The Invention of Judaism
Torah and Jewish Identity from Deuteronomy to Paul (Volume 7)
2017
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Most people understand Judaism to be the Torah and the Torah to be Judaism. However, in The Invention of Judaism, John J. Collins persuasively argues this was not always the case. The Torah became the touchstone for most of Judaism’s adherents only in the hands of the rabbis of late antiquity. For 600 years prior, from the Babylonian Exile to the Roman destruction of the Second Temple, there was enormous variation in the way the Torah was understood. Collins provides a comprehensive account of the role of the Torah in ancient Judaism, exploring key moments in its history, beginning with the formation of Deuteronomy and continuing through the Maccabean revolt and the rise of Jewish sectarianism and early Christianity.
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Author
John J. Collins
Author · 16 books
John J. Collins is Holmes Professor of Old Testament at Yale Divinity School. A native of Ireland, he has a doctorate from Harvard University, and earlier taught at the University of Chicago, and the University of Notre Dame. He has published widely on the subjects of apocalypticism, wisdom, Hellenistic Judaism, and the Dead Sea Scrolls and served as president of both the Catholic Biblical Association and the Society of Biblical Literature.
