Please help get this into production!

Matthew · February 2018

Friends,

It was 2 years ago today that I ordered this on Pre-Pub:

https://www.logos.com/product/51513/jacob-neusner-jewish-studies-bundle

Jacob Neusner Jewish Studies Bundle (99 vols.)

Not sure how long it was available before then, but I sure would like to finally get it into production. It's 28,114 pages for $399.99!

Here's one example of something included that should be of value to all of us, regardless of our denominational background:

The Rabbinic Traditions about the Pharisees Before 70 AD (3 vols.) 1,248 pages

You don't have to be Jewish to understand the value of gaining insight into the Jewish way of thinking in order to understand the Scriptures (which are Israelite/Jewish) and the context of Jesus (a Jew) and his apostles and early followers (also Jews). We can't read our modern/Western/Catholic or Protestant worldview back into the Scriptures and expect to properly understand the intended meaning of the authors and how the hearers/readers would have understood it. And this is the first step in being able to correctly apply it to us in our modern world.

Even if you eventually have to cancel because your circumstances change (there's no absolute commitment), I would greatly appreciate it if you would "order" this today and help out those of us who have been waiting a long time for this invaluable collection.

And while you're at it, here are some others stuck in Pre-Pub that you can order:

https://www.logos.com/product/30801/commentary-on-the-new-testament-from-the-talmud-and-midrash

https://www.logos.com/product/138784/outside-the-bible-3-volume-set-ancient-jewish-writings-related-to-scripture

https://www.logos.com/product/144561/the-jewish-world-around-the-new-testament-collected-essays

Thanks!!

Tom Reynolds · February 2018

It does seem like a lot of book for $400 but I didn't order it because it's not well presented. It's collections of selected works on this and that but it doesn't list the individual volumes. I'm not sure how many I would actually be interested in. I'm sure there's some good material in there but how much?

Matthew · February 2018

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/957264#Comment_957264

Tom Reynolds said:

It does seem like a lot of book for $400 but I didn't order it because it's not well presented. It's collections of selected works on this and that but it doesn't list the individual volumes. I'm not sure how many I would actually be interested in. I'm sure there's some good material in there but how much?

I agree Tom, it would be very helpful if FL would break out the details in every volume. I was/am willing to order it based on the fact that it's Neusner--one of the preeminent Jewish scholars of our time--with that many volumes/pages for such a low price. But I too would love to have all of the details. It would seem to Marketing 101--tell the customer exactly what they're getting for the price. But as we've seen this week and before, communication is not FL's strong suit unfortunately. Maybe someone will read this thread and take the initiative to fix it.

Nick Steffen · February 2018

[Y]

Joseph Turner · February 2018

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/957284#Comment_957284

I have been in on this since the beginning, and I would very much like to see it through!

Matthew · March 2018

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/957296#Comment_957296

In case you haven't seen it, here is a link to an article in this week's The Lab, The Logos Academic Blog, 4 Great Reasons to Read Jacob Neusner:

https://academic.logos.com/4-great-reasons-to-read-jacob-neusner/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+logos%2FOnfB+%28theLAB%29

As the article explains:

Neusner is the most published author ever

The writing output of Jacob Neusner is almost incomprehensible. In his lifetime, he published nearly 1,000 books, which does not include his translations of rabbinic material. And his books weren’t just self-published tracts. Most of his works were published by Tier-1 academic publishers, including Brill, Sheffield, and Yale University Press...This is a great opportunity to read the man who has been called “most important Jewish thinker this country has produced.”

Please help get this Pre-Pub into development!!!

Paul · March 2018

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/965245#Comment_965245

I'm very much looking forward to the Jacob Neusner collection being released. I put my bid in on 4/1/2015 so its a long wait. On the other hand, its a very large collection of his works. Kudos to Faithlife and its workers for all the effort to bring this about !

Regarding the Logos Academic Blog article on Neusner, he's important certainly but it would worry me if the claim that he is "the most important Jewish thinker this country has produced" were true. There are many other Jewish thinkers and writers who have also made their mark - and perhaps their work will also be available from Faithlife one day. Keep well Paul

Charlene · March 2018

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/965259#Comment_965259

I've been in from the beginning too! So, hopefully others will quickly join now. This bundle will be an incredible resource and a great addition to anyone's library!

David Staveley · March 2018

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/965259#Comment_965259

Paul said:

I'm very much looking forward to the Jacob Neusner collection being released. I put my bid in on 4/1/2015 so its a long wait. On the other hand, its a very large collection of his works. Kudos to Faithlife and its workers for all the effort to bring this about !

Regarding the Logos Academic Blog article on Neusner, he's important certainly but it would worry me if the claim that he is "the most important Jewish thinker this country has produced" were true. There are many other Jewish thinkers and writers who have also made their mark - and perhaps their work will also be available from Faithlife one day. Keep well Paul

That quote about Neusner was made during the height of his career, circa the end of the 1970's. Today, however, Neusner's methodology has been pretty much discredited. He posited that each piece of Jewish literature produced during the Tannaitic period represented a unique form of Judaism, which meant there were lots of different "Judaisms" (plural) during that period. He did little to show what was common among them, and over-emphasised their distinctiveness. In this regard, Neusner has not been followed by most (if not all) Jewish scholars, and only by a handful of New Testament scholars. Whereas it is certainly true that there was no such thing as a "normative" Judaism at that time, which everyone followed and on which everyone was in complete agreement with (the debates between Jesus and the Pharisees presuppose such disagreements. They came to Jesus to see if he agreed with them or not), it is also certainly true that there was a "commonality" between them all, things which bonded them together as one people and one faith. Neusner's plurality of "Judaisms" simply flies in the face of that historic commonality.

Also, Neusner has a nasty habit of frequently changing his mind. It is almost impossible at times to know exactly what was his precise view is on something at any given stage of his academic career. Pretty much what he says in one book is contradicted in another at a later stage.

Neusner was good in that he introduced the form-critical method into Jewish scholarship, and he was good in showing that there was not an unbroken line of tradition between the Pharisees in the first century CE and the formation of the Rabbinic tradition in the second-to-fifth centuries CE. 100 years ago, the scholarly consensus was that the terms "Pharisaism" and "Rabbinic" were interchangeable. Neusner was among a number of recent Jewish scholars that have been pretty much instrumental in helping to bring about the demise of such an oversimplification. Today, nobody makes the mistake of simply equating "Pharisaism" with "Rabbinism".

In today's world of Jewish scholarship, for me the most important ones as far as the light they shed on the formative period leading up to, and including the early Jesus movement, the following two scholars stand out: Professor Lawrence Schiffman of New York University, for his work on the Dead Sea Scrolls and how the cannon of the Hebrew scriptures was formed; and Albert Baumgarten of Bar-Ilan University, for his work on the nature of Sectarianism during the Maccabean period (which includes the Pharisees and the Sadducees).

If anyone wants a really good introduction to scholarship on the Pharisees, see E. P. Sanders: Judaism: Practice and Belief, or N.T Wright: Paul and the Faithfulness of God, vol 1: Who Were the Pharisees? Or, if anyone wants a good introduction to the Sectarian aspect of the Pharisees, see Antony Saldarini: Pharisees, Scribes and Sadducees in Palestinian Society. All of these are excellent, and their methodology impeccable.

FYI if anyone is actually interested in Neusner's Traditions About the Pharisees before 70 it is available as a free PDF download from the internet if you google it (I don't want to post a link to something which is not produced by Faithlife). I would caution, however, that it is not an easy read if you have no prior grounding in Rabbinics. If you don't, then your use of google in looking up things you don't understand will be in overdrive!