From the publisher:

Traditional Jewish religious belief speaks of a divinely revealed, perfect text, authoritatively expounded. The question this book addresses is one with which the author has struggled all his life: in the light of historical criticism, advances in knowledge, and changing moral attitudes, is the traditional notion of divine revelation and authoritative interpretation still valid? The focus is on Judaism but the arguments are easy to transpose to other religions.

Seride Teshuvot-A Descriptive Catalogue of Responsa Fragments from the Jacques Mosseri Collection Cambridge University Library. Cambridge Genizah Studies Series Volume 3

The Hackmey Hebrew Classical Library, a joint publication of Harvard University Press and Tel Aviv University Press seeks to make classical Hebrew and Aramaic texts from the post-biblical era to the rebirth of Hebrew in the nineteenth century as a series of facing-page translations which are accessible to the Anglophone reader. From biblical times to the Modern Era, Hebrew and Aramaic were the languages of Jewish thought and devotion. They were the languages of the Bible, the Mishnah and the Talmud. They were the languages many Jewish intellectuals used for exegesis, halavah, mysticism, philosophy, literature, poetry and science. From the Midrash to the Cabbala, from the Spanish poets’ reinvention of biblical Hebrew to the incorporation of German folklore into Jewish piety by the Hassidim of Ashkenaz, classical Jewish texts offer the reader a chance to explore the thoughts and ideas of the lesser-known half of the “Judeo-Christian tradition.

The NYT has an article about a new index to the Talmud. (hat tip) It is available in either English or Hebrew and is published by Feldheim.  There is a website for the book that includes some sample pages and it looks very good.  I would be interested to know if anybody has used it.

The next volume of Benny Lau’s series on the Sages has been released. This volume is called ממשנה לתלמוד.

Yehuda Brandes has released the another volume of his examination of Talmudic legends, Aggada Le-Ma’aseh II. See here for information on vol. I.

The third book is אגדתא by Shmuel Faust. A review (Hebrew) of the book can be found here.

My close friend Sharon Koren’s book, Forsaken: The Menstruant in Medieval Jewish Mysticism, has been released.

This book addresses a central question in the study of Jewish mysticism in the medieval and early modern periods: why are there no known female mystics in medieval Judaism, unlike contemporaneous movements in Christianity and Islam? Koren demonstrates that the male rejection of female mystical aspirations is based in deeply rooted attitudes toward corporeality and ritual purity. In particular, medieval Jewish male mystics increasingly emphasized that the changing states of the female body between ritual purity and impurity disqualified women from the quest for mystical connection with God.

Offering a provocative look at premodern rabbinical views of the female body and their ramifications for women’s spiritual development, Koren compares Jewish views with medieval Christian and Muslim views of both female menstruation and the possibility of female mystical experience.

The Jewish Annotated New Testament, hereafter JANT in this review, is meant to meet the needs of discrete (and occasionally overlapping) sets of readers: (1) Jews, (2) Christians, and (3) readers who approach the New Testament without any intention to appropriate what they learn within the framework of a Jewish or Christian metanarrative. JANT annotates the New Testament without attempting to persuade the reader to embrace a non-Christian perspective on the text. At the same time, it models a critical, empathetic, non-Christian reading of the New Testament at every turn.

JANT is one milestone among many in an ongoing cultural project of paramount importance: the task of appropriation of everything from Qumran sectarian literature to 1-4 Maccabees, Tobit and Ben Sira; from Joseph and Aseneth, Jubilees, 1 Enoch, 4 Ezra, to 2 Baruch; from the New Testament and the Didache to Philo and Josephus, within the confines of a set of cultural loyalties in which the tradition of the Sages continues to occupy pride of place. The project is of interest to Jews, Christians, and uncommitted readers alike.

See the full review here.