The Cambridge Companion to Judaism and Law

Christine Hayes

Feb 2017 · Cambridge University Press

About this ebook

The Cambridge Companion to Judaism and Law explores the Jewish conception of law as an essential component of the divine-human relationship from biblical to modern times, as well as resistance to this conceptualization. It also traces the political, social, intellectual, and cultural circumstances that spawned competing Jewish approaches to its own 'divine' law and the 'non-divine' law of others, including that of the modern, secular state of Israel. Part I focuses on the emergence and development of law as an essential element of religious expression in biblical Israel and classical Judaism through the medieval period. Part II considers the ramifications for the law arising from political emancipation and the invention of Judaism as a 'religion' in the modern period. Finally, Part III traces the historical and ideological processes leading to the current configuration of religion and state in modern Israel, analysing specific conflicts between religious law and state law.

About the author

Christine Hayes is the Weis Professor of Religious Studies in Classical Judaica at Yale University, Connecticut. A specialist in talmudic-midrashic studies, her published works include Between the Babylonian and Palestinian Talmuds (1997, winner of a Salo Baron Prize), Gentile Impurities and Jewish Identities (2002, National Jewish Book Award finalist), The Emergence of Judaism (2010), Introduction to the Bible (2012), and What's Divine about Divine Law? (2015, winner of the 2015 National Jewish Book Award in Scholarship and the 2016 PROSE Award in Theology and Religious Studies from the American Publishers Association). She is an elected member of the American Academy of Jewish Research and Vice President for the Program of the Association for the Jewish Studies.