The Aroma of Righteousness: Scent and Seduction in Rabbinic Life and Literature - Hardcover

Green, Deborah A.

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0271037679 ISBN 13: 9780271037677

Publisher: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2011

Synopsis

In The Aroma of Righteousness, Deborah Green explores images of perfume and incense in late Roman and early Byzantine Jewish literature. Using literary methods to illuminate the rabbinic literature, Green demonstrates the ways in which the rabbis’ reading of biblical texts and their intimate experience with aromatics build and deepen their interpretations. The study uncovers the cultural associations that are evoked by perfume and incense in both the Hebrew Bible and midrashic texts and seeks to understand the cultural, theological, and experiential motivations and impulses that lie behind these interpretations. Green accomplishes this by examining the relationship between the textual traditions of the Hebrew Bible and Midrash, the surviving evidence from the material culture of Palestine in the late Roman and early Byzantine periods, and cultural evidence as described by the rabbis and other Roman authors.

About this title

About the Author

Deborah A. Green is Greenberg Associate Professor of Hebrew Language and Literature in the Department of Religious Studies and Director of the Harold Schnitzer Family Program in Judaic Studies at the University of Oregon.

Edition details

• Publisher: Pennsylvania State University Press
• Publication date: 2011
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0271037679
• ISBN 13: 9780271037677
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 304