New Books in Jewish Studies

The book of Kings in the Bible records more than 380 years of the history of Israel and its monarchy, from the last part of David’s rule to the end of the kingship in Judah, and emphasizes the role of prophets along the way.Join us as we speak with Walter Maier III about the first of his two-volume commentary on 1 Kings, covering chapters 1-11, the rise and failures of Solomon’s kingship.Walter Maier III earned in his PhD from Harvard University in Near Eastern Languages, and is Professor of Exegetical Theology at Concordia Theological Seminary.Michael Morales is Professor of Biblical Studies at Greenville Presbyterian Theological Seminary, and the author of The Tabernacle Pre-Figured: Cosmic Mountain Ideology in Genesis and Exodus(Peeters, 2012), Who Shall Ascend the Mountain of the Lord?: A Biblical Theology of Leviticus(IVP Academic, 2015), and Exodus Old and New: A Biblical Theology of Redemption (IVP Academic, 2020). He can be reached at mmorales@gpts.edu. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/jewish-studies

In this week's episode, Modya and David discuss the Torah portion of Hayyei Sarah and what it teaches about the middah (trait) of patience. They note the kindness, generosity, and grace of the matriarch Rivkah, and the relationships between these traits and the trait of patience. They explore the water that plays a central role in this Torah portion, and water's fundamental link to patience: its ability to wear away, drop by drop over great spans of time, any obstacle before it. And they begin by discussing what was making each of them impatient as they were beginning to record today's episode! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/jewish-studies

In the ancient Mediterranean world, individuals routinely looked for divine aid to cure physical afflictions. Contested Cures: Identity and Ritual Healing in Roman and Late Antique Palestine (Edinburgh University Press, 2022) by Dr. Megan Nutzman argues that the inevitability of sickness and injury made people willing to experiment with seemingly beneficial techniques, even if they originated in a foreign cultural or religious tradition. With circumstances of close cultural contacts, such as prevailed in Palestine, the setting was ripe for neighbouring Jews, Samaritans, Christians, Greeks and Romans to borrow rituals perceived to be efficacious and to alter them to fit their own religious framework. As a result, they employed related means of seeking miraculous cures. The similarities of these rituals, despite changes in the identity of the divine healers that they invoked, made them the subject of polemical discourse among elite authors trying to police collective borders. Contested Cures investigates the resulting intersection of ritual healing and communal identity.This innovative study synthesises evidence for the full range of healing rituals that were practised in the ancient Mediterranean world. Examining both literary and archaeological evidence, Dr. Nutzman considers ritual healing as a component of identity formation and deconstructs the artificial boundary between ‘magic’ and ‘religion’ in relation to ritual cures.This interview was conducted by Dr. Miranda Melcher whose forthcoming book focuses on post-conflict military integration, understanding treaty negotiation and implementation in civil war contexts, with qualitative analysis of the Angolan and Mozambican civil wars. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/jewish-studies

The obvious riddles and difficulties in Exodus 3:13-15 and 6:2-8 have attracted an overwhelming amount of attention and comment. These texts make important theological statements about the divine name and the contours of the divine character. In his book Making Sense of the Divine Name in the Book of Exodus: From Etymology to Literary Onomastics (Eisenbrauns, 2017), Austin Surls attempts to move beyond atomistic readings of individual texts and etymological studies of the divine name toward a holistic reading of the book of Exodus.Join us as we speak with Austin Surls about the progressive revelation of the divine name in the book of Exodus.Dr. Austin Surls is Assistant Professor of Old Testament Studies at Jordan Evangelical Theological Seminary.Michael Morales is Professor of Biblical Studies at Greenville Presbyterian Theological Seminary, and the author of The Tabernacle Pre-Figured: Cosmic Mountain Ideology in Genesis and Exodus(Peeters, 2012), Who Shall Ascend the Mountain of the Lord?: A Biblical Theology of Leviticus(IVP Academic, 2015), and Exodus Old and New: A Biblical Theology of Redemption (IVP Academic, 2020). He can be reached at mmorales@gpts.edu. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/jewish-studies

In this volume entitled Biblical Heroes and Classical Culture in Christian Late Antiquity (Cambridge UP, 2023), Carson Bay focuses on an important but neglected work of Late Antiquity: Pseudo-Hegesippus' On the Destruction of Jerusalem (De Excidio Hierosolymitano), a Latin history of later Second Temple Judaism written during the fourth century CE. Bay explores the presence of so many Old Testament figures in a work that recounts the Roman-Jewish War (66–73 CE) and the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 CE. By applying the lens of Roman exemplarity to Pseudo-Hegesippus, he elucidates new facets of Biblical reception, history-writing, and anti-Judaism in a text from the formative first century of Christian Empire. The author also offers new insights into the Christian historiographical imagination and how Biblical heroes and Classical culture helped Christians to write anti-Jewish history. Revealing novel aspects of the influence of the Classical literary tradition on early Christian texts, this book also newly questions the age-old distinction between the Christian and the Classical (or 'pagan') in the ancient Mediterranean world. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/jewish-studies

In concluding their focus on the trait of equanimity, Modya and David are joined in conversation by Alan Morinis, founder of the Mussar Institute and the author of several books on Mussar, the Jewish ethical self-development discipline. Modya, David, and Alan focus on the Torah portion of Vayera in the Book of Genesis, especially in light of the difficult times being experienced as this episode was recorded. They address numerous questions, including: How do you practice equanimity in dark times? Is it even appropriate to do so? What makes the patriarch Abraham a good model for developing equanimity? How do you bring other personality traits into your work on equanimity? These are just some of the topics covered in this week's rich discussion.Modya Silver is an author and psychotherapist based in Toronto. David Gottlieb is Director of Jewish Studies at the Spertus Institute for Jewish Learning and Leadership in Chicago. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/jewish-studies

In The Soviet Jewish Bookshelf: Jewish Culture and Identity Between the Lines (Brandeis UP, 2023), Marat Grinberg argues that in an environment where Judaism had been all but destroyed, and a public Jewish presence routinely delegitimized, reading uniquely provided many Soviet Jews with an entry to communal memory and identity. The bookshelf was both a depository of selective Jewish knowledge and often the only conspicuously Jewish presence in their homes. The typical Soviet Jewish bookshelf consisted of a few translated works from Hebrew and numerous translations from Yiddish and German as well as Russian books with both noticeable and subterranean Jewish content. Such volumes, officially published, and not intended solely for a Jewish audience, afforded an opportunity for Soviet Jews to indulge insubordinate feelings in a largely safe manner. Grinberg is interested in pinpointing and decoding the complex reading strategies and the specifically Jewish uses to which the books on the Soviet Jewish bookshelf were put. He reveals that not only Jews read them, but Jews read them in a specific way.Amber Nickell is Associate Professor of History at Fort Hays State University, Editor at H-Ukraine, and Host at NBN Jewish Studies, Ukrainian Studies, and Eastern Europe. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/jewish-studies

In this episode, Modya and David dive into Lekh Lekha, the Torah portion in which the story of the patriarch Abraham begins to unfold, and consider what lessons this narrative holds for developing our equanimity. Here we see Abraham as both a flawed and faithful person, as a wanderer and a warrior, and as someone who follows the command to embark on a journey whose destination is unknown. In what ways are we like Abraham? How does he instruct us on how to identify what is consequential and what isn't? Tune in to hear the discussion.Modya Silver is an author and psychotherapist based in Toronto. David Gottlieb is Director of Jewish Studies at the Spertus Institute for Jewish Learning and Leadership in Chicago. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/jewish-studies

In 1965, five years after the capture of Adolf Eichmann in Buenos Aires, one of his Mossad abductors was sent back to South America to kill another fugitive Nazi, the so-called “butcher of Riga,” Latvian Herberts Cukurs. Cukurs was shot. On his corpse, the assassins left pages from the closing speech of the chief British prosecutor at the International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg:“After this ordeal to which mankind has been submitted, mankind itself . . . comes to this Court and cries: ‘These are our laws—let them prevail!’”Years later, the Latvian prosecutor general began investigating the possibility of redeeming Cukurs for his past actions. Researching the case, Dr. Linda Kinstler discovered that her grandfather, Boris, had served in Cukurs’s killing unit and was rumored to be a double agent for the KGB. The proceedings, which might have resulted in Cukurs’s pardon, threw into question supposed “facts” about the Holocaust at the precise moment its last living survivors—the last legal witnesses—were dying.Rich with scholarly detective work and personal reflection, Come to This Court and Cry: How the Holocaust Ends (PublicAffairs, 2023) (Public Affairs, 2023) is a fearlessly brave examination of how history can become distorted over time, how easily the innocent are forgotten, and how carelessly the guilty are sometimes reprieved.This interview was conducted by Dr. Miranda Melcher whose doctoral work focused on post-conflict military integration, understanding treaty negotiation and implementation in civil war contexts, with qualitative analysis of the Angolan and Mozambican civil wars. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/jewish-studies

In this episode, psychotherapist and author Modya Silver and scholar David Gottlieb explore parshat Noaḥ, seeking wisdom in the story of the Flood, and the conduct of both God and Noah, about how one can develop and maintain equanimity under even the most difficult circumstances. The hosts also discuss what the narrative of the Tower of Babel, and how selfishness and overreach can undermine our ability to rise above events that are inconsequential, whether good or bad. See also: The Heart of Torah: Essays on the Weekly Torah Portion, Vol. 1, by Shai Held.Modya Silver is an author and psychotherapist based in Toronto. David Gottlieb is Director of Jewish Studies at the Spertus Institute for Jewish Learning and Leadership in Chicago. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/jewish-studies