God, Self, and Death (2003 Burkes), book
God, Self, and Death: The Shape of Religious Transformation in the Second Temple Period (2003) is a book by Shannon Burkes.
Abstract
"This volume considers the emerging Jewish interest in an afterlife during the second temple period in relation to developing views of the deity and the self. In some circles God is understood as increasingly distant from the human sphere, and so justice must occur in another world or after death; at the same time, more autonomous constructions of the self in response to community breakdown suggest that reward and punishment come not only collectively, but also on the individual level in a post-mortem realm. The book traces the interconnections between these themes in Job and Ecclesiastes, Ben Sira and Daniel, then Wisdom of Solomon and 4 Ezra, crossing genre boundaries in an attempt to offer a more encompassing historical investigation."--Publisher description.
Editions and translations
Published in Leiden: Brill, 2003 (Supplements to the Journal for the Study of Judaism, 79).
Table of contents
- Introduction
- 1. Job and Qoheleth
- 2. Ben Sira and Daniel
- 3. Wisdom of Solomon and 4 Ezra
- Conclusion