Steven Fine

Steven Fine explores the cultural and intellectual history of the Western world’s oldest continuously used religious symbol. This meticulously researched yet deeply personal history explains how the seven-branched menorah illuminates the great changes and continuities in Jewish culture, from biblical times to modern Israel.

The Menorah

Jews, Christians and Polytheists in the Ancient Synagogue explores the ways in which divergent ethnic, national and religious communities interacted with one another within the synagogue in the Greco-Roman period. It presents new perspectives regarding the development of the synagogue and its significance of this institution for understanding religion and society under the Roman Empire.

Jews, Christians and Polytheists in the Ancient Synagogue

"Steven Fine's This Holy Place is a comprehensive treatment of the synagogue as a place of sanctity in Late Antiquity. This book is essential for an understanding of how the synagogue became the central Jewish communal institution and how it served as a substitute for the destroyed Jerusalem Temple during the long period of Jewish exile from the Land of Israel. Fine's mastery of both archaeological evidence and a wide variety of literary sources makes this a major contribution to the field." --Lawrence H. Schiffman, New York University "Fine has mastered an unusually wide range of disciplines--rabbinical sources, archaeology, art and epigraphy. . . . His book is thoroughly researched, well written, and engagingly presented. It should be required reading for anyone interested in how this most central institution of Jewish life was perceived and presented." --Lee I. Levine, Hebrew University of Jerusalem "I read [This Holy Place] with the greatest profit and enjoyment. It is an important contribution to the entire nature of late antique civilization and not only to Jewish studies." --Peter Brown, Princeton University

On the Sanctity of the Synagogue During the Greco-Roman Period

This Holy Place

Carol Snow

Edward Bleiberg

Lawrence Nees

Lisa R. Brody

Claus-Peter Haase

Arnold E. Franklin

Alan Gampel

Lyle Humphrey

Hieromonk Justin of Sinai

Annie Montgomery Labatt

Robert Schick

Building on the groundbreaking 2012 exhibition “Byzantium and Islam: Age of Transition,” which explored the transformations and continuities in the Byzantine Empire from the seventh to the ninth century, the present volume extends the exhibition catalogue’s innovative investigation of cultural interaction between Christian and Jewish communities and the world of Islam. Eleven essays by internationally distinguished scholars address such topics as the transmission of Christian imagery to the Mediterranean, icons preserved in The Holy Monastery of Saint Catherine at Sinai, interaction between Jewish communities and the Muslim world, the purposeful mutilation of figurative floor mosaics in places of worship, the evolution of classical and Byzantine motifs in a new cosmology for Muslim rulers, and interconnections in the realm of music. Each essay provides compelling evidence that the era of transition from Byzantine to Islamic rule in the eastern Mediterranean and North Africa resulted in unprecedented cultural cross-fertilization and significantly affected the development of the Mediterranean world for centuries to come.

Byzantine Culture in the Islamic World

Age of Transition

The Temple of Jerusalem: From Moses to the Messiah brings together an interdisciplinary and broad-ranging international community of scholars to discuss aspects of the history and continued life of the Jerusalem Temple in Western culture, from biblical times to the present. This volume is the fruit of the inaugural conference of the Yeshiva University Center for Israel Studies, which convened in New York City on May 11-12, 2008 and honors Professor Louis H. Feldman, Abraham Wouk Family Professor of Classics and Literature at Yeshiva University.

In Honor of Professor Louis H. Feldman

The Temple of Jerusalem: From Moses to the Messiah

Marilyn J. Lundberg

Wayne T. Pitard

The articles included in this volume honor Bruce Zuckerman’s many contributions to the fields of epigraphy, biblical and Second Temple studies, and modern Judaism in discussions of a wide variety of inscriptional materials, biblical texts, archaeology, lexicography and teaching methodology.

Studies in Northwest Semitic Languages and Literatures in Honor of Bruce Zuckerman

Puzzling Out the Past

Shai Secunda

Shoshannat Yaakov includes studies by leading scholars on Ancient Jewish and Iranian Studies and essays that combine both fields in the new discipline of Irano-Talmudica.

Jewish and Iranian Studies in Honor of Yaakov Elman

Shoshannat Yaakov

This work includes studies by leading scholars on Ancient Jewish and Iranian studies and essays that combine both fields in the new discipline of Irano-Talmudica.

Jewish Religious Architecture explores ways that Jews have expressed their tradition in brick and mortar and wood, in stone and word and spirit, from the biblical Tabernacle to contemporary Judaism. Social historians, cultural historians, art historians and philologists have come together in this volume to explore this extraordinary architectural tradition.

From Biblical Israel to Modern Judaism

Jewish Religious Architecture

Art, History, and the Historiography of Judaism in Roman Antiquity explores the complex interplay between visual culture, texts and their interpretations, arguing for an open-ended and self-aware approach to understanding Jewish culture from the first century CE through the rise of Islam.

Art, History and the Historiography of Judaism in Roman Antiquity

The Arch of Titus: From Jerusalem to Rome—and Back explores the shifting meanings and significance of the Arch of Titus from the Jewish War of 66–74 CE to the present—for Romans, Christians and especially for Jews.

From Jerusalem to Rome—and Back

The Arch of Titus

Michael D. Swartz

Stuart S. Miller

Naomi Grunhaus

Alex P. Jassen

This Festschrift in honor of Professor Lawrence H. Schiffman, a leading authority on the Dead Sea Scrolls and Rabbinic Judaism, includes contributions by twenty of his disciples, each of whom is a scholar in their own right. The many subjects covered display a wide range of interdisciplinary approaches and will be of interest to students and scholars alike.

A Festschrift Honoring Lawrence H. Schiffman

From Scrolls to Traditions

Steven S. Fine

Prof Steven Fine

Toward a New Jewish Archaeology

Art and Judaism in the Greco-Roman World

Jeffrey Spier

Kimbell Art Museum

Kimbell art museum (Fort Worth, Tex.).

Published on the occasion of the exhibition organized by the Kimbell Art Museum and shown there November 18, 2007 - March 30, 2008.

The Earliest Christian Art

Picturing the Bible

ed FINE

Yeshiva University. Museum

The rich tradition and profound spirituality of Judaism has touched people the world over for thousands of years. With the arrival in the Near East of Alexander the Great and the destruction of the Temple in 70 CE, the synagogue came to represent a new era of this powerful religion, one which witnessed a greater emphasis on shared religious experience and prayer. In turn, the synagogue, derived from the Greek, meaning an "assembly," has come to mean the Jewish house of worship, evolving into a "sacred realm," in which the Torah came to play a central role linking the biblical past with the messianic future. Of course, the synagogue has been much more that a house of worship--it served the Jewish people as a place of learning, a community center, and often as the official seat of Jewish self-government. Indeed, it is the institution most closely associated with the development of post-biblical Judaism throughout the ages. Sacred Realm: The Emergence of the Synagogue in the Ancient World offers the first comprehensive history of the architectural and archaeological development of the synagogue from the third century BCE to 700 CE. Telling the story of over one hundred ancient synagogues throughout the world and their place in the history of Judaism and of Western civilization, this book provides a fascinating representation of the cultural, intellectual, and artistic achievements of three thousand years of Jewish experience. Informative essays detail every aspect of the ancient synagogue, while beautiful illustrations and maps take the reader to the actual historic site. Sacred Realm is an accompaniment to a monumental exhibition organized by the Yeshiva University Museum in New York. Borrowing from museums in North America, Europe, and Israel, the exhibition presents a unique collection of artifacts and manuscripts--including many pieces never before displayed in the United States--and will depict for the first time an in-depth history of the synagogue during the Greco-Roman period. From fourth-century Egyptian incense burners and inscribed bowl fragments to fifth-century Gaza mosaics decorated with Menorah and Shofar, Piyyut (liturgical poetry) manuscripts, and assorted textile, column, and pottery fragments, this collection is the most significant presentation of ancient Jewish religious life ever assembled in the United States. Lavishly illustrated with both color and black and white photographs of the artifacts, manuscripts, maps, site diagrams, and reconstructions, Sacred Realm is not only a detailed record of this historic exhibit, but a guide to the evolution of Judaism's most sacred institution.

Steven Fine

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