The Library of Israel in Late Antiquity: Jewish Writings Related to the Bible from the Second Temple Period

FAIN: RZ-50875-08

Jewish Publication Society (Philadelphia, PA 19103)
Ellen Frankel (Project Director: November 2007 to July 2011)

Completion of a volume of translations of writings by Jews in Judea and the Diaspora from roughly 300 BCE to 100 CE. (18 months)

The Jewish Publication Society requests continued NEH support to research, write, edit, and design a groundbreaking anthology of Jewish writings from the Second Temple period that represent the religious, intellectual, and ideological matrix out of which grew two great religious traditions--rabbinic Judaism and early Christianity. An international, interconfessional team of 70 distinguished humanist scholars will prepare revised translations, introductions, and detailed commentary that, for the first time, places this vast literature in Jewish context, relating the texts to later rabbinic and patristic traditions. This project will make available to general readers, students, and scholars a vast body of literature which is critical to understanding the world out of which rabbinic Judaism and early Christianity emerged.