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1. Concept and development in the Middle AgesThe autonym of the splinter group known as the “Karaim,” which began to develop from Babylonian-Persian Judaism early in the 8th century, indicates considerable departures from the mother religion: the  Ba'ale ha-Mikra (“People of the Scriptures”) accepted only the Hebrew Bible as the written Torah, therefore rejecting the oral Torah (Halakhah, Judaic law) of rabbinical Judaism, although they used its hermeneutics. Compared with rabbinic Judaism, the Karaite Halakhah, Sevel ha-Jeruscha (“Yoke of Inheritance”), is less syst…

1. Definition and premisesIn the Hebrew Bible, the term Messiah, the Graecisized form of the Hebrew word  mashiach (“anointed one”), denotes an individual who has be called to a leadership office (priest, king, prophet) by an act of anointing. In the course of the Exile, the notion arose of a politically, socially, and religiously ideal ruler of Davidic descent [5]. After the destruction of the First Temple (587/586 BCE), politically restorative and utopian hopes were associated with the Messiah, hopes that have continued on into contemporary Judaism:…

1. Definition and developmentIn its broadest sense, in the context of world literature,   Jewish literature denotes all works written by Jews and authors of Jewish background [9]; there have been repeated attempts, however, to limit and define Jewish literature on the basis of language, genres, themes, and authors, for polemic, apologetic, and academic purposes. Until the second half of the 18th century, Jewish literature was primarily religious in nature and hence deeply rooted in Judaism; with the Haskalah (the Jewish…

1. Concept The field of Jewish languages includes all those languages spoken as a mother tongue by people who feel themselves as belonging to the Jewish people ( Judaism) either religiously, ethnically, or culturally. These languages include the two traditional languages of Judaism, Hebrew, “the language of God,” and ancient Aramaic [3. 86]. Hebrew, the earliest record of which is in the Hebrew Bible, was not widely used for verbal communication, but rather as a language of literature and cult in diglossic systems, initially with Aramaic, la…

1. DefinitionResearch in the Hebrew language was front and center of Hebrew studies (Jewish languages). This was primarily pursued within Judaism (see 2, below), but from the Renaissance on, engagement with Jewish literature also increased in Christendom (see  3, below). Sometimes, Hebrew studies was accorded the status of a learned discipline, usually under the aegis of a faculty of theology, which were established in European universities in the second half of the 16th century.Nathanael Riemer2. JewryWhen Hebrew fell out of use as a spoken language, the learned…