{"title":"Peter Schäfer","description":"\u003cp\u003eDelve into the intricate world of Peter Schäfer, a leading scholar on Jewish history, religion, and literature. Explore his profound insights into ancient Judaism and its enduring legacy. Browse his key works.\u003c\/p\u003e","products":[{"product_id":"jewish-jesus-book-peter-schfer-9780691160955","title":"The Jewish Jesus","description":"In late antiquity, as Christianity emerged from Judaism, it was not only the new religion that was being influenced by the old. The rise and revolutionary challenge of Christianity also had a profound influence on rabbinic Judaism, which was itself just emerging and, like Christianity, trying to shape its own identity. In The Jewish Jesus, Peter Schafer reveals the crucial ways in which various Jewish heresies, including Christianity, affected the development of rabbinic Judaism. He even shows that some of the ideas that the rabbis appropriated from Christianity were actually reappropriated Jewish ideas. The result is a demonstration of the deep mutual influence between the sister religions, one that calls into question hard and fast distinctions between orthodoxy and heresy, and even Judaism and Christianity, during the first centuries CE.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ GARDNERS","offer_id":49730333507857,"sku":"NGR9780691160955","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":50984082374929,"sku":"NIN9780691160955","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0691160953.jpg?v=1751262108"},{"product_id":"jesus-in-the-talmud-book-peter-schfer-9780691143187","title":"Jesus in the Talmud","description":"Scattered throughout the Talmud, the founding document of rabbinic Judaism in late antiquity, can be found quite a few references to Jesus--and they're not flattering. In this lucid, richly detailed, and accessible book, Peter Schafer examines how the rabbis of the Talmud read, understood, and used the New Testament Jesus narrative to assert, ultimately, Judaism's superiority over Christianity. The Talmudic stories make fun of Jesus' birth from a virgin, fervently contest his claim to be the Messiah and Son of God, and maintain that he was rightfully executed as a blasphemer and idolater. They subvert the Christian idea of Jesus' resurrection and insist he got the punishment he deserved in hell--and that a similar fate awaits his followers. Schafer contends that these stories betray a remarkable familiarity with the Gospels--especially Matthew and John--and represent a deliberate and sophisticated anti-Christian polemic that parodies the New Testament narratives. He carefully distinguishes between Babylonian and Palestinian sources, arguing that the rabbis' proud and self-confident countermessage to that of the evangelists was possible only in the unique historical setting of Persian Babylonia, in a Jewish community that lived in relative freedom. The same could not be said of Roman and Byzantine Palestine, where the Christians aggressively consolidated their political power and the Jews therefore suffered. A departure from past scholarship, which has played down the stories as unreliable distortions of the historical Jesus, Jesus in the Talmud posits a much more deliberate agenda behind these narratives.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ GARDNERS","offer_id":49730366439697,"sku":"NGR9780691143187","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":50594721693969,"sku":"CIN0691143188G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":51005699850513,"sku":"NIN9780691143187","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":51392258015505,"sku":"GOR007692983","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0691143188.jpg?v=1751168286"},{"product_id":"history-of-the-jews-in-the-greco-roman-world-book-peter-schfer-9780415305877","title":"The History of the Jews in the Greco-Roman World","description":"The History of the Jews in the Greco-Roman World examines Judaism in Palestine throughout the Hellenistic period, from Alexander the Great's conquest in 334BC to its capture by the Arabs in AD 636. Under the Greek, Roman and finally Christian supremacy which Hellenism brought, Judaism developed far beyond its biblical origins into a form which was to influence European history from the Middle Ages to the present day. The book focuses particularly on the social, economic and religious concerns of this period, and the political status of the Jews as both active agents and passive victims of history. The author provides a straightforward chronological survey of this important period through analysis and interpretation of the existing sources. With its accessible style and explanation of technical terms, the book provides a useful introduction to students and anybody with an interest in post-biblical Judaism.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ GARDNERS","offer_id":49730653880593,"sku":"NGR9780415305877","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":50000447865105,"sku":"CIN041530587XG","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":51002198393105,"sku":"NIN9780415305877","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":52330978083089,"sku":"NLS9780415305877","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/041530587X.jpg?v=1750975633"},{"product_id":"two-gods-in-heaven-book-peter-schfer-9780691181325","title":"Two Gods in Heaven","description":"A book that challenges our most basic assumptions about Judeo-Christian monotheismContrary to popular belief, Judaism was not always strictly monotheistic. Two Gods in Heaven reveals the long and little-known history of a second, junior god in Judaism, showing how this idea was embraced by rabbis and Jewish mystics in the early centuries of the","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ GARDNERS","offer_id":49734326944017,"sku":"NGR9780691181325","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0691181322.jpg?v=1751073768"},{"product_id":"hidden-and-manifest-god-book-peter-schaefer-9780791410448","title":"The Hidden and Manifest God","description":"This book represents the first wide-scale presentation and interpretation of pre-kabbalistic, Jewish mysticism. This is the Hekhalot or Merkavah mysticism. The emphasis is on the conceptions of God, the angels, and man that the texts provide and that are the framework of the Judaic world view in late antiquity and the early Middle Ages.  This interpretation is based on the major works of this early Jewish mysticism: Hekhalot Rabbati (\"The Greater Palaces\"), Hekhalot Zutarti (\"The Lesser Palaces\"), Ma'aseh Merkavah (\"The Working of the Chariot\"), Merkavah Rabbah (\"The Great Chariot)\" and the Third (Hebrew) Book of Enoch. Many quotations from this largely unknown body of esoteric literature are included.  The experience of the mystical heroes of this literature moves between the two poles of the heavenly journey-between the ascent of the mystic through the seven palaces to the Throne of Glory and the adjuration, the attempt to invoke God and his angels in order to force them to fulfill man's will. Both are permeated by magic, and the world view of this first stage of Jewish mysticism is thus deeply magical. The circles which formed it were concerned with nothing less than a radical transformation of the world of normative Judaism that for centuries was determined by the Rabbis.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":50120062533905,"sku":"GOR012703810","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":50661600887057,"sku":"CIN0791410447G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":50701300957457,"sku":"GOR014040341","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":51007072174353,"sku":"NIN9780791410448","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ VERY_GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":51373929169169,"sku":"CIN0791410447VG","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":52352787742993,"sku":"NLS9780791410448","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0791410447.jpg?v=1751043993"},{"product_id":"history-of-the-jews-in-antiquity-book-peter-schfer-9783718657940","title":"The History of the Jews in Antiquity","description":"The main emphasis of this book is on the political history of the Jews in Palestine, where political is to be understood not as the mere succession of rulers and battles but as the interaction between political activity and social, economic and religious circumstances.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":50129508368657,"sku":"CIN3718657945G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/3718657945.jpg?v=1751064357"},{"product_id":"mirror-of-his-beauty-book-peter-schfer-9780691119809","title":"Mirror of His Beauty","description":"In this beautifully realized study, Peter Schafer investigates the origins of a female manifestation of God in Jewish mysticism. The search itself is a fascinating exploration of the idea of a feminine divinity. And Schafer's surprising but persuasive conclusions yield deeper understanding of the complex but frequently intimate relationship between Christianity and Judaism--and of the development of religious concepts more generally. Toward the end of the twelfth century, a small book titled the Bahir (Light) appeared in Provence. The first document of Judaism's emerging kabbalistic movement, it introduced a completely new view of God, one that included a divine potency that was essentially female. This female divinity was portrayed both as a mediator between Jews and God and as part of the Godhead itself. Examining Judaic history from the biblical Wisdom tradition to the Middle Ages, Schafer finds some precedents for the Kabbalah's feminine divinity. But he cannot account for her forceful appearance in twelfth-century southern France without reference to the immediate Christian environment, particularly the flourishing veneration of the Virgin Mary. Indeed, twelfth-century Jews and Christians were simultaneously rediscovering the feminine as an aspect of the Godhead after having abandoned it in favor of either an abstract, disembodied God or an exclusively male one. In proposing that the medieval cult of Mary--rather than eastern Gnosticism--is the appropriate framework for understanding the feminine elements in Jewish mysticism, Mirror of His Beauty represents a sea change in Kabbalah and Jewish-Christian cultural studies. It shifts our attention from the Byzantine East to the Latin Christian West. And in contrast to histories that treat the development of Judaism and Christianity in isolation, it leads us to a fuller understanding of Jews and Christians living in proximity, aware of each other.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":50332692873489,"sku":"CIN0691119805G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":50984080933137,"sku":"NIN9780691119809","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0691119805.jpg?v=1751105583"},{"product_id":"jesus-in-the-talmud-book-peter-schafer-9780691129266","title":"Jesus in the Talmud","description":"Scattered throughout the Talmud, the founding document of rabbinic Judaism in late antiquity, can be found quite a few references to Jesus--and they're not flattering. In this lucid, richly detailed, and accessible book, Peter Schfer examines how the rabbis of the Talmud read, understood, and used the New Testament Jesus narrative to assert, ultimately, Judaism's superiority over Christianity.  The Talmudic stories make fun of Jesus' birth from a virgin, fervently contest his claim to be the Messiah and Son of God, and maintain that he was rightfully executed as a blasphemer and idolater. They subvert the Christian idea of Jesus' resurrection and insist he got the punishment he deserved in hell--and that a similar fate awaits his followers.  Schfer contends that these stories betray a remarkable familiarity with the Gospels--especially Matthew and John--and represent a deliberate and sophisticated anti-Christian polemic that parodies the New Testament narratives. He carefully distinguishes between Babylonian and Palestinian sources, arguing that the rabbis' proud and self-confident countermessage to that of the evangelists was possible only in the unique historical setting of Persian Babylonia, in a Jewish community that lived in relative freedom. The same could not be said of Roman and Byzantine Palestine, where the Christians aggressively consolidated their political power and the Jews therefore suffered.  A departure from past scholarship, which has played down the stories as unreliable distortions of the historical Jesus, Jesus in the Talmud posits a much more deliberate agenda behind these narratives.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":50333048307985,"sku":"CIN0691129266G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0691129266.jpg?v=1751231219"},{"product_id":"mirror-of-his-beauty-book-peter-schafer-9780691090689","title":"Mirror of His Beauty","description":"This study investigates the origins of a female manifestation of God in Jewish mysticism. The search itself is an exploration of the idea of a feminine divinity and the conclusions it reaches yield deeper understanding of the complex but intimate relationship between Christianity and Judaism.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":50360191090961,"sku":"CIN0691090688G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0691090688.jpg?v=1751394238"},{"product_id":"origins-of-jewish-mysticism-book-peter-schfer-9780691142159","title":"The Origins of Jewish Mysticism","description":"The Origins of Jewish Mysticism offers the first in-depth look at the history of Jewish mysticism from the book of Ezekiel to the Merkavah mysticism of late antiquity. The Merkavah movement is widely recognized as the first full-fledged expression of Jewish mysticism, one that had important ramifications for classical rabbinic Judaism and the emergence of the Kabbalah in twelfth-century Europe. Yet until now, the origins and development of still earlier forms of Jewish mysticism have been largely overlooked. In this book, Peter Schafer sheds new light on Ezekiel's tantalizing vision, the apocalyptic literature of Enoch, the Dead Sea Scrolls, the writings of the Hellenistic Jewish philosopher Philo, the rabbinical writings of the Talmudic period, and the esotericism of the Merkavah mystics. Schafer questions whether we can accurately speak of Jewish mysticism as a uniform, coherent phenomenon with origins in Judaism's mythical past. Rather than imposing preconceived notions about \"mysticism\" on a great variety of writings that arose from different cultural, religious, and historical settings, he reveals what these writings seek to tell us about the age-old human desire to get close to and communicate with God.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"US \/ VERY_GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":50361428410641,"sku":"CIN0691142157VG","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ LIKE_NEW \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":50964997177617,"sku":"GOR014151345","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":51005662462225,"sku":"NIN9780691142159","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0691142157.jpg?v=1750700206"},{"product_id":"der-bar-kokhba-aufstand-book-peter-schafer-9783161441226","title":"Der Der Bar-Kokhba-Aufstand","description":"The Second Jewish Revolt against the Roman dominion (132-135 CE) considerably changed the political and cultural landscape of Jewish Palestine. Judaea was almost completely devastated, and Jewish life shifted from Judaea to the Galilee. The Roman victory, however, was won at great cost. The last decade has seen some stunning developments in research on the Bar Kokhba War. In particular, recent archaeological findings provide new material for evaluation. This volume is based on a conference which took place in November 2001 at Princeton University and gathers a distinguished array of scholars working at the forefront of research on the Bar Kokhba period. It appraises the state of the subject in light of the present scholarly discussion and evaluates the historical importance of this major event and its repercussions for the subsequent history of the Jews in Roman Palestine. A concluding essay investigates the use of Bar Kokhba's image in modern Israeli culture.    Survey of contents:     Peter Schäfer: Preface -  Peter Schäfer: Bar Kokhba and the Rabbis -  Martin Goodman: Trajan and the Origins of the Bar Kokhba War -  Yoram Tsafrir: Numismatics and the Foundation of Aelia Capitolina: A Critical Review -  Benjamin Isaac: Roman Religious Policy and the Bar Kokhba War -  Aharon Oppenheimer: The Ban of Circumcision as a Cause of the Revolt: A Reconsideration -  Ra'anan Abusch: Negotiating Difference: Genital Mutilation in Roman Slave Law and the History of the Bar Kokhba Revolt -  Hanan Eshel: The Dates Used during the Bar Kokhba Revolt -  Menahem Mor: The Geographical Scope of the Bar Kokhba Revolt -  Hannah M. Cotton: The Bar Kokhba Revolt and the Documents from the Judaean Desert: Nabataean Participation in the Revolt (P. Yadin 52) -  Werner Eck: Hadrian, the Bar Kokhba Revolt, and the Epigraphic Transmission -  Glen W. Bowersock: The Tel Shalem Arch and P. Nahal Hever\/Seiyal 8 -  Amos Kloner and Boaz Zissu: Hiding Complexes in Judaea: An Archaeological and Geographical Update on the Area of the Bar Kokhba Revolt -  Yuval Shahar: The Underground Hideouts in Galilee and their Historical Meaning -  Yaron Z. Eliav: The Urban Layout of Aelia Capitolina: A New View from the Perspective of the Temple Mount -  Yael Zerubavel: Bar Kokhba's Image in Modern Israeli Culture","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"- \/ - \/ -","offer_id":50698448437521,"sku":"","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ GARDNERS","offer_id":50698452795665,"sku":"NGR9783161441226","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":52681146138897,"sku":"NLS9783161441226","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/3161441222.jpg?v=1750998809"},{"product_id":"wege-mystischer-gotteserfahrung-mystical-approaches-to-god-book-peter-mllerluckner-9783486580068","title":"Wege mystischer Gotteserfahrung. Mystical Approaches to God","description":"Internationale Experten erforschen mystische Gotteserfahrungen in den Weltreligionen: Fr he j dische Mystik, J dische Mystik nach Scholem, fr he christliche Erfahrung der Visio Beatifica, Plotin und das Christentum, islamische Mystik in Andalusien, mittelalterliche christliche Mystik.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"- \/ - \/ -","offer_id":51187970081041,"sku":"","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"US \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":51187971817745,"sku":"NIN9783486580068","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":52477369450769,"sku":"NLS9783486580068","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/348658006X.jpg?v=1750934750"},{"product_id":"ashkenazi-book-peter-schfer-9780691267449","title":"Ashkenazi","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eFrom a prize-winning historian, the first comprehensive narrative history of Ashkenazi Jews: their culture, their religion, their daily lives, and their many migrations\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e Covering two millennia of history, from late antiquity to the twentieth century, this landmark volume by an eminent historian traces the long trajectory of Ashkenazi Jews, that branch of the Jewish people who migrated from the Levant into central and then eastern Europe. Because religion, in the form of rabbinic Judaism, played so central a role in the lives of almost all Jews before modernity, author Peter Schäfer examines the ways in which the institutions and practices of the rabbis were transplanted, and transformed, during these periods of migration. Schäfer describes the establishment and flourishing of centers of rabbinic learning and innovation in the new European homelands--places including Cologne, Frankfurt, Worms, and Troyes, the French home of the legendary medieval Talmudic sage Rashi. He discusses the long and often fraught period of intellectual, cultural, economic, and political exchange with the Christian majority, and chronicles such Jewish movements as kabbalah (Jewish mysticism), messianism (Sabbateanism) and (in the modern period) Jewish socialism (\"Bundism\") and Zionism.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e The scope of \u003ci\u003eAshkenazi\u003c\/i\u003e is vast, beginning with a portrait of Jews in the late Roman Empire and then mapping the first central European Jewish settlements in the tenth and eleventh centuries, the expulsions of the late fifteenth century, the subsequent migration to Russia, Lithuania, and Poland, followed by remigration westward in the nineteenth century after the start of Russian pogroms. Finally, Schäfer considers the impact of the Holocaust, and the founding of the state of Israel--which was spearheaded by Zionist leaders of largely Ashkenazi origins.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ GARDNERS","offer_id":53341464297745,"sku":"NGR9780691267449","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/9780691267449.jpg?v=1774470000"}],"url":"https:\/\/www.worldofbooks.com\/de-de\/collections\/autor-buecher-von-peter-schfer.oembed","provider":"World of Books ","version":"1.0","type":"link"}