Sacred Writings category: 300 books

In the latter part of the Hebrew Bible, also known as the Ketuvim, one may find the world's first "how-to" or "self-help" book, one that focuses on creating and sustaining human relationships. So says author Rabbi Michael Barclay, who unlocks these writings in a way that reveals...

Part of the Jewish Encounter series From Elie Wiesel, winner of the Nobel Peace Prize, comes a magical book that introduces us to the towering figure of Rashi—Rabbi Shlomo Yitzchaki—the great biblical and Talmudic commentator of the Middle Ages. Wiesel brilliantly evokes the world...

*Sacred Texts, Modern Questions: Connecting Ethics and History Through a Jewish Lens *is a resource designed specifically for educators in a Jewish setting. This five unit collection of lessons explores sacred texts of the past and the questions that shape our present. It makes connections between...

Sacred Fire: Torah from the Years of Fury (1939-1942) consists of commentaries on each weekly Torah portion. It also includes a number of lengthy sermons delivered on the major Jewish Festivals as well as a few discourses alluding to people loved and lost. Because writing is not permitted on the Sabbath,...

This Oxford Handbook is a serious resource for the study of the literature of the Writings (Psalms, Job, Proverbs, Ruth, Esther, Lamentations, Ecclesiastes, Song of Songs, Ezra-Nehemiah, Chronicles, Daniel) of the Hebrew Bible, including its context and its scriptural/canonical shape and reception....

Rabbinic documents of David, progenitor of the Messiah, carry forward the scriptural narrative of David the king. But he also is turned by Rabbinic writings of late antiquity—from the Mishnah through the Yerushalmi and the Bavli—into a sage. Consequently, the Rabbis’ Messiah is a rabbi. How...

The Septuagint (the ancient Greek translation of Jewish sacred writings) is of great importance in the history of both Judaism and Christianity. The first translation of the books of the Hebrew Bible (plus additions) into the common language of the ancient Mediterranean world made the Jewish scriptures...

Religious Studies and Rabbinics have overlapping yet distinct interests, subject matter, and methods. Religious Studies is committed to the study of religion writ large. It develops theories and methods intended to apply across religious traditions. Rabbinics, by contrast, is dedicated to a defined...

Here is an accessible introduction to the life and wisdom of the famous twelfth-century philosopher-physician Moses Maimonides, whose prolific writings on medical and religious issues, commentaries on Jewish texts, and writings on Jewish ethics and law profoundly influenced Judaism. The Wisdom...

Lectures on the Sacred Poetry of the Hebrews is a thorough overview of ancient Hebrew poetry. A table of contents is included.

Writings is the third section of the Hebrew Bible, know as the Tanakh. This section has a variety of religious expression, such as Temple ritual, private prayer, poetry, wisdom, ad national tragedy. 

In this groundbreaking and insightful new commentary, one of the world's leading biblical scholars unveils the unity and continuity of the Torah for the modern reader. Richard Elliott Friedman, the bestselling author of Who Wrote the Bible?, integrates the most recent discoveries in biblical archaeology...

Medieval collections of Jewish biblical lore and legend. From Volume 4 of The Sacred Books and Early Literature of the East. This volulme includes the Tanhuma Midrash, poems of Judah Halevi, the Book Cusari, Commentaries of Rabbi Ben Ezra, Advice of Maimonides, and The Travels of Benjamin of Tudela.

Sex. Violence. Scandal. These are words we rarely associate with the sacred text of the Bible. Yet in this brilliant new book, Jonathan Kirsch shows that the Old Testament is filled with some of the most startling and explicit stories in all of Western literature. These tales of seduction and rape,...