Judaism is a monotheistic religion with a history of over 3,500 years. 'Defining Judaism' illustrates the range of theoretical and practical issues required for comparative and historical study of the faith. The texts range from historical attempts to define individual 'Jews' to imagining Judaism as a religion like other religions, to modern and post-modern attempts to decentre these earlier definitions. The reader brings together a wide range of essays from influential scholars of ancient and contemporary Judaism to attempt a full picture of Judaism that will be of interest to all those involved in the study of religion.
Editor's Introduction: Judaism, Judaisms, Jewish: Toward Redefining Traditional Taxa PART I Historical and Chronological Definitions Orientation 1. Selection form The Book of Beliefs and Opinions, Saadya Gaon 2. Thirteen Articles of Faith, Maimonides 3. Answers to Napoleon, The Assembly of Jewish Notables 4. Selection from Judaism and Its History, Abraham Geiger 5. Setting the Problem, Laying the Ground, Judith Plaskow PART II. The Contours of Judaism
6. Apartheid Comparative Religion in the Second Century: Some Theory and a Case Study, Daniel Boyarin 7. Who Were the Jews: Problems in Profiling the Jewish Community Under Early Islam, Steven M. Wasserstrom 8. The Rejudaization of "the Nation", Miriam Bodian 9. Jews and Germans, Gershom Scholem PART III. Re-Definitions 10. The Savage in Judaism, Howard Eilberg-Schwartz 11. Waiting for a Jew: Marginal Redemption at the Eight Street Shul, Jonathan Boyarin 12. Expanding the Canon of Jewish Philosophy: Towards an Appreciation of Genre,Aaron W. Hughes
