A Brief History of Ba’Alei Shem

2020 ◽  
pp. 15-27
Author(s):  
Michal Oron
Keyword(s):  
Rabbinic Literature ◽  
History Of ◽  
Mystical Experiences ◽  
Land Of Israel

This chapter focuses on ba'alei shem, the primary representatives of Jewish magic in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. It considers the ba'alei shem as the wonder-workers who employed the names of God or his angels through certain techniques, for various theurgic purposes. It also cites rabbinic literature that teaches of the existence and spread of the phenomenon among the sages in the Land of Israel and Babylonia despite biblical opposition to magic or sorcery and their practitioners. The chapter looks at the mystical heikhalot literature, which includes magical texts and descriptions of the qualities and aptitudes of the mystical elect that resemble and later characterize the ba'alei shem. It describes the mystics that possess knowledge of incantations and divine names that enable them to undergo mystical experiences and be in contact with the supernal spheres.

scholarly journals The Land of Israel (Eretz Yisra’el) in Jewish and Christian Understanding

2011 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard C. Lux
Keyword(s):  
Vatican Ii ◽  
Holy Land ◽  
Sacramental Theology ◽  
History Of ◽  
Christian Understanding ◽  
Land Of Israel

One of the principal issues confronting Christians in the dialogue is the significance of the land in the Jewish and Christian Scriptures. This article explores the significance of the Land of Israel in the Scriptures as land given, retained and holy – especially to Christians. The history of the significant Christian religious relationship to the land is reviewed and finally a re-imaging of our relationship to the Holy Land in terms of a post-Vatican II expansion of our understanding of Catholic sacramental theology is suggested: that as Christ is the sacrament of encounter with God, so the Holy Land is a sacrament of our encounter with Christ.

Aquila

2021 ◽  
pp. 458-467
Author(s):  
Giuseppe Veltri ◽  
Alison G. Salvesen
Keyword(s):  
Rabbinic Literature ◽  
History Of ◽  
Translational Approach ◽  
Cairo Genizah ◽  
Biblical Translation ◽  
Minor Prophets

Subsequent to its inclusion in Origen’s Hexapla, the text of the biblical translation ascribed to Aquila, who according to both patristic and rabbinic testimony was a convert to Judaism, has been transmitted only fragmentarily in Greek. Isolated readings from Aquila’s version are cited in Greek in the margins of LXX manuscripts and in patristic works, but also in Hebrew translation in rabbinic literature. The discoveries of the Cairo Genizah and of the Hebraizing recension reflected in the Naḥal Ḥever Minor Prophets scroll have made possible a fresh look at Aquila’s translational approach and the transmission of his version, as well as the history of its reception among both Jews and Christians.

Rabbinic Perceptions of Christianity and the History of Roman Palestine

2011 ◽  
Author(s):  
WILLIAM HORBURY
Keyword(s):  
Rabbinic Literature ◽  
Western World ◽  
History Of Christianity ◽  
History Of ◽  
Roman Palestine

This chapter evaluates the use of rabbinic literature in the study of the history of Christianity in Roman Palestine. It explains that this issue goes back to medieval Jewish-Christian controversy and intertwines with the whole history of the reception of the Talmud in Europe and the western world. It suggests that the view that Christians are most often envisaged in the rabbinic references to minim is consistent with the likelihood that Christianity is envisaged in a number of rabbinic and targumic passages which do not mention minim.

Rabbinic Literature and the History of Judaism in Late Antiquity: Challenges, Methodologies and New Approaches

2011 ◽  
Author(s):  
MOSHE LAVEE
Keyword(s):  
Late Antiquity ◽  
Rabbinic Literature ◽  
Historical Source ◽  
Theoretical Frameworks ◽  
New Approaches ◽  
History Of ◽  
Roman Palestine ◽  
Late Roman

This chapter examines the methodologies, new approaches, and challenges in the use of rabbinic literature to study the history of Judaism in late antiquity. It provides some examples that demonstrate some of the issues concerning the applicability of rabbinic literature to the study of Judaism in late-Roman Palestine. It concludes that rabbinic literature can serve as a historical source, especially when read indirectly and through the lens of well-defined theoretical frameworks, and when perceived as a rabbinic cultural product that reflects delicate, sophisticated and hardly recoverable relationships between text and reality.

Using Rabbinic Literature as a Source for the History of Late-Roman Palestine: Problems and Issues1

2011 ◽  
Author(s):  
PHILIP ALEXANDER
Keyword(s):  
Rabbinic Literature ◽  
Historical Source ◽  
Preliminary Work ◽  
History Of ◽  
Roman Palestine ◽  
Late Roman

This chapter examines problems concerning the use of rabbinic literature as a resource for studying the history of late-Roman Palestine. It discusses the rabbinic corpus, the composition and transmission of the texts, the language and the genres of rabbinic literature. It concludes that rabbinic literature requires very heavy processing before its potential as a historical source can be realised and it states that the extent to which scholars engaged with this literature have done the preliminary work remains patchy.

Rabbinic Texts and the History of Late-Roman Palestine

2011 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Social History ◽  
Late Antiquity ◽  
Rabbinic Literature ◽  
Historical Evidence ◽  
Introductory Section ◽  
Current State ◽  
History Of ◽  
Political Economic ◽  
Roman Palestine ◽  
Late Roman

This volume brings together studies in the rabbinic literature of late antiquity by specialists in the history of the Jews in that period in order to reveal the value of rabbinic material as historical evidence and to show the problems and issues which arise in its exploitation. An introductory section discusses the current state of knowledge about Palestine in this period and debates the difficulties involved in editing and dating rabbinic texts. Specific core texts and text categories are then introduced to the reader in a series of ten discrete studies. The volume concludes with six thematic analyses which illustrate the use and limitations of rabbinic evidence for cultural, religious, political, economic and social history.

New Light on the Jews of Mozarabic Toledo

AJS Review ◽  
1986 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
pp. 189-220 ◽  
Author(s):  
Norman Roth
Keyword(s):  
Jewish Population ◽  
Jewish Life ◽  
Focus Attention ◽  
Medieval Spain ◽  
Jewish Culture ◽  
Archival Material ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Rich ◽  
Land Of Israel

Medieval Spain represents a unique phenomenon in the history of Jewish civilization. Not only did the Jews live longer in Spain than in any other land in their history (indeed, almost as long as they occupied their homeland in the land of Israel from Abraham to the Roman destruction of Jerusalem in 70 C.E.), but the Jewish population of medieval Spain was greater than that of all other lands combined, and the rich achievements of Jewish culture there were unequaled elsewhere. Of all the cities in Spain which served as major centers of Jewish life and culture, Toledo perhaps stands out as the most important. Studies dealing with Jewish life in Spain have recognized this, and the long-awaited appearance of a recent two-volume work in Spanish devoted to the Jews of Toledo has helped focus attention once again on the vast archival material available.

How Do We Recognize God

2018 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 117-128
Author(s):  
Stanisław Judycki
Keyword(s):  
Christian Theology ◽  
Historical Events ◽  
Existence Of God ◽  
Christian Religion ◽  
Sources Of Knowledge ◽  
The World ◽  
History Of ◽  
Mystical Experiences ◽  
Theology And Philosophy ◽  
Significant Weakness

There are three main ways to acquire the knowledge of the existence of God and the knowledge of His nature. These are either the arguments taking into account the nature of the world and our thinking about the world, or it is the argumentation trying to prove the authenticity of certain historical events, or it is a reference to particular types of experiences, called mystical experiences. In the case of Christian philosophy we will have to consider, firstly, the cosmological and ontological arguments for the existence of God, and, secondly,  the attempts to show the authenticity of reports of the events regarding Jesus of Nazareth and, thirdly, the arguments in favor of the objectivity of mystical experiences recorded in the history of Christian religion. In regard to all of the above-mentioned three sources of knowledge about God, I would like to ask the following questions. How do we know that all of them refer to the same object? On what basis can we say that even if these three 'ways to God' are correct, they refer us to the same being? Are they independent of each other, and if they depend on each other in some way, what are the relationships among them? If we were not able to demonstrate that the item referred to by the term 'God' in all of these three ways is the same object or being, it would represent a significant weakness in Christian theology and philosophy. I will try to outline what relationship may exist between these three sources of knowledge about God. Then I will attempt to describe the criteria connecting all these sources of knowledge.

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