Illustrates the range of theoretical and practical issues involved in defining Judaism for the purposes of comparative and historical studies. This book is divided into four overlapping sections that deal, in various ways, with the configuration of 'Judaism' and how this configuration relates to other historical and/or disciplinary contexts.

Editor's Introduction: Judaism, Judaisms, Jewish: Toward Redefining Traditional Taxa PART I Historical and Chronological Definitions Orientation 1. Selection form The Book of Beliefs and Opinions, Saadya Gaon 2. Thirteen Articles of Faith, Maimonides 3. Answers to Napoleon, The Assembly of Jewish Notables 4. Selection from Judaism and Its History, Abraham Geiger 5. Setting the Problem, Laying the Ground, Judith Plaskow PART II. The Contours of Judaism 6. Apartheid Comparative Religion in the Second Century: Some Theory and a Case Study, Daniel Boyarin 7. Who Were the Jews: Problems in Profiling the Jewish Community Under Early Islam, Steven M. Wasserstrom 8. The Rejudaization of "the Nation", Miriam Bodian 9. Jews and Germans, Gershom Scholem PART III. Re-Definitions 10. The Savage in Judaism, Howard Eilberg-Schwartz 11. Waiting for a Jew: Marginal Redemption at the Eight Street Shul, Jonathan Boyarin 12. Expanding the Canon of Jewish Philosophy: Towards an Appreciation of Genre,Aaron W. Hughes