Books by beth berkowitz
Animals and Animality in the Babylonian Talmud, 2018
Animals and Animality in the Babylonian Talmud selects key themes in animal studies - animal inte... more Animals and Animality in the Babylonian Talmud selects key themes in animal studies - animal intelligence, morality, sexuality, suffering, danger, personhood - and explores their development in the Babylonian Talmud. Beth A. Berkowitz demonstrates that distinctive features of the Talmud - the new literary genre, the convergence of Jewish, Christian, and Zoroastrian cultures, the Talmud's remove from Temple-centered biblical Israel - led to unprecedented possibilities within Jewish culture for conceptualizing animals and animality. She explores their development in the Babylonian Talmud, showing how it is ripe for reading with a critical animal studies perspective. When we do, we find waiting for us a multi-layered, surprisingly self-aware discourse about animals as well as about the anthropocentrism that infuses human relationships with them. For readers of religion, Judaism, and animal studies, her book offers new perspectives on animals from the vantage point of the ancient rabbis.
Read more at http://www.cambridge.org/us/academic/subjects/religion/judaism/animals-and-animality-babylonian-talmud#quEZh22doj3ALU6f.99
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Religious Studies and Rabbinics: A Conversation, 2017
Religious Studies and Rabbinics represents the first sustained effort to create a conversation be... more Religious Studies and Rabbinics represents the first sustained effort to create a conversation between these two academic fields. In one trajectory of argument, the
book shows what is gained when each field sees how the other engages the same questions. A second line of argument brings research methods, theoretical claims, and
data associated with one field into contact with those of the other. When Religious Studies categories such as "ritual" or "the sacred" are applied to data from Rabbinics and,
conversely, when text-reading strategies distinctive to Rabbinics are employed fortexts from other traditions, both Religious Studies and Rabbinics enlarge their scope.
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Religious Studies and Rabbinics represents the first
sustained effort to create a conversation be... more Religious Studies and Rabbinics represents the first
sustained effort to create a conversation between these
two academic fields. In one trajectory of argument, the
book shows what is gained when each field sees how the
other engages the same questions. A second line of
argument brings research methods, theoretical claims, and
data associated with one field into contact with those of
the other.
Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact
Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact
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Articles and Essays by beth berkowitz
Studies in the History of Exegesis, edited by Mark W. Elliott, Raleigh C. Heth, and Angela Zautcke, 2022
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Worldviews, 2022
The commandment to send the mother bird from her nest before taking her eggs or chicks, known in ... more The commandment to send the mother bird from her nest before taking her eggs or chicks, known in Jewish tradition as shiluach hakan, is found in Deuteronomy 22:6–7. This essay addresses dominant perspectives on the mother bird mitzvah—its association with good luck, bad luck, and compassion—before showcasing rabbinic texts from Mishnah and Babylonian Talmud Hullin Chapter 12 that evince interest in birds as ingenious builders, as fathers and not just mothers, as queer parents and altruists, as rebel spirits who resist captivity even unto death and, finally, in birds as co-inhabitants of the earth whose lives are parallel to as well as enmeshed with our own. I offer here a bird-centric approach to the commandment, an effort to read it in a spirit of antianthropocentrism, drawing on animal studies scholar Matthew Calarco’s notion of indistinction.
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Response to McGowan, Naiden, Rosenblum, and Ullucci, 2021
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Studies in Rabbinic Narrative, 2021
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Currents in Biblical Research, 2019
Animal studies has its origins in philosophy but extends to all fields of the humanities, especia... more Animal studies has its origins in philosophy but extends to all fields of the humanities, especially literature, history, and anthropology. The central concern of animal studies is how human beings perceive other species and themselves as one among them. Animal studies in ancient Judaism has generally not been undertaken in a critical mode, with notable and increasing exceptions. This essay covers work from the past decade (2009-2019) that deals centrally with animals, from ancient Israel to late antiquity, spanning the Hebrew Bible, apocrypha and pseudepigrapha, library of Qumran, rabbinic literature, and material culture. Topics addressed are animal sacrifice and consumption; literary depictions of animals; studies of individual animal species; archaeology and art featuring animals; animal ethics, theology, and law; and critical theoretical approaches to species difference. The conclusion considers future directions for animal studies in ancient Judaism.
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The Faces of Torah Studies in the Texts and Contexts of Ancient Judaism in Honor of Steven Fraade, 2017
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Poetics of Power: Jews, Christians, and The Roman Empire, 2013
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The Oxford Encyclopedia of the Bible and Law, 2016
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Books by beth berkowitz
Read more at http://www.cambridge.org/us/academic/subjects/religion/judaism/animals-and-animality-babylonian-talmud#quEZh22doj3ALU6f.99
book shows what is gained when each field sees how the other engages the same questions. A second line of argument brings research methods, theoretical claims, and
data associated with one field into contact with those of the other. When Religious Studies categories such as "ritual" or "the sacred" are applied to data from Rabbinics and,
conversely, when text-reading strategies distinctive to Rabbinics are employed fortexts from other traditions, both Religious Studies and Rabbinics enlarge their scope.
sustained effort to create a conversation between these
two academic fields. In one trajectory of argument, the
book shows what is gained when each field sees how the
other engages the same questions. A second line of
argument brings research methods, theoretical claims, and
data associated with one field into contact with those of
the other.
Articles and Essays by beth berkowitz
Read more at http://www.cambridge.org/us/academic/subjects/religion/judaism/animals-and-animality-babylonian-talmud#quEZh22doj3ALU6f.99
book shows what is gained when each field sees how the other engages the same questions. A second line of argument brings research methods, theoretical claims, and
data associated with one field into contact with those of the other. When Religious Studies categories such as "ritual" or "the sacred" are applied to data from Rabbinics and,
conversely, when text-reading strategies distinctive to Rabbinics are employed fortexts from other traditions, both Religious Studies and Rabbinics enlarge their scope.
sustained effort to create a conversation between these
two academic fields. In one trajectory of argument, the
book shows what is gained when each field sees how the
other engages the same questions. A second line of
argument brings research methods, theoretical claims, and
data associated with one field into contact with those of
the other.