Ascensions on high took many forms in Jewish mysticism and they permeated most of its history from its inception until Hasidism. The book surveys the various categories, with an emphasis on the archetectural images of the ascent, like the resort images of pillars, lines, and ladders.
The NS concentration camp of Stutt-hof (West Prussia) has never been the subject of scientific study by western historians. Although there exists some Polish literature on the subject, it must be treated with caution, because it is heavily influenced by Soviet-Communist ideology. According to this literature, Stutthof became a ‘makeshift’ extermination camp within the framework of the so-called ‘Final Solution of the Jewish Question’ in 1944. J rgen Graf and Carlo Mattogno have examined this view of Stutt-hof based on Polish literature and documents located in Russian, Polish, and Dutch archives, paying particular attention to mass transports to and from Stutthof in 1944. Not only do the authors prove that the Stutthof camp did not serve as a ‘makeshift’ extermination camp — the room claimed to have been used as a homicidal gas chamber was never anything else but a delousing chamber. This book also sheds some light on the fate of those prisoners who were deported to Auschwitz but were never registered in that camp. The present volume is a milestone of research, which no historian with any claim to seriousness can afford to ignore.
This volume introduces a cycle of stories about Abraham as preserved in fifteen unpublished, late medieval manuscripts in Armenian, published here in English for the first time with commentaries, annotations, and critical apparatus. The texts present embroidered Abraham stories dealing with his youth, his life in Egypt, the binding of Isaac, the story of Melchizedek, and other tales. Embedding Jewish, Christian, Islamic, and other ancient traditions, these texts demonstrate mutual borrowing and influence over centuries.
This is a study of the interrelationships between the formulary traditions of the legal documents of the Jewish colony of Elephantine and the legal formulary traditions of their Egyptian counterparts.
This volume is a comprehensive but accessible guide to the major questions raised by the Hellenistic Jewish work, Joseph and Aseneth. Joseph and Aseneth is an excellent example of the controverted issues of text, dating and Sitz im Leben, when such decisions must be largely based on internal evidence. It provides an entre into the vexed question of genre, given the numerous literary links that have been suggested for it. Its mysterious but engaging plot, and its female protagonist, evoke ongoing sociological and feminist debate. It is thus strongly commended for careful study to students and scholars of Judaism, New Testament, sociology and narratology. Intended as a sound basis for such exploration, this guide also offers a fresh narrative reading in which the revelatory character of Joseph and Aseneth is brought to the forefront.
Mendelssohn, Goethe, and the Walpurgis Night addresses tolerance and acceptance in the face of cultural, political, and religious strife. Its point of departure is the Walpurgis Night. The Night, also known as Beltane or May Eve, was supposedly an annual witches’ Sabbath that centered around the Brocken, the highest peak of the Harz Mountains. After exploring how a notoriously pagan celebration came to be named after the Christian missionary St. Walpurgis (ca. 710-79), John Michael Cooper discusses the Night’s treatments in several closely interwoven works by Goethe and Mendelssohn. His book situates those works in their immediate personal and professional contexts, as well as among treatments by a wide array of other artists, philosophers, and political thinkers, including Voltaire, Lessing, Shelley, Heine, Delacroix, and Berlioz. In an age of decisive political and religious conflict, Walpurgis Night became a heathen muse: a source of spiritual inspiration that was neither specifically Christian, nor Jewish, nor Muslim. And Mendelssohn’s and Goethe’s engagements with it offer new insights into its role in European cultural history, as well as into issues of political, religious, and social identity — and the relations between cultural groups — in today’s world. John Michael Cooper is Professor of Music at Southwestern University and author of Mendelssohn’s ‘Italian’ Symphony (Oxford University Press).
