Israel Jacobson - History 182G (UCLA)

I have finished the UCLA course History 182G - Secular Jewish Culture by David Myers and I want to recommend anybody who is interested in the subjects of Secularism and Judaism (whether in conjunction or not) to follow and pay close attention. Even considering how many faced both subjects are (also in conjunction) and the course touching about as many as one can imagine, there is a phenomenal coherent question studied with remarkable clarity and occasional findings. (feed)

As I wrote in my previous review, I was expecting Myers was to kick off with Spinoza, but surprised with preliminary treatment of Philo and Maimonides. When finally coming around to the place and time of Spinoza the central consideration comes up: He was the first to drop out of Judaism, without conversion. This made him a first secular as it were, but then we see that Jewish identity somehow remains. Noteworthy is also the story of Spinoza's fellow in place and time Uriel da Costa - go listen. What comes next are the 19th century struggles with the 'Jewish question'. With . Eventually Myers makes his rounds to Marx, Freud and Kafka, but I'd like to highlight Israel Jacobson.

Jacobson was a German Jew who founded reformed Judaism and one has to appreciate his inventiveness in world pulling towards conversion, citizenship, aliyah, haskala and Zionism. He allowed his followers to be Jewish and modern and German and citizens at the same time - such successful integration in German society. It triggers, however, also a very skeptic reaction. One is uttered also by Myers: some argued Jacobson made a Judaism that smacked of protestant Christian churches (a feeling I can relate to recalling my visit to several reformed services in Israel). Another was the ex post facto realization that this wonderful integration was incapable to shield its communities during the holocaust. Which brings us back to one central essence we find as off Spinoza: dropped out of Judaism, but somehow the (cultural) tie remains.

More History 182G:
UCLA History 182G - History of Secular Judaism.

Adam Chalom at Georgetown University

What is Secular Judaism is a difficult enough question, but what to think of secular Jews having a community and a rabbi of their own? That seems a bit of an oxymoron. I am much fascinated by the congregation of that sort in Chicago and their rabbi Adam Chalom, who can be heard on the podcast Kol Hadash - new voice (feed).

On 11 April Kol Hadash published a guest lecture Adam Chalom held at Georgetown University in which he explains better than ever what is Secular Jewish congregation he is leading. One of the strongest elements is this: these people identify with Jewish Culture, feel attached to it and feel the need to congregate even if they do not believe in God and do not keep kosher and Sabbath and all the other Mitzvot. Chalom works out the philosophy and describes how it works in practice.

Of course this triggers a lot of questions and a good half hour of the recording is spent on Chalom answering questions from the audience. For example the question: how does Chalom's Humanist Judaism define who is a Jew and who is not? And how does it offer entry to the club. Do they do conversions and if so how? His answers seem rather pragmatic: the person who identifies with Jews and Jewish culture, for him, is a Jew. And one who wants to enter... well, let him have it. Should you want some kind of ritual, or formal acceptance - it can be arranged.

More Kol Hadash:
The Synagogue,
Intermarriage,
Rabbi Adam Chalom - Kol Hadash Podcast

UCLA History 182G - History of Secular Judaism

A very interesting course has begun running at UCLA: History 182G - Secular Jewish Culture (feed). David Myers teaches a relatively small group of students, so it sounds, the history of Jewish people looking for their secular versions of Judaism. The fact that this is a small group, warrants a lot of interaction with the audience, which on the one hand makes it extra fascinating. On the other hand, for the passive podcast listener, breaks up the structure of the lecture frequently especially when you cannot hear the questions and remarks by the students.

I was expecting that this history of Secular Judaism would start with Spinoza, but Myers takes us much much further back in history and tries to point at much earlier versions of Judaism that were not exactly according the main stream religious precepts. Take for example how the Greek culture in a way threatened Jewish culture. We know in the story of Hanuka how the Jews fended this off, but upon closer inspection we still discern the influence. With a figure like the philosopher Philo who comes from the Jewish community on Alexandria the Hellenistic influence is let in.

The next figure to come up in Myers's course is Maimonides. Like Philo, he let's in the Greek culture - which comes to him through Arabic and just like Philo he gives a genuine Jewish twist to it. And so, even if Maimonides is a great figure in mean stream Judaism when it is about his commentaries to the Halakhah, his philosophy is deemed less so and serves for Myers as example of secular Jewish Culture. And we haven't reached Spinoza yet at all.

The Synagogue - Kol Hadash

I very much like the podcast Kol Hadash which is Jewish, has a Rabbi speak to you and yet is not religious, because it is Humanistic. I find religion fascinating and among the religions Judaism probably most of all, but the religious always give me a certain feeling of unease. Since I am not religious myself, I must be doing it wrong, or I am allowed to listen, but not really allowed in full circle. But with Kol Hadash is not like that at all. (feed)

In the latest issue, Rabbi Adam Chalom is lecturing about the Synagogue. Although he speaks for a study group in his congregation, it could be just as well a lecture in a Jewish history class. And if you liked the podcasts From Israelite to Jew, or Introduction to the Hebrew Bible, you certainly going to appreciate this lecture from Chalom. And if you have enjoyed the Chalom lecture and did not know those other podcasts, you should certainly try them.

In this lecture Adam Chalom explains the history and function of the Synagogue for Jewry throughout the ages and for all communities. On a side note the point emerges how different the Synagogue is inside and outside of Israel and in many ways that is a repetition of the historic close and far away from the Temple in Jerusalem.

More Kol Hadash:
Intermarriage,
Rabbi Adam Chalom - Kol Hadash Podcast

Intermarriage - Kol Hadash

Two months ago I discovered the podcast Kol Hadash and wrote an excited review of it. Last week Kol Hadash came with a new issue that had me even more excited and inspired. It really seems that Rabbi Adam Chalom (pronounce as Shalom) has very similar views that I have. And in this issue also spoke about a subject that goes to my heart. (feed)

Intermarriage is not exactly an easy subject, for Jews nor for any other faith or cultural unity. Chalom describes the various ways intermarriage has been met. From plain rejection (sitting 'shiva' for those who intermarry) to conversion of the other to some half-hearted acceptance (you can be in our synagogue but not rise to the podium on a bar-mitzva). Chalom proposes to do more than that. He proposes to accept and even value intermarriage. He himself takes part in mixed faith ceremonies and reveals how exceptional a rabbi he is in this respect and how large the demand is. He makes his arguments mimicking advertising: why ignore two-thirds of the market?

That is enough for one podcast, but it leaves a couple of fundamental ends unresolved. Much of his talk is still informed by that deep Jewish self-image of being a small community under pressure of assimilation and the main aim of acceptance seems to be to preserve mass. But what does this mean? What kind of a Judaism is his? What kind of a Jewish community does he envision, when more and more non-Jews will become part of it? And what are these Jewish non-Jews in the community; are they real Jews in his view, or do they need conversion? If so, what kind of conversion? And what about the non-Jewish sources the outsiders bring into the mix? Will they receive equal rights? Will Chalom's congregation openly give authority to Greek philosophy or even Gospel? It seems to me that his courageous and laudable approach is opening a box of Pandora. It makes me very curious, again, to find out more and I am waiting for more installments of the Kol Hadash podcast.

More Kol Hadash:
Rabbi Adam Chalom - Kol Hadash Podcast

Christian Humanist Podcast

I began to listen to the Christian Humanist Podcast (feed) as a follow up to the Jewish Humanist podcast Kol Hadash (feed) I discovered a couple of weeks ago (read my review of Kol Hadash). I learned from Kol Hadash to view the Jewish, or respectively the Christian, tradition as a cultural luggage I carry with me which can be taken seriously and therefore studied and taken to heart also for the secular. I was hoping to find a Christian pendant to Kol Hadash.

There is a website called The Christian Humanist which offers a load of articles along this line of thinking. However, a podcast they do not offer. The podcast with the same name, is not secular, it is openly confessional as they say. However, it is still a very interesting listen, also within the framework of looking at the Christian tradition as a substantial part of our (my) cultural baggage. Although the three hosts Michial Farmer, David Grubbs and Nathan Gilmour profess their faith and express themselves in the language of the believers and imply assumptions that I cannot identify with, I find we still have something in common. And that was an interesting find in itself.

What the Christian Humanist Podcast obviously attempts to do is to reconcile the Christian world view the presenters have with their other cultural luggage. The three are academics, versed in the humanities tended towards modern open-minded, rational, tolerant and liberal thinking. In that respect, they are not only the kind of humanists they identify with such as Erasmus and before that Thomas Aquinas and Augustin which results in very interesting issues such as the ones about Calvin, about politics or about the incarnation (to name a few I have listened to). They are also very similar to the non-believing secular, whether Christian or Jewish who just as much is trying to be a modern person with conscious historicity which leads him to understand and accept his connections with both the religious traditions he stands in as well as the secular, scientific, rationalistic etc.

Torah threads

Thanks to the podcast Forgotten Classics where the book of Genesis is being read in the translation by Robert Alter, I was directed to a new podcast: Torah Threads. On a weekly basis, Rabbi Paula Jayne Winnig delivers a podcast which discusses the coming week's parasha (Torah Portion) going over the entire text of the verses, in English, and giving some interpretation and food for thought. (feed)

As you can guess from Paula (a woman) being a Rabbi, she comes from a reformed background. A little bit more from her outlook on Judaism can be felt when one listens to the ninth podcast in the series, the one about parashat Vayetzei. She tells of her commitment to ecology, of her spiritual visits to Israel and pleas her support for another Jewish woman who was arrested at the Western Wall for carrying a Torah Scroll. She reveals she was herself once harassed at the Wall for wearing a tallit - Torah Scrolls and talliot are according to Orthodox views to be worn by men only.

So this where Rabbi Paula comes from, but even you do not identify with feminism, ecology and Reformed Judaism, she is still very instructive. First of all, she tends to give the entire portion, so on a basic level you get what the story is. This can be quite a lot and it explains why some other podcasts on the parashot make selections from the text. From there Paula takes the elements from the text that appeal to her most and enters a discussion about meaning and background that varies in its extent. Sometimes it is very tentative and short and sometimes she digs deeper. All in all a very nice podcast to get to know the Torah portions and keep up with them in their proper weeks.

Rabbi Adam Chalom - Kol Hadash Podcast

Rabbi Adam Chalom (pronounce 'Shalom') can be heard on the podcast Kol Hadash. There are currently six issues in the feed that are recordings of his sermons before the congregation. The majority are connected with the recently passed High Holidays and superficially do not seem very different from any other rabbi speeching before his flock. (feed) However there is something very different.

One, the most recent, issue is about the more uncommon and complicated subject of Jews and the Muslim World. This is much less a sermon and more a lecture and a very interesting one at that, unfortunately the audio quality is below par and the rabbi can barely be understood. It gives though the first indication something is different with Rabbi Chalom. Another indicator is the name of his congregation: Kol Hadash, humanistic congregation.

Some of the sermons give a little bit of a hint what Chalom means by Humanistic. It appears Humanistic Judaism is not Orthodox, not Conservative and not even Reformed. I am going to listen to more in order to find out. It is one thing to hear the occasional sermon that I find uplifting, but I always struggle with the awkward feeling I am eavesdropping on a gathering that I am not part of, do not want to be part of and cannot be part of, because I do not believe, I do not belong and I am just this happy go lucky secular individualist. Chalom however, seems to embrace secularism. His Judaism seems to try to combine the religious tradition with modern concepts. He suggests he does not believe either, or at least does not propose you must believe. He openly questions whether one must uphold all the prescriptions, including keeping kosher and sabbath.

Not believing in god, not keeping kosher and not keeping sabbath sort of defines a very large portion of people who might feel connected to Judaism, however, I never thought they might have a congregation. I never thought they might be collectively doing something with it. That makes me want to hear more of Kol Hadash. (Which, by the way aptly means: new voice)

Jewish Humor - Big Ideas

In addition to new lectures, Big Ideas (TVO) also frequently reruns old lectures from their archives. Here is one from 2004 which was very interesting and, obviously, very entertaining with all the Jewish jokes in them, Ruth Wisse (Weiss?) analyzes Jewish humor and debates its strengths and weaknesses. (feed)

I regret not having posted this review a week ago on Yom Kippur, because Wisse tells a very charming comic tale from Sholem Aleichem which takes place on Yom Kippur in one such a proverbial Shtetl. On this holiday and huge sum of money appears to have been stolen. Nobody is let out of the synagogue until the perpetrator is revealed. But what to do when the town's most pious and promising Talmud student turns suspect?

There are many more jokes Wisse retells, but within this joyous framework she discusses the anxieties, workings and dynamic of Jewish humor, as well as for Jews as for gentiles. Where the humor might be seen as a strategy to deal with being a weak minority, it works both as a strength as well as a weakness, as it not only reaffirms the minority identity, but also the prejudices about them.

More Big Ideas:
JRR Tolkien versus CS Lewis,
Malcolm Gladwell,
The Age of Inequality,
Disappearing cultures,
Waiting for Godot.

Jesus - Egalitarian or Apocalyptic

It was a theme I did not recall so vividly from the previous podcast series on the Historical Jesus I followed (Stanford's Historical Jesus, with Tom Sheehan - feed) Although I do recall that Sheehan repeatedly mentioned John Dominic Crossan and his view on Jesus, I do not recall any mention of E. P. Sanders. It is such a long time ago...

The current theme in Philip Harland's Religions of the Ancient Mediterranean is the historical Jesus. And Harland juxtaposes the views of Crossan and Sanders. He shows how Crossan comes to a view of Jesus in which he is an Egalitarian spiritual teacher. Sanders, however, has a view that is radically different, he sees Jesus as an apocalyptic prophet. Harland takes no position. He simply shows how Crossan and Sanders arrive at these fundamentally different positions that are each defensible in their own right.

The consecutive chapters have begun to dig deeper into the sources. Harland combines what little written sources about Jesus there are, with a more general historic knowledge about the time and place (Galilee at the beginning of the CE calendar), based on broader sources and upon archeology. I have no idea yet where he will be going. Will he be arriving at a conclusion different from Crossan and Sanders, at either one of them or stop at the inconclusive facts? We will have to wait and see.

More on Religions of the Ancient Mediterranean:
Historical Jesus (2) - Philip Harland,
Historical Jesus (1) - Philip Harland,
New Testament, history and literature,
Da Vinci Code,
Early Christianity podcasts.

Destruction and the end - FITJ

A highly recommended podcast series has finished its subject. Michael Satlow's From Israelite to Jew (feed) has spent 22 shows of around half an hour in a most fascinating, informative and provocative reconstruction of Jewish history from around 500 BCE to 100 CE. As the title indicates, Satlow went to great depths and length in order to show how the Jews and their religion developed from a tribal, Israelite culture to an ethnic Jewish one.

Michael Satlow is professor of religious studies and Judaic Studies at Brown University and has developed this podcast series in his spare time just as so many other podcasters did and do. The podcast is offered for free, though Satlow facilitates making donations with a paypal button on the podcast's blog. In his last show he explicitly asks for donations and suggests that it depends on whether enough donations will come through if he is going to make a follow-up of the show. And this shows Satlow to be in exactly the same position as all the non-institutional podcasters whose work we enjoy so much: they voluntarily spent a lot of their time, effort and even money in order to bring us the podcast. And there are few indicators that this expense is being sufficiently compensated. It shows where podcasting the way it began, is going to disappear. Although I hope not.

From Israelite to Jew has described the Judaism of the second-temple period and even if it shows a lot of Jewish worship going on outside of the Temple, still, the religion continued to have at least some focal point at the Temple. When in 70 CE the Temple is definitively destroyed, Judaism continued to exist and developed the rabbinic style that we know until today. It would be fantastic to have Michael Satlow take up the gauntlet and teach us in a next podcast about the rise of rabbinical Judaism. If you agree, do not hesitate and send a contribution to this fine podcaster.

More FITJ:
Pharisees and Sadducees,
The Dead Sea Scrolls,
Herod the Ambiguous,
Jewish varieties,
Jews in the Hasmonean era.

Historical Jesus (2) - Philip Harland

Here is a quick heads up about the latest section in the podcast series Religions of the Ancient Mediterranean (feed). After I had written about its kick off last month, two new episodes have come out. These are still preliminary. Host Philip Harland takes his time in pointing out what is problematic about the few sources we have. Hopefully, by the next chapter we will get some real reconstruction done.

On a side note: there was a weird comment on the previous post accusing me (or Harland - that is not clear) of:

"Historical Jesus"?!?
Just using this contra-historical oxymoron [...] exposes your Christian-blinkered agenda--dependent upon 4th-century, gentile, Hellenist sources.

The writer then goes on to claim the true identity of Jesus (Ribi Yehoshua) who comes out as an unblemished Jew, including a link to the website of the followers of the Ribi. This gentleman obviously has more agenda than Harland and I have together, but do browse his argument.

More on Religions of the Ancient Mediterranean:
Historical Jesus (1) - Philip Harland,
New Testament, history and literature,
Da Vinci Code,
Early Christianity podcasts.

Fear - Tapestry

CBC's Tapestry had a very interesting show in which Mary Hines spoke with Rabbi Harold Kushner about Fear. Leaving all theology and philosophy aside - Kushner characterizes this theorizing as a kind of Sudoku - and concentrating on what really bothers us in everyday life and cannot be easily set aside by ratio or faith.

One might expect a lot of talk of fear of death, or of disease and disability, but eventually the attention drives to fear of failure, fear of being left behind or leaving others behind, fear of meaningless existence and most of all, what it all seems to boil down to: fear of rejection. Kushner tries to get the message passed that in this life it is not a matter of success or failure (and then, consequently rejection), but a matter of success or forgiveness. But it does require a net around you of people who care, who will forgive. Kushner emphasizes the importance of community.

He also leads us to a kind of leap of faith. He shows that in many situations in life you are so utterly unable to analyze outcomes and reactions, you eventually are presented with a choice between believing in the goodness of people, in a meaningful existence, or not. And if neither has no better or worse arguments and indicators, one might as well allow to belief optimistically. It is an fascinating show and eventually the thought stuck with me: everything Kushner says, one can take to heart and he could have said exactly the same thing had he not be a Jewish religious rabbi, but rather a proponent of any other faith or a secular. And that makes it all the more strong.

More Tapestry:
Karen Armstrong,
Terry Eagleton.

Historical Jesus - Philip Harland

Several podcast series can be had that deal with the history of Early Christianity. A subset of that history is the quest for the Historical Jesus. Apart from the gospels there are few and little references to either Jesus or the Jesus movement. Two are mentioned by Canadian professor Philip Harland: Tacitus and Josephus.

Philip Harland has been conducting a very interesting podcast series on Religions of the Ancient Mediterranean (feed). He has been successively going through the stages of Christianity and treated the history and theology and sources. By now he has reached the 5th section of the series which went off on a promising start and which intends to tackle the specific issue of the Historical Jesus.

Another series on the historical Jesus is a veritable classic from Stanford, The Historical Jesus by Thomas Sheehan (feed), which is very thorough (some 14 hours solely on this subject). More in passing Dale Martin's course Introduction to New Testament History and Literature at Yale (feed). Martin tells in this course he also teaches a course on the Historical Jesus and we hope this one will one day be podcast as well.

More on Religions of the Ancient Mediterranean:
New Testament, history and literature,
Da Vinci Code,
Early Christianity podcasts.

New Testament history and literature - Yale

The DIY Scholar and others have already recommended Yale's new open course Introduction to New Testament History and Literature with Professor Dale B. Martin. And I am here to recommend it also. (feed)

However, a discussion rose in the Podcast Parlor, because in this lecture Dale Martin made an attempt to frame the origins of Christianity in the Judaism of the Second Temple Period and carelessly characterized Judaism as "an ideology of empire and world domination embedded in [the] scripture, and yet [the] social and political situation was just the opposite." This had some eyebrows raised yet Martin never made any renewed reference in the lectures afterwards to this crude line of thinking.

In stead he is fresh, provocative, clear and at times entertaining. He also stimulated me to refresh two other podcast series on the same subject: Thomas Sheehan's The Historical Jesus (feed) and Philip Harland's Religions of the Ancient Mediterranean (feed). These two make for a wonderful addition and parallel coverage of the same subjects, each in their own way. It needs to be noted though that Sheehan's podcast is rather old and is not up to today's audio standards and also offers the chapters in the wrong order. It is still a great series, just check with the syllabus (which is part of the feed) in order to identify the right order.

Religion as culture - Camille Paglia

Camille Paglia starts her lecture identifying as an atheist intending to defend religion. The lecture appeared on Canadian TV (TVO) and was podcast in the series Big Ideas. Paglia's central point is that understanding of religion is essential to fully understanding human civilization, or as she says is more succinctly: religion must be studied as culture.

Hearing the lecture on podcast will be unproblematic (as I did). If you feel like it you can see the video and take along the Hollywood examples Paglia brought, but apart from a Cecil B. DeMille section, she just tells it without showing. What the Hollywood materials do there in the second part of the lecture, is serve as an example for the first part of the lecture as the last, most modern expressions in culture of religion. Apparently she would argue that we all go and see these great movies and that more of these should be made.

The real important part of the lecture is the first part though. This is where Camille Paglia makes clear how essential religion is to our culture and argues that religion needs to be known, needs to be studied and taught, lest we become alienated from our traditions. The implicit point being that you do not need to believe in God, in the stories and revere the symbolisms in order to need to know and esteem them. More strongly this means that in her definition religion is just the form in which our cultural baggage has come to us and we can freely take it, study it, learn it, know it and use it and be modern people at the same time. Modern people that are rationalist, informed by science and agnostic or possibly atheist and that reject the actual beliefs completely, yes even reject the morals. Still, even then, the religions of our ancestors are our cultural inheritance. Throw the stories and the symbols away and we turn into ignorants.

More Big Ideas:
Christopher Hitchens on the Ten Commandments,
The empire,
Lawrence Freedman - Big Ideas,
New Learning - Don Tapscott on Big Ideas,
On Crime.

Christopher Hitchens on the Ten Commandments

Do you know what are the Ten Commandments? I remember them vaguely from religious education and one day decided to actually look them up in the Torah. I found more than one version and they weren't clearly ordered from one to ten. I also remember reading the Torah as a Law student and was shuddering as I thought of what I was taught was proper law and proper wording of law.

This experience is also expressed by Christohper Hitchens as he speaks on the Ten Commandments on TVO's podcast Big Ideas. Needless to say, with Hitchens as a speaker, this alienating experience about the Ten Commandments culminates in a tearing down of it. Hitchens deconstructs the text to man-made, inspired by conflicting politics, but mostly driven by an underlying world view that allows for genocide, child molesting and what other immoral acts he can find sanctioned in the Bible.

Unless you completely agree in advance with Hitchens, you may find this a bit of a cheap trick. One can take any text out of its historic reference and find fault with it by modern standards. Even if this is a foundational text that is still considered valid today, it can hardly be taken without the huge tradition of explanation around it. In so far this is just a reply to simpleminded believers who take the Ten Commandments as ruling law in itself. A deeper quality of the lecture lies however in Hitchens' observation that god is a creation of man and what entails that creation. To that end, the debunking of the Ten Commandments is merely an entry point, a didactic method, rather than anything else.

More Big Ideas
The empire,
Lawrence Freedman - Big Ideas,
New Learning - Don Tapscott on Big Ideas,
On Crime,
Why isn't the whole world developed?.

The binding of Isaac reconstructed

Today, I have decided, I will skip writing a podcast review. This doesn't mean I will take a break - there is actually a long playlist awaiting me and a lot of listening time is planned. The schedule leaves very little room from writing. Frequently I have posts pre-written, but the ones I have now, are not fit for today, but rather later on.

I do not wish to leave you without posts, however and so I want to entertain you with a video from YouTube that was forwarded to me. I hope it will please you as much as it pleased me.

Pharisees and Sadducees - From Israelite to Jew

The excellent series From Israelite to Jew has its latest chapter named Jesus and other strange Jews and one must be warned in advance: this issue is mostly about Pharisees and Sadducees with a small addition about followers of charismatic Jews such as Jesus.

At the time, that is during the historic period this podcast is discussing here, the followers of Jesus were a distinct group among Jews, but far from one developing into a different religion nor a stream of social and political importance such as the Pharisees and the Sadducees. Therefore it is only right that host Michael Satlow delves into these two groups and attempts to juxtapose them and hardly takes on the others. And the subjects according to which the division is made is around theology (the existence of angels, of free will, of fate, of soul, of afterlife and such) as well as around ritual and the authority to interpret the holy script.

A part of the historic background that would complement this depiction, would be a description of the social economic reality of the time and it seems Satlow is about to embark on such a track. However, he will first of all discuss the major source for this period: the historian Josephus. That will be then ext episode of the podcast. I expect that the title will be much more indicative than it was this time.

More FITJ:
The Dead Sea Scrolls,
Herod the Ambiguous,
Jewish varieties,
Jews in the Hasmonean era,
The Maccabee Uprising.

The Dead Sea Scrolls - FITJ

If you saw no reason to listen to Michael Satlow's podcast From Israelite to Jew, because you were not especially interested in the history of Judaism or the Bible or such, you may find there is still something to find. The latest issue is about the Dead Sea Scrolls, that marvelous archeological find that has so many mesmerized and has given cause to so many speculations.

Satlow retells the drama of the scrolls' find, hiding and eventual disclosure. He also gives a good inventory of what is among the scrolls. What kind of texts they are, whose they were, why they were stored in the caves near Qumran on the north west shore of the Dead Sea. One gets to understand the amazing riches of the find. A nearly complete Hebrews Bible, many centuries older than manuscripts available at the time. In addition many other texts that give insight in the theological, historical and social situation at the time.

The question whose texts these were, is closely intertwined with what authority they carry. Eventually, Satlow emphasizes the historical importance and historical questions around the find. Central are the questions about what Jewish sect owned and produced the scrolls. Are they the elusive Essenes or not? Without giving a definitive answer, the non-biblical texts in the find, add to the inventory of Jewish sects and streams of thought and theologies of the time, including the just arrived early Christians.

More FITJ:
Herod the Ambiguous,
Jewish varieties,
Jews in the Hasmonean era,
The Maccabee Uprising,
Hellenism.