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Most people understand Judaism to be the Torah and the Torah to be Judaism. However, in TheInvention of Judaism, John J. Collins persuasively argues this was not always the case. The Torah became the touchstone for most of Judaism´s adherents only in the hands of the rabbis of late antiquity. For 600 years prior, from the Babylonian Exile to the Roman destruction of the Second Temple, there was enormous variation in the way the Torah was understood. Collins provides a comprehensive account of the role of the Torah in ancient Judaism, exploring key moments in its history, beginning with the formation of Deuteronomy and continuing through the Maccabean revolt and the rise of Jewish sectarianism and early Christianity.

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John J. Collins may well be the single most influential scholar of the Old Testament and Hebrew Bible alive. He is well known, his work much respected, and he possesses an encyclopedic mind like few others. Collins does here what he generally does best: He surveys an enormous amount of literature, both primary and secondary, summarizes it masterfully, and then forcefully articulates his own thesis."-Matthias Henze, Isla Carroll and Perry E. Turner Professor of Hebrew Bibleand Early Judaism, Rice University

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John J. Collins is Professor of Old Testament Criticism and Interpretation at Yale Divinity School. His books include Introduction to the Hebrew Bible, The Dead Sea Scrolls: A Biography and The Apocalyptic Imagination. He is general editor of the Yale Anchor Bible Series.

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