Product Description: The subject of this study is the prophetic history of Joshua and the first stages of the conquest of the Promised Land, as presented in the Masoretic text of the biblical Book of Joshua. The term prophetic history is employed to describe the subject because prophecy in biblical thought is not fatalistic and does not predict future events...read more

Product Description: Perusing this biblical book through a theopolitical prism, it may be seen that another unifying theme that courses through the diverse contents of this biblical work is that of molding the diverse tribes of the children of Israel into a functioning confederacy presided over by an increasingly strong central authority...read more

Product Description: The theme that unifies the diverse contents of this biblical work is that of holiness, as the text asserts: Ye shall be holy; for I the Lord your God am holy (Lev. 19:2). The burden of the work is set forth guidelines as to how the children of Israel were to attain that goal...read more

Product Description: The subject of this study is the story of the rise of David to become the king of Judah and subsequently king of all Israel, and the anything but smooth transition from a tribal confederacy to a centralized state, from the ethnic kingdom of the Israelites to the territorial kingdom of Israel that also included numerous minority groups, as presented in the Masoretic text of the Second Book of Samuel...read more

Product Description: The Book of Deuteronomy, the last of the Five Books of Moses or Pentateuch, consists in the main of Moses' final discourses delivered to the children of Israel as they stood poised to begin the conquest and settlement of the land upon which they were to build a national society...read more

Product Description: The biblical narrative of the revelatory events at Mount Sinai, and the covenant with God entered into by the children of Israel, deals with the critical formative event in the religious and cultural history of ancient Israel. However, the narrative also contains a number of enigmatic passages that have long troubled readers of Scripture...read more

Product Description: The Ten Commandments is an exploration into the background, meaning, and implications of the Decalogue from a Judaic perspective. Although they have become a universal symbol of Judeo-Christian civilization, it is only within Judaism that the Ten Commandments have a juridical function that goes beyond the mere announcement of a set of key precepts for man and society...read more

Product Description: The biblical narrative of the Exodus and of Moses, the reluctant prophet who was chosen to lead it, deals with the critical formative event in the history of ancient Israel. However, the narrative also contains a number of enigmatic passages as well as some seemingly unrelated episodes...read more

Product Description: The sagas of Jacob and his sons are presented in the biblical book of Genesis in a series of sometimes seemingly unrelated episodes. In this book, the author undertakes to show that these episodes are all intimately connected and were selected to illustrate the problems faced by Jacob in coping with the sibling rivalries among his dozen sons and welding them into a collective body capable of giving birth to a nation...read more

Product Description: The biblical author had to demonstrate that the founding fathers of the model civilization-envisioned in Mosaic legislation intended as a model for emulation by other peoples and nations-were recognizably human-flawed as all humans are...read more

Product Description: Traditionalist commentators assume that the author of Kohelet was a man of deep religious sensibilities and that his words, as obscure as they sometimes may be, reflect profound religious insights. They therefore tend to read Kohelet as a series of non-literal homilies based on hidden meanings imbedded in the author's often less than clear expressions...read more

Product Description: Justice is a theme that courses throughout the literature of Judaism, and yet, it would be difficult to find anything beyond an occasional journal or book article that directly addresses the subject for a variety of reasons that are discussed in this book...read more

Product Description: This study of the biblical creation narrative, and the wide variety of ways in which it has been interpreted over more than two millennia, is based on the thesis that, notwithstanding its mythopoeic presentation, the essential purpose of the biblical author is to set forth the most essential elements of a political theology, elaborated further through the other narratives and constitutional writings contained in the remainder of the Torah or Pentateuch, that is to serve as the basis upon which an ideal moral and just civilization was to emerge...read more

The Moral Maxims of the Sages of Israel is a study of the moral maxims of the sages of Israel, who thrived from 300 B.C.E. to 200 C.E., that are contained in the work known as Pirkei Avot, probably the oldest anthology of its kind in literary history. Although the work has been translated from the original Hebrew numerous times, much of it remains inaccessible because of the epigrammatic rather than discursive style of the original, which employs idiomatic expressions, unusual turns of phrase, grammatically awkward constructions, euphemisms, and plays on words that confound even those who are able to read it in the original language. An ancient work like Pirkei Avot can be read from a variety of perspectives. It may be read it from the standpoint of what it says that resonates with the contemporary concerns of the reader or commentator, often attaching meaning to a maxim that its author could not reasonably be expected to have intended. It may also be read from the perspective of attempting to understand what the redactor of the work had in mind when making his editorial decisions about what to include or exclude, and why he made such choices from the large volume of materials available to him. Finally, the work can be read as representing the concerns of the individual authors in the context of the times in which they lived. In essence, then, one must choose between reading meaning into the text and reading meaning out of it. The approach in this book is to do the latter, that is, to understand the maxims and teachings of the sages that appear in Pirkei Avot primarily from the standpoint of the originators, and secondarily from the standpoint of the redactor, some of whose own thoughts are included in the work. In so doing, it will suggest, wherever possible and plausible, the unstated problems and questions to which the sages' teachings and assertions probably were deemed appropriate responses.

Product Description: By subjecting biblical writings to a political analysis, Sicker constructs a plausible political history of the ancient Israelite states that dealt with virtually every issue faced by governments throughout subsequent history. As he makes clear, the way they dealt with those issues, successfully or otherwise, is highly instructive and relevant to today's analysis of geopolitical issues...read more (view table of contents, read Amazon.com's description)

Product Description: Sicker argues that it is the achievement of orthocracy as the motivating concept of the state rather than democracy as its optimum form that is crucial for mankind in the 21st century, notwithstanding that the widespread adoption of substantive democracy may be the best currently conceivable means for reaching the goal of universal responsible statehood...read more (view table of contents, read Amazon.com's description)

Product Description: When Congress enacted Social Secuirty in 1935, with the age of retirement set at age 65, average life expectancy was 62 years. By the time Medicare was enacted 30 years later, life expectancy had risen to age 70. Since the enactment of Medicare, life expectancy has risen to age 76 today and may be expected to increase further in the decades to come...read more (view table of contents, read Amazon.com's description)