Has Judaism changed through history? While many of us know that Judaism has changed over time, our conversations around these changes are often fraught. Understanding how the divine and human have collided in co-creating Jewish history, ritual, and values, is a challenging and important opening to a conversation around where so much of what we love and hold dear comes from.
Central Questions:
How did Judaism develop from the times of the Torah to the times of the Talmud? Considering historical, literary, and religious vantage points, Schiffman offers a fascinating look into a rich and complex time of Jewish life. Facing the many movements that emerged during this time, Schiffman ultimately argues that these approaches share enough to be considered a singular religious tradition with many faces. Interpretation, tradition, Pharisees, Sadducees, pseudepigrapha; This book has it all. Come for the Apocrypha, stay for the intriguing look under the hood for how Judaism as we know it came to be.
