Cultures in Collision and Conversation: Essays in the Intellectual History of the Jews

David Berger

book: Cultures in Collision and Conversation

Open Access Published by Academic Studies Press 2011

Cultures in Collision and Conversation

Essays in the Intellectual History of the Jews

David Berger
Funded by: Knowledge Unlatched

In the series Judaism and Jewish Life

https://doi.org/10.1515/9781618117915

Overview
Contents

About this book

In Cultures in Collision and Conversation, David Berger addresses three broad themes in Jewish intellectual history: Jewish approaches to cultures external to Judaism and the controversies triggered by this issue in medieval and modern times; the impact of Christian challenges and differing philosophical orientations on Jewish interpretation of the Bible; and Messianic visions, movements, and debates from antiquity to the present. These essays include a monograph-length study of Jewish attitudes toward general culture in medieval and early modern times, analyses of the thought of Maimonides and Nahmanides, an assessment of the reactions to the most recent messianic movement in Jewish history, and reflections on the value of the academic study of Judaism.

Author / Editor information

David Berger (Ph.D. Columbia University, 1970) is a former President of the Association for Jewish Studies and Ruth and I. Lewis Professor and Dean at the Bernard Revel Graduate School of Yeshiva University.

Reviews

Eric Lawee:
A fine conspectus of David Berger’s variegated contributions to Jewish intellectual history. . . . Full of references to primary sources and informed by an enviable mastery of the voluminous secondary literature on a very broad topic [the chapter on Judaism and general culture] abounds in the sort of thought-provoking insights and limpid formulations that Berger’s deft pen routinely generates. . . . Besides its impressive substance, Berger’s tome merits appreciation in terms of style and tone. . . . His writing brims with crisp formulations and a nice increment of witty (at times rabinically inflected) turns of phrase.

Robbie Harris:
The essays contained in this volume represent a crowning achievement in a life of scholarship that primarily has been devoted to exploring polemical interaction of Jews and Christians in the Middle Ages...Cultures in Collision and Conversation will find a proud place alongside his other scholarly publications.

Bernard Septimus, Jacob E. Safra Professor of Jewish History and Sephardic Civilization, Harvard University:
“Berger’s wise and witty essays are at once learned and effervescent, balanced and engaged essential reading for anyone interested in the Jewish past and its (mis)uses, and a pleasure to read.”

Robert Chazan, S. H. and Helen R. Scheuer Professor of Hebrew and Judaic Studies, New York University:
“For decades, David Berger has been profoundly enriching our knowledge of the Jewish past and present. This new collection of essays exhibits Berger at his best. The essays are wide-ranging in time and space, are rich in knowledge and citation of the sources, are meticulous and convincing in their argumentation, and show a historian with deep warmth and empathy for the people—past and present—about whom he writes.”

Topics

Frontmatter Publicly Available Download PDF	i
CONTENTS Publicly Available Download PDF	vii
Introduction Publicly Available Download PDF	ix
The Cultural Environment: Challenge and Response
Identity, Ideology, and Faith: Some Personal Reflections on the Social, Cultural and Spiritual Value of the Academic Study of Judaism Open Access Download PDF	1
Judaism and General Culture in Medieval and Early Modern Times Open Access Download PDF	21
How Did Nahmanides Propose to Resolve the Maimonidean Controversy? Open Access Download PDF	117
Miracles and the Natural Order in Nahmanides Open Access Download PDF	129
Polemic, Exegesis, Philosophy, and Science: Reflections on the Tenacity of Ashkenazic Modes of Thought Open Access Download PDF	152
Malbim’s Secular Knowledge and His Relationship to the Spirit of the Haskalah Open Access Download PDF	167
The Uses of Maimonides by Twentieth-Century Jewry Open Access Download PDF	190
The Institute for Jewish Studies on its Eightieth Anniversary Open Access Download PDF	203
Interpreting the Bible
‘The Wisest of All Men’: Solomon’s Wisdom in Medieval Jewish Commentaries on the Book of Kings Open Access Download PDF	215
On the Morality of the Patriarchs in Jewish Polemic and Exegesis Open Access Download PDF	236
Yearning for Redemption
Three Typological Themes in Early Jewish Messianism: Messiah son of Joseph, Rabbinic Calculations, and the Figure of Armilus Open Access Download PDF	253
Some Ironic Consequences of Maimonides’ Rationalist Approach to the Messianic Age Open Access Download PDF	278
Sephardic and Ashkenazic Messianism in the Middle Ages: An Examination of the Historiographical Controversy Open Access Download PDF	289
Maccabees, Zealots, and Josephus: The Impact of Zionism on Joseph Klausner’s History of the Second Temple Open Access Download PDF	312
The Fragility of Religious Doctrine: Accounting for Orthodox Acquiescence in the Belief in a Second Coming Open Access Download PDF	326
Epilogue
The Image of his Father: On the Twenty-Fifth Anniversary of the Death of Hadoar Author Isaiah Berger Open Access Download PDF	343
Index Open Access Download PDF	351

Language: English
Publisher: Academic Studies Press
Audience: Professional and scholarly;General/trade;
Pages
- Main content: 450

eBook

Published: February 13, 2018
ISBN: 9781618117915