Jacob Neusner was a prolific and innovative contributor to the study of religion for over fifty years. A scholar of rabbinic Judaism, Neusner regarded Jewish texts as data to address larger questions in the academic study of religion that he helped to formulate. Jacob Neusner on Religion offers the first full critical assessment of his thought on the subject of religion. Aaron W. Hughes delineates the stages of Neusner’s career and provides an overview of Neusner’s personal biography and critical reception. This book is essential reading for students and scholars interested in Neusner specifically, or in the history of Religious Studies, Jewish Studies, and philosophy of religion more broadly.
Preface. Introduction. Biographical Sketch. Chapter One: Biography. Chapter Two: History. Chapter Three: Literature. Chapter Four: Religion. Chapter Five: Theology. Chapter Six: Assessment. Glossary. Summary of Major Intellectual Accomplishments. Summary of Major Criticisms. Annotated Bibliography. References. Subject Index. Name Index.
Biography
Aaron W. Hughes holds the Philip S. Bernstein Chair in Jewish Studies at the University of Rochester. He has taught at McMaster University, the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, the University of Calgary, and the University at Buffalo. He is the author of over 50 articles and 10 books, in addition to being the editor or co-editor of 18 books.
"This is a masterful analysis of a very important topic that can still illumine the path of religious studies scholars who grapple with the problem of the universal and the particular, the shared and the singular."
Elliot Wolfson, University of California, Santa Barbara, USA
"Aaron Hughes is to be commended for his thoughtful analysis of Jacob Neusner’s significant contributions to the academic study and teaching of religious traditions in today’s secular universities. Hughes examines central themes in Neusner’s prodigious body of scholarship on rabbinic Judaism and details his development of text-based methodologies that consider historical and cultural context and modes of literary expression, as well as the spiritual motivations that produced these documents."
Judith R. Baskin, University of Oregon, USA
"Aaron W. Hughes’s Jacob Neusner on Religion is a welcome contribution, and not only for its concision and clarity. It serves as a crucial companion to Hughes’s longer biography of Neusner."
Daniel Picus, Carleton College, USA
