Jewish Haggadah

For contemporary American Jews, it is not an exaggeration to claim the Maxwell House Haggadah, as one of the most commonly used and widely known haggadahs. Even President Obama was aware of this history when he quipped regarding another recent haggadah "does this mean we can no longer use the Maxwell House Haggadah anymore?" The first Maxwell House sponsored haggadah was published in 1932. See Yudolov, Otzar ha-Haggadot no. 3428. Although the title page does not provide a date, the Haggadah includes a five-year Hebrew calendar. Thus, to date the Haggadah, the first year indicated in the calendar is used as a proxy for the date of publication. The first edition includes a calendar beginning in 1932, the next edition begins with 1933, and so on. See Yudolov, nos. 3428, 3455, 3489, 3594, 3620, 3656, 3689, 3721. According to Yudolov, the Haggadah wasn't published from 1941-1948, but otherwise has been consistently published yearly, if in a changed format. In the early years, other than the updated calendar the same title page and wrapping was used. The sameness perhaps explains why the New York Times in two different articles accompanied by the identical photograph of the Maxwell House Haggdah, captions one 1932 and the other 1934.
https://seforimblog.com/2015/03/on-maxwell-house-haggada/

This is an excerpt from The Polychrome Historical Haggadah for the Passover Seder. The book has a commentary, interpretive translation, introduction, and notes.

The Foreword by Tzvee Zahavy describes the Seder as a scribal opera, and the Haggadah as its libretto.

This classic edition of the Passover Haggadah was designed by Rabbi Jacob Freedman to expose to the readers the composite literary layers of the book and its system of scriptural quotations. It has Freedman's vibrant English translation. The Hebrew test is encoded in distinct colors to reveal the historical periods of origin of the sources for every verse, phrase, and even for single words.

This Haggadah also has several full-page color reproductions of illustrations from famous medieval Haggadahs, a bibliography and an index to all the sources cited in the marginal notes.

This paper has a printable bookmark to use with the Haggadah on Passover. Purchase the Haggadah at Amazon or CreateSpace.

The Prague haggadah is filled with fascinating and important illustrations. As we have seen previously, the Prague haggadah contained nudes, which when appropriated later were removed. This included in the haggadah context as well as in other works. Aside from these illustrations, there is an illustration of Abraham when God takes him "from the other side of the river." In the Prague haggadah we have Abraham in a row boat. However, when this was appropriated in the Mantau, 1560 haggadah, the row boat was changed into a gondola. Also, this haggadah contains brief comments or instructions as well as the text of the haggadah. There are two which bear mention. The first is the passage underneath the Tam-simple-son. Typically, the simple son is understood to be less than stellar. However, in this haggadah, the verse ' (One should be simple with God) (Devarim 18:13). As this verse is claiming this simplemindedness is a good attribute, this seems to indicate that the simplemindedness of the son is something positive. The second passage comes in the form of an instruction. In the margin at the mention of marror the bitter herb, is the following "It is a universal custom to point at one's wife [at the mention of marror] as the verse says 'I have found the woman worse [more bitter] than death. (Kohelet 7:26)'"

Two illuminated Haggadot from Venetian Candia that were not thoroughly studied until now are the rarest extant examples of the Hebrew illuminated manuscripts produced in the Romaniot milieu. Their illustrative cycle is a compilation of different models, originated in Sepharad and Ashkenaz, although they incorporate many local Candiot characteristics. The study of these Haggadot reveals the complexity of the Jewish cultural background in Candia in the sixteenth century.

PDD is an Excel-based distant reading research tool created by Avraham Roos ([email protected]) who is doing his PhD research (UvA) on the English (re)translations of the Hebrew Haggadah, the semi-liturgic booklet religious Jews read out-loud on Passover Eve in a family-setting. Roos is creating a digital corpus of more than 50 different English translations dating from the first (1770) to modern ones and is using digital tools to analyze and visualize these. PDD detects end of line rhyme, end of line repetition and abecedarian acroscicons in longer non-poetic texts.

An illuminated Passover manuscript known as the Sereni Haggadah (held in the Umberto Nahon Museum of Italian Jewish Art in Jerusalem, Ms. no. 859 280/4) is a north Italian iteration of Ashkenazi haggadot. It was apparently written by an Ashkenazi scribe(s) who had immigrated to Italy and adopted certain features of Italian haggadot. The illuminations were done by several different artists. The manuscript has changed hands many times and has undergone a series of alterations.

“Before the Law” (“Vor dem Gesetz”) is one of the most if not the single most commented upon of Kafka’s texts : “Helplessness seizes one face to face with this page and a half,” notes George Steiner. Has everything not already been said, been written, been thought, about this text? Like a detective, the commentator searches for the key that will once and for all resolve the enigma, unveil the mystery that hides so secretively within its depths. A mystery which we know everything depends upon. One might skeptically wonder at the discovery of yet another interpretation of “Before the Law”: “What more can be added?” he asks himself. And he may be right.  Perhaps the gates of interpretation are henceforth sealed. We may have arrived too late.
But before this text, do we not always already come too late? Has not the doorkeeper always already shut the door? The moment one realizes there is nothing to add to this text might be the very moment one realizes that, from the start, this text, though soliciting interpretation, in fact defies interpretation. We are indeed seized by helplessness. Equally impotent before this text, the first reading equals the last reading, because strictly speaking there is no first and no last here. Before this text, as before the law, we find ourselves equally exposed, equally empty, without resources. Before this text, we find ourselves, exactly like the story’s protagonist, the countryman, the Mann vom Lande: ignorant. And from this position the text inspires us infinitely. Ignorance serves therefore as my starting point in the interpretation of "Before the Law" proposed in the following study.

It is the whole text of this article.
Based on the Bible and numerous Greek writers’ works, one will prove that the ancient world nations, both Jewish and Gentile, had many identical cultural practices relating to war times. The custom to offer “the anamnesis-sacrifice” before battle in order to ensure their god’s memory of the donor during the struggle makes it possible to understand Jesus’ command “do this in memory of Me” (1 Cor 11:24-25), where “this” means “the offering of anamnesis-sacrifice made by Jesus as the Man at His Last Supper, i.e., before His fight against the devil.”

In the footnotes of this article, there are two publications by Wojciech Kosek. They are on the Internet:

1. W. Kosek, Nakaz głoszenia śmierci Pana ‘aż przyjdzie’ (1 Kor 11,26) w świetle porównawczej analizy gramatycznej, [in:] W. Chrostowski (ed.), Jak śmierć potężna jest miłość. Księga pamiątkowa ku czci Księdza Profesora Juliana Warzechy SAC (1944-2009) (Ad Multos Annos 13; Ząbki 2009) 224-240: https://www.adoracja.bielsko.opoka.org.pl/biblistyka/1Kor11_26_dr_Wojciech_Kosek.html

2. W. Kosek, Pierwotny ryt Paschy w świetle schematu literackiego Księgi Wyjścia 1-18 (Rozprawy doktorskie – Papieska Akademia Teologiczna w Krakowie. Wydział Teologiczny), Kraków 2008:

https://www.adoracja.bielsko.opoka.org.pl/Kosek_mainWeb_UK.html

The Fifth Passover Cup is mentioned in a textual variant of a baraita in Tractate Pesaḥim of the Babylonian Talmud (118a), attributed to Rabbi Ṭarfon and another anonymous Palestinian tanna. Scholars have demonstrated that the variant is primary in talmudic manuscripts and among the Babylonian Geonim. Following a nineteenth-century proposition of Isaac Baer Levinsohn, it is argued that the fifth cup was instituted in Babylonia due to concern for magical evil spirits aroused by even-numbered events [zugot]. Objections to Levinsohn’s theory can be allayed by critical source analysis: the Talmud’s attribution of the fifth cup to the Palestinian tanna Rabbi Ṭarfon in a baraita is pseudoepigraphic, based upon Rabbi Ṭarfon’s teaching regarding the recitation of Hallel ha-Gadol in Mishnah Ta‘anit 3:9. A special appendix is devoted to Levinsohn’s separate study on zugot in the ancient and medieval world.

The seder (Passover ritual meal) and haggadah (text used during the meal) were codified in early medieval times. With the decline ofwomen's Jewish literacy and their role in Jewish society beginning with the Industrial Revolution, the prefatory material in haggadot became more common. Since medieval times prefaces have often been added to the haggadah; yet, in the last two hunded years, the preface has changed considerably from an occasional comment to a standard set of information concerning holiday preparation. Why this change in the preface occurred is under examination in this paper. The change in Jewish educational patterns, which happened through the creation of free public education in both Europe and the United States and resulted in the need for the prefaces primarily among Jewish women, is illustrated.

While Jewish communities and individual Jews have long understood themselves in context of their place in the wider societies in which they have lived, for most of its history Judaism has been a largely particularistic tradition, chiefly concerned with its own ongoing narrative and how Jews should behave qua Jews.  It was not until modernity that consciousnesses emerged within Judaism seeking to understand how Jews should behave and understand their heritage with a more universalistic outlook. Of particular note is how these new traditions played themselves out literarily, as Jewish philosophers and religious leaders attempted to articulate a new Jewish religious identity that wasn’t primarily inward-looking. There is no text that straddles the boundary between particularism and universalism more acutely than the Pesach Haggadah’s retelling of the Israelite Exodus from Egypt.

In this paper, three Haggadot will be explored representing a cross-section of the Jewish religious, philosophical, societal, and geographic spectrum. The traditional Haggadah text is presented in the ArtScroll Abarbanel Haggadah, which includes a base text common to a wide swath of Haggadot. A progressive, American Haggadah is represented by the 1974 Central Conference of American Rabbis’ A Reform Haggadah, which defines itself as “faithful to the elemental structure of the Haggadah… and the intentional complement of the story of Israel’s own deliverance with the Messianic vision for all humanity.” Finally, an Israeli Haggadah is the 2014 Refugee Haggadah, published by a coalition of progressive religious and human rights organizations as a response to the refugee crisis that has confronted Israel since the mid 2000s. Its stated are to question notions of freedom; create a relationship with slavery, freedom and the Exodus; and to connect the Jewish narrative with modern day stories of refugees and persecution. Each of these haggadot – in dialogue with its own sitz im leben – puts forth a different paradigm of the Exodus narrative, applying varying degrees of particularism and universalism.

Volumes in the Dimyonot series explore the intersections, and interstices, of Jewish experience and culture. These projects emerge from many disciplines including art, history, language, literature, music, religion, philosophy, and cultural studies – and diverse chronological and geographical locations. Each volume, however, interrogates the multiple and evolving representations of Judaism and Jewishness, by both Jews and non-Jews, over time and place.

Every Yom Kippur and Pesach we sing לשנה הבאה בירושלים, Next Year in Jerusalem. In Israel, the word הבנויה “rebuilt” is added. But when did this custom start? Why was it added? Does everyone add it? Should one translate it into English? And if yes, what would be the proper English translation?

This essay will examine how cosmology and biblical interpretation provide a nexus point for tradition and transformation across Jewish literature from early antiquity. Across the ancient Mediterranean world authors recognized and resisted a popular tendency to hold God responsible for trials and therefore to place God himself under indictment. Though the surrounding polytheistic cultures allowed for various divine figures to play the role of judge, defence council, and prosector, within Jewish monolatry however a single God who retains all of these functions within the divine law-court proved religiously problematic. Already in the later sections of the Hebrew Bible this tension is felt (e.g., 1 Chronicles 21:1 as it reworks 2 Samuel 24:1–25), and Second Temple literature would continue to use the divine courtroom to address questions on the equity and propriety of God’s judgements.

Avraham Roos is a PhD student at the University of Amsterdam. He is researching the English translations of the Pesach Haggadah from 1770, the first published in London by A. Alexander and Assistants until modern-day translations. More about his research can be found here: https://sites.google.com/site/jewishdigitalhumanities/Downhome The Haggadah has been printed in countless formats and layouts. In this article, I will focus on Haggadot printed in (non-Jewish) newspapers. I will highlight two specific cases; The London Times Haggadah from 1840, a full English Haggadah translation printed as part of the fight against the Damscus blood libel, and the first English translation of the Had Gadya song at the end of the Haggadah. Whereas the former has been copiously documented, the latter has, to the best of my knowledge, never been researched in depth. The first Haggadah in English to be printed in a non-Jewish newspaper is, to the best of my knowledge, also the only Haggadah to be so included. It appeared on August 17, 1840, in the London Times (see Image 1). In February that year, a number of Jews had been charged with the murder of a Franciscan friar in Damascus in order to obtain his blood for Passover use-the infamous "blood libel". The case was openly discussed in global newspapers with the "Damascus Affair" being argued in editorials and submitted letters. The Times published a submitted piece by "a correspondent" which was an English translation of the Haggadah in an attempt to provide evidence that it contains absolutely no mention of Christian blood being drawn for ritual purposes, to the chagrin of those who believed the old myth. The publication of this Haggadah did not indicate that the Times chose sides as it printed on the same page also a quite heinous antisemitic letter claiming truth to the canard (The Times, Monday August 17, 1840, p.3).

The Haggadah has the following anecdote:  "It is told of Rabbi Eliezer, Rabbi Joshua, Rabbi Elazar ben Azariah, Rabbi Akiba and Rabbi Tarfon, that they were one reclining around their Passover table at Bnei Brak…." Bnei Brak is a place already mentioned in Joshua 19:45 and in an Akkadian text about conquests of King Sancherib in 701 BCE and should therefore not be problematic to translate. However, Kurdish Jews would traditionally translate  " reclining at Bnei Brak " as " reclining on silk cushions " ! They follow the 15th-century Portuguese Jewish statesman, philosopher, and Bible commentator Don Yitzchak Abarbanel who explains the term " Bnei Brak " as " silk cushions ". It is interesting to see if Abarbanel's opinion had made its way into other translations. Therefore, I decided to see if I could find silk cushions in any of the English translations of the Haggadah which I am researching. Along the way I found zionistic trends in the translations.

In the modern hagaddah, the famous story of the four sons records the wicked son and the wise son asking very similar questions. This has led to countless hours of arguing at sedarim around the world and an endless number of creative solutions to the problem. However, the original authors of the baraita had something else in mind. The original baraita, as shown on both the Yerushalmi and the Mekhilta had the wise son using the first person plural, while the wicked son was using the second person. An examination of the sources shows the intent of the original authors, as well as the reasons for the change over time.

pp. Most discussions regarding the Haggadah begin with the tired canard that the Haggadah is one of the most popular books in Jewish literature, if not the most popular, and has been treasured as such throughout the centuries. Over sixty years ago, Isaac Rivkin noted that as a matter of fact, only since the 19th century has the Haggadah become one of the most printed Jewish books. Prior to the 19th century, the Haggadah is neither the most printed nor most written about work in the Jewish cannon.[1] Epstein does not fall prey to this canard nor any other of the many associated with the Haggadah. Dr. Epstein's survey of four Jewish medieval manuscripts is novel, vibrant, and sheds new light on these manuscripts, as well as Jewish manuscripts and the Haggadah generally. Epstein covers four well-known medieval Haggadah manuscripts:[2] The Birds' Head Haggadah, The Golden Haggadah,[3] The Rylands Haggadah,[4] and the Brother to the Rylands Haggadah. First, a word about manuscript titles. Sometimes manuscripts are referred to by the city or institution that houses or housed the manuscript, while in other instances, especially when a manuscript contains a unique marking or the like, that unique identifier may be used to describe the manuscript. The Rylands Haggadah (currently housed at the John Rylands Museum, Manchester, UK), is an example of the former, and the Birds' Head Haggadah is an example of the latter. In the case of the Birds' Head, most of the figures depicted in the manuscript are drawn not with human heads, but with birds' heads. Similarly, the Golden Haggadah is another example which gets its title due to the proliferation of gold borders and filler. Finally, the Brother to the Rylands, gets its title from the similarly of its illustrations to that of the Rylands, indicating some connection or modeling between the two manuscripts. As alluded to above, Epstein is not the first to discuss these manuscripts. Indeed, in the case of both the Birds' Head and the Golden Haggadah, book length surveys have already been published.[5] Epstein, however, differs with his predecessors both in terms of his method as well as what he is willing to assume. Regarding assumptions, previously, many would take the path of least resistance in explaining difficult images and attribute confusing or complex illustrations to errors or lack of precision of the illustrator. Rather than assume error, Epstein gives the illustrations and illustrators their due and, in so far as possible assumes that the images are "both coherent and intentional." As an extension of his "humility in the face of iconography," Epstein attempts "to understand how the authors understood it rather than assume that [he] must know better than they did." He does "not fault the authorship for what" he, "as a twenty-first century viewer, might fail to notice or understand concerning the structure or details of the iconography." Furthermore, engaging with illustrations not only from tracing the history of how the image came into being but, more importantly, how that image was interpreted and what meaning it carried for its audience throughout its transmission is also one of Epstein's goals. In furtherance of these goals, Epstein is all too aware of his own limitations and throughout the book, Epstein willingly admits both where the evidence can lead and, what is pure speculation. All of this translates into a highly satisfying and illuminating (no pun intended) perspective on these and Jewish manuscripts in general. The book is divided among the four manuscripts, with each getting its own section, with the exception of the Rylands and its Brother that are included in a single section. At the beginning of each section, all of the relevant pages from the manuscript are reproduced. The reproductions are excellent. This is not always the case in other books that reproduce these images. Indeed, in Narkiss, et al. who compiled an Index of Jewish Art that includes detailed discussions regarding a variety of medieval Haggadah manuscripts, only reproduce the images in black and white.[6] Similarly, Metzger, in her La Haggada Enluminée, also only reproduces the images in black and white (and many times the images are of poor quality). Here, each page containing an image is reproduced in full, in a high quality format that allows the reader to fully appreciate the image

https://seforimblog.com/2012/04/review-of-marc-michael-epsteins/

The story of the Binding of Isaac is notoriously allusive, not to say cryptic. The difficulty that occupies our text, Genesis Rabbah, is why God chooses to (or God must) swear to Abraham that he and his descendants will be blessed. Why does God have to swear anything to anyone?

I found it an interesting challenge to write on a mashal (roughly, a rabbinic parable) for an audience unfamiliar with rabbinic literature.
Feel free to message me and tell me how I succeeded.

This post is part of a series of posts regarding illustrations adorning manuscript and print Haggadot. Our first post dealt with a new work on the topic and can be viewed here. In this post we will focus upon the some of the Halachik implications of these illustrations. In many Ashkenazic manuscripts, the Passover illustrations begin chronologically earlier than the Seder. Many begin with the preparation of the matzah. For example, in the Second Nuremberg Haggadah[1], (the manuscript is online here) a 15th century Ashkenazic haggadah, contains ten scenes devoted to the matzah process. A similar haggadah, likely illustrated by the same artist, also includes numerous matzah baking scenes. All of these, however, begin with the bringing of the grain to the miller. This is in contrast to today's practice whereby the matzah producing process begins earlier, with the cutting of the wheat.
https://seforimblog.com/2012/04/halakhah-and-haggadah-manuscrip/

Philippe Ariès, one of the first researchers of the medieval family (1960), believed that childhood was not a separate cultural period and was not recognized as such by adults until the 16 th –17 th centuries. Since that time, there have been many studies devoted to medieval childhood, in which the ideas of Ariès were questioned, but they were all based on texts. Images were used only as illustrations. Therefore, no one questioned Ariès assertion that images of children in the family, except the scenes of the Holy Family, had not existed in the Middle Ages. In this article, I argue that the images of families with children appeared in the 14 th century among the Ashkenazi, that is, the Jews of Germany and Northern France, and later – among the Sephardim, that is, the Jews of Spain, Portugal and Southern France. Although the appearance of these scenes can be
explained by ritual reasons, but not solely them, and the study of such images can
serve to further deepen our knowledge of the medieval family in general and the
medieval Jewish family in particular.

In Ancient Biblical literature we do not find any direct references to falconry. However, European medieval interpreters depicted several Biblical characters as practicing falconry. Most of these falconry intrusions are Jewish, but Christian Biblical art also tangentially imposed falconry into the Biblical narrative.

The performance of the Haggadah is not the only means of tying the contemporary moment to Exodus; the Biblical illuminations and marginalia in medieval Iberian Haggadot additionally aid in this association.  In late thirteenth- and fourteenth-century Haggadot shel Pesaḥ (הגדה של פסח or “Haggadot for Passover”), such as the Rylands Haggadah (Manchester, John Rylands Library, Rylands Hebrew MS 6) and the Golden Haggadah (London, British Library Add. MS 27210), the visual anachronism of contemporaneous clothing and architecture present in the illuminations of a biblical story [5]  The images not only situate it in the current moment, but may also serve as a commentary against Christian rulers through the presence of the heraldic colors of Barcelona and the monarchical clothing of the Pharaoh.

The article continues the series of investigations that demonstrate the experience of religious reading of the significant works of prominent Kyiv professors-academics of the last third of the 19th – early 20th century. These works have accumulated a powerful array of empirical material relevant to the history and theory of religious studies. Accordingly, the reconstruction of the field of theoretical positions important for the formation of the “science of religion” in the domestic intellectual tradition is currently being updated.
The work of the Hebrew scholar and biblical scholar Yakym Olesnytsky is represented. This researcher was one of the first in the domestic humanities to analyze the “aggadic” layer of Talmudic writing through the prism of comparative-religious and religious-historical approaches. Metamorphoses of biblical images and plots, events of the ancient history of the Hebrew people, which arose under the influence of various mythological, philosophical, and folk traditions, were revealed. There was a real demythologization of “aggadah” from the standpoint of historical and literary criticism.
On the basis of a religious reading of J. Olesnytsky’s text, this article traces some metamorphoses of theistic ideas in the process of the rise of Talmudic Judaism. They are analyzed from the point of view of the categories relevant to the philosophy and phenomenology of religion: Religious Experience, the Supernatural, the Another Reality as Sacred, the Absolute. A number of cognitive situations initiated by Olesnytsky, valuable from the point of view of a wider range of disciplines: philosophy and phenomenology of religion, history of religion, sociology and psychology of religion, religious comparative studies have been identified. This experience will be used in further research on the materials of the work of a well-known Kyiv
academician.

Стаття продовжує цикл розвідок, які демонструють досвід релігієзнавчого прочитання значущих праць видатних київських професорів-академістів останньої третини ХІХ-початку ХХ століття. У цих працях нагромаджувався потужний масив емпіричного матеріалу, релевантного з погляду історії та теорії релігієзнавчих досліджень. Відповідно, нині актуалізується реконструкція поля теоретичних положень, важливих для становлення «науки про релігію» у вітчизняній інтелектуальній традиції. Репрезентовано творчість гебраїста та біблієзнавця Якима Олесницького. Цей дослідник одним із перших у вітчизняній гуманітарній науці проаналізував агадичний шар талмудичної писемності крізь призму порівняльно-релігієзнавчого та релігійно-історичного підходів. Було виявлено метаморфози біблійних образів та сюжетів, подій давньої історії єврейського народу, що виникли під впливами різних міфологічних, філософських, фольклорних традицій. Відбувалася реальна деміфологізація агади з позицій історичної та літературної критики. На підставі релігієзнавчого прочитання тексту Я. Олесницького у цій статті простежено деякі метаморфози власне теїстичних уявлень у процесі постання талмудичного юдаїзму. Вони проаналізовані під кутом зору актуальних для філософії й феноменології релігії категорій: релігійного досвіду, надприродного, Іншої реальності як священної, Абсолюту. Визначено низку ініційованих Олесницьким пізнавальних ситуацій, цінних із погляду ширшого кола дисциплін: філософії й феноменології релігії, історії релігії, соціології та психології релігії, релігійної компаративістики. Цей досвід буде застосовано в подальших розвідках за матеріалами означеного твору знаного київського академіста.

Mit folgenden Beiträgen:

- Ostern im jüdisch-christlichen Dialog (Florian Leubner M.A.)
- Historisches und Aktuelles zur Datierung des Osterfestes (Prof. Dr. Cornelia Horn)
- Justinians Kirchenpolitik und versteckte Kirchenpolitik (Dr. Nestor Kavvadas)
-Von Berlin nach Jerewan: Impressionen einer Armenienreise (Eveline und Arnold Janiszewski)

The influences that guide modern Christian thought on trial and temptation are varied and multi-layered, both conscious and subconscious. For example, along with the influence of certain Biblical statements statements (e.g., Paul’s assurances that believers will not be “tested beyond their are able,” Satan as Tempter and Enemy; cf. 1 Cor 7:5, 10:13; Eph 6:12; also the devouring lion of 1 Peter 5:8), the reception and development of these concepts within post-biblical literature from Boethius to Marlowe and from Milton to Al Pacino have fundamentally shaped how we think about the process of evil. This reception and reworking of biblical thought has contributed to a mythological, theological and cosmological framework of testing that informs the roles of God, Satan, and the human nature. But what of those texts and communities that predated these medieval and modern influences? To what texts, traditions, myths, and stories did Jews, including the early Christians, turn to explain a framework for testing and temptation? In this paper, I examine how the Abraham and Job testing narratives provided a hermeneutical touchstone for ancient explanations of biblical testing and temptation, and examine a possible example of one such reading from the New Testament.

In Jewish tradition the five books of Moses hold the place of honor in Israel's sacred writings as the Torah or "instruction" of God. Some people, even in ancient times, seemed to emphasize the legislative teachings or commandments, so the Greek translators chose the word "Nomos" or "Law" to render Torah. Indeed, laws provide the practical norms whereby people guide their lives and teach their offspring. However, in most cultures legislation has its complement in inspiring narratives. Heroes and heroines of times long past are presented as worthy of imitation. They exemplify the ideal that offers a synthesis about the meaning of life. Jews recognize that commandments offer a basis for halakhah, the way to go in life, which is completed by haggadah, a set of narratives presenting insights regarding imitation of God in the ambiguities of human life.

My study of edifying narratives will be divided into two parts: 1) developments of the Joseph narrative from the Book of Genesis; and 2) the accounts of martyrdom in the Second and Fourth Books of Maccabees.

The copyright is held by Peter Lang. Learn more about Of Scholars, Savants and Their Texts: Essays in Honor of Arthur Hymanat at http://bit.ly/19EUcU5.

The present paper addresses the visual strategies of the illustration cycles in several medieval Passover haggadot from Central Europe. The haggadah, the text recited at the seder, the ritual meal that commemorates the liberation of the Israelites from bondage in Egypt, is not just a liturgical book, but is rather a multilayered object that accompanies the readers/viewers during their participation in the ceremony. It guides them through the steps of the ritual meal, explaining the meaning of the prescribed foodstuff. Apart from commemorating the biblical events of liberation by means of the ritual meal, one is obligated to retell the story in order to teach it and to pass it on to future generations. Herein I analyze three different visual strategies employed by medieval illuminators in designing their image cycles: the use of visual markers that indicate particular moments during the ceremony and specific actions to be performed; illustrations that add an instructive dimension to the basic visual information; and elaborate narrative pictorials that underscore the act of retelling the biblical story. 1

The ‘Version Variation Visualization’ project has developed online tools to support comparative, algorithm-assisted investigations of a corpus of multiple versions of a text, e.g. variants, translations, adaptations (Cheesman, 2015, 2016; Cheesman et al., 2012, 2012-13, 2016; Thiel, 2014; links: www.tinyurl.com/vvvex). A segmenting and aligning tool allows users to 1) define arbitrary segment types, 2) define arbitrary text chunks as segments, and 3) align segments between a ‘base text’ (a version of the ‘original’ or translated text), and versions of it. The alignment tool can automatically align recurrent defined segment types in sequence. Several visual interfaces in the prototype installation enable exploratory access to parallel versions, to comparative visual representations of versions’ alignment with the base text, and to the base text visually annotated by an algorithmic analysis of variation among versions of segments. Data can be filtered, viewed and exported in diverse ways. Many more modes of access and analysis can be envisaged. The tool is language neutral. Experiments so far mostly use modern texts: German Shakespeare translations. Roos is working on a collection of approx. 100 distinct English-language translations of a Hebrew text with ancient Hebrew and Aramaic passages: the Haggadah (Roos, 2015)

To understand one of the most baffling sections of the Haggadah, it is necessary to understand that the "afikomen" was a substitute for the paschal lamb, and only in exile was it possible to invite people to "come and eat" at the last minute.