The Cambridge Companion to Judaism and Law Cambridge Companions to Religion Series

The Cambridge Companion to Judaism and Law explores the Jewish conception of law as an essential component of the divine-human relationship from biblical to modern times, as well as resistance to this conceptualization. It also traces the political, social, intellectual, and cultural circumstances that spawned competing Jewish approaches to its own 'divine' law and the 'non-divine' law of others, including that of the modern, secular state of Israel. Part I focuses on the emergence and development of law as an essential element of religious expression in biblical Israel and classical Judaism through the medieval period. Part II considers the ramifications for the law arising from political emancipation and the invention of Judaism as a 'religion' in the modern period. Finally, Part III traces the historical and ideological processes leading to the current configuration of religion and state in modern Israel, analysing specific conflicts between religious law and state law.

List of contributors; Acknowledgements; Introduction. Can we even speak of 'Judaism and law'? Christine Hayes; 1. Law in biblical Israel Chaya Halberstam; 2. Law in Jewish society of the Second Temple period Seth Schwartz; 3. Law in classical Rabbinic Judaism Christine Hayes; 4. Approaches to secular law in biblical Israel and classical Judaism through the medieval period Beth Berkowitz; 5. Law in medieval Judaism Zev Harvey; 6. The transition to modernity and the invention of the Jewish religion Verena Kasper-Marienberg; 7. Enlightenment conceptions of Judaism and law Eliyahu Stern; 8. Antinomianism and its responses – eighteenth century Menachem Lorberbaum; 9. Antinomianism and its responses – nineteenth century David Ellenson; 10. New developments in modern Jewish thought Yonatan Brafman; 11. Judaism, Jewish law in pre-state Palestine Amihai Radzyner; 12. Judaism, Jewish law, and the Jewish State in Israel Arye Edrei; 13. What does it mean for a state to be Jewish? Daphne Barak Erez; 14. Fault lines Patricia Woods; Primary source index; General index.

Christine Hayes is the Weis Professor of Religious Studies in Classical Judaica at Yale University, Connecticut. A specialist in talmudic-midrashic studies, her published works include Between the Babylonian and Palestinian Talmuds (1997, winner of a Salo Baron Prize), Gentile Impurities and Jewish Identities (2002, National Jewish Book Award finalist), The Emergence of Judaism (2010), Introduction to the Bible (2012), and What's Divine about Divine Law? (2015, winner of the 2015 National Jewish Book Award in Scholarship and the 2016 PROSE Award in Theology and Religious Studies from the American Publishers Association). She is an elected member of the American Academy of Jewish Research and Vice President for the Program of the Association for the Jewish Studies.