curse in Ancient Jewish Texts

2019 ◽  
Vol 112 (3) ◽  
pp. 340-357
Author(s):  
Avigail Manekin-Bamberger
Keyword(s):  
Religious Practice ◽  
Second Temple ◽  
Binding Mechanism ◽  
Second Temple Period ◽  
Biblical Literature ◽  
Ancient Judaism ◽  
Greco Roman ◽  
Pauline Epistles ◽  
Semantic Expansion ◽  
Interpersonal Situations

AbstractUttering a vow was an important and popular religious practice in ancient Judaism. It is mentioned frequently in biblical literature, and an entire rabbinic tractate, Nedarim, is devoted to this subject. In this article, I argue that starting from the Second Temple period, alongside the regular use of the vow, vows were also used as an aggressive binding mechanism in interpersonal situations. This practice became so popular that in certain contexts the vow became synonymous with the curse, as in a number of ossuaries in Jerusalem and in the later Aramaic incantation bowls. Moreover, this semantic expansion was not an isolated Jewish phenomenon but echoed both the use of the anathema in the Pauline epistles and contemporary Greco-Roman and Babylonian magical practices.

The Origins of the Seder and Haggadah

2005 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 109-134
Author(s):  
Joshua Kulp
Keyword(s):  
Second Temple ◽  
Rabbinic Literature ◽  
Second Temple Period ◽  
Jerusalem Temple ◽  
Rabbinic Judaism ◽  
Greco Roman ◽  
Last Supper ◽  
Death Of Jesus ◽  
The Individual ◽  
The Temple

Emerging methods in the study of rabbinic literature now enable greater precision in dating the individual components of the Passover seder and haggadah. These approaches, both textual and socio-historical, have led to a near consensus among scholars that the Passover seder as described in rabbinic literature did not yet exist during the Second Temple period. Hence, cautious scholars no longer seek to find direct parallels between the last supper as described in the Gospels and the rabbinic seder. Rather, scholarly attention has focused on varying attempts of Jewish parties, notably rabbis and Christians, to provide religious meaning and sanctity to the Passover celebration after the death of Jesus and the destruction of the Temple. Three main forces stimulated the rabbis to develop innovative seder ritual and to generate new, relevant exegeses to the biblical Passover texts: (1) the twin calamities of the destruction of the Jerusalem Temple and the Bar-Kokhba revolt; (2) competition with emerging Christian groups; (3) assimilation of Greco-Roman customs and manners. These forces were, of course, significant contributors to the rise of a much larger array of rabbinic institutions, ideas and texts. Thus surveying scholarship on the seder reviews scholarship on the emergence of rabbinic Judaism.

Two Gods in Heaven

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter Schäfer
Keyword(s):  
Second Temple ◽  
Philo Of Alexandria ◽  
Second Temple Period ◽  
Jewish Mysticism ◽  
Rabbinic Judaism ◽  
Son Of Man ◽  
The New Testament ◽  
History Of ◽  
Book Of Daniel ◽  
Common Era

Contrary to popular belief, Judaism was not always strictly monotheistic. This book reveals the long and little-known history of a second, junior god in Judaism, showing how this idea was embraced by rabbis and Jewish mystics in the early centuries of the common era and casting Judaism's relationship with Christianity in an entirely different light. The book demonstrates how the Jews of the pre-Christian Second Temple period had various names for a second heavenly power—such as Son of Man, Son of the Most High, and Firstborn before All Creation. The book traces the development of the concept from the Son of Man vision in the biblical Book of Daniel to the Qumran literature, the Ethiopic Book of Enoch, and the Jewish philosopher Philo of Alexandria. After the destruction of the Second Temple, the picture changes drastically. While the early Christians of the New Testament took up the idea and developed it further, their Jewish contemporaries were divided. Most rejected the second god, but some—particularly the Jews of Babylonia and the writers of early Jewish mysticism—revived the ancient Jewish notion of two gods in heaven. Describing how early Christianity and certain strands of rabbinic Judaism competed for ownership of a second god to the creator, this book radically transforms our understanding of Judeo-Christian monotheism.

Charity and Reciprocity: Structures of Benevolence in Rabbinic Literature

2011 ◽  
Vol 105 (1) ◽  
pp. 33-52
Author(s):  
Tzvi Novick
Keyword(s):  
Social Institutions ◽  
Second Temple ◽  
Recent Book ◽  
Late Antique ◽  
Charitable Donation ◽  
Second Temple Period ◽  
Rabbinic Judaism ◽  
The Gift ◽  
To Come

In his recent book, Seth Schwartz explores “[t]he tension between egalitarian solidarity and competitive reciprocity” in the late Second Temple period and in rabbinic Judaism.1 As Schwartz's characterization of reciprocity implies, it stands at odds with egalitarianism because exchange, outside the boundaries of the market, is ordinarily structured by asymmetry, and thus by the hierarchical relationships of patronage and dependence.2 For Schwartz, Judaism's “natural” proclivity, at least as enshrined in the Torah, is toward egalitarian solidarity. To obviate the need for the “dependence-generating gift,” the Torah mandates wealth transfer to the poor through charitable donation (leaving unharvested the corner of one's field, etc.). Charity, unlike the gift, does not generate the obligation to reciprocate: “[t]he pauper, like the priest, is meant to feel no gratitude—at least not toward the donor.”3 Given this innate preference for solidarity, the problem for late antique Judaism in a patronage-dominated Mediterranean society lay specifically in “how to come to terms, Jewishly, with the practical inevitability of social institutions founded on reciprocal exchange.”4

scholarly journals What Has Science to Do with Religion? A Looming Challenge of Traditional and Religious Practices on Curbing the Spread of COVID-19 Pandemic in Kenya

2020 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 23-33
Author(s):  
Bernard Alwala
Keyword(s):  
Scientific Inquiry ◽  
Religious Beliefs ◽  
Holistic Approach ◽  
Science And Religion ◽  
Religious Practices ◽  
Religion And Science ◽  
Interdisciplinary Field ◽  
Corona Virus ◽  
Theology And Science

The association between religion and science is a theme of continuous debate in philosophy and theology and recently in politics and governance as experienced in Kenya. To what degree are religion and science (e.g. medicine) well-matched? Are religious beliefs sometimes helpful to science, or do they inexorably pose hindrances to scientific inquiry? Are we able to manage COVID-19 through religion, or medicine or both medicine and prayer? The interdisciplinary field of “science and religion”, also called “theology and science”, aims at answering these and other questions. It studies historical and contemporary interactions between these fields and provides philosophical analyses of how they interrelate and is able to provide a holistic approach to combatting the corona-virus pandemic in Kenya. This paper provides an overview of the topic and discussions in science and religion; the role of spirituality/ religion in health and how traditional and religious practices may contribute to the spread of Corona-virus. Section 1, outlines the scope of both fields, and how they are intersecting; Section 2, focuses on health and spirituality and Section 3 concludes by looking at the looming challenges that religion and culture may present to the scientific directives on the spread of COVID-19 and ends by proposing strategies on community-directed programs by the Ministry of Health.

Rabbinic Judaism

2020 ◽  
pp. 409-424
Author(s):  
Stefan C. Reif
Keyword(s):  
Hebrew Bible ◽  
Social Activity ◽  
Second Temple ◽  
Democratic Institution ◽  
Second Temple Period ◽  
Jerusalem Temple ◽  
Rabbinic Judaism ◽  
Axial Age ◽  
The Temple ◽  
Jewish Ritual

In the second Temple period, Jewish ritual and worship, following the example of the Hebrew Bible, centered on the cult of the Jerusalem Temple and on the more democratic institution of individual prayer, but the two elements had drawn closer to each other by the axial age. In their campaign to establish formal communal prayer as a theological priority, leading rabbis of the first two centuries were inspired not only by those two precedents but also by biblical formulas, the example set at Qumran, the notion of the berakhah, and by the development of the synagogue, which added prayer to its earlier interest in study, social activity, and the hosting of visitors. The shema’, ‘amidah, and birkat ha-mazon, as well as qiddush, havdalah, hallel, and the Passover Haggadah, were early components of rabbinic liturgy, and these gradually moved from the domestic and individual contexts to the synagogue and community. Towards the end of the talmudic period, liturgical poetry and mysticism, especially from the Jewish homeland, were incorporated into standard rabbinic prayers, but not until the ninth and tenth centuries did rabbinic leaders in Babylonia succeed in transforming the oral prayers into the written prayer-book. Although use was limited of the Hebrew Bible and lists of sacrifices from the earliest rabbinic liturgy, such scriptural readings acquired a more important, structured role in the late talmudic, post-talmudic, and early medieval periods. Although the temple service and priesthood figured in the liturgical poems, they had lost much of their status as spiritual intermediaries.

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