Barbara Thiede: Judaism Unbound Episode 218 - A Book That Didn't Make It

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Barbara Thiede, Teaching Professor of Religious Studies at the University of North Carolina-Charlotte and Dean of the Faculty for the ALEPH Ordination Program, [1] joins Dan Libenson and Lex Rofeberg for a conversation about the Book of Jubilees, [2] why it matters, and what we can learn from it — along with other Jewish books that didn’t make it into the Bible.

[1] Learn more about Barbara Thiede here, and learn more about the ALEPH Ordination Program here. Hear about Thiede’s upcoming book, entitled Homosociality, Male Friendship, and Women in Hebrew Bible: Malignant Fraternities, here.

[2] Check out the full book of Jubilees in English and in Ge’ez (an East African language) in open-source translation via the Open Siddur Project. For an article exploring the book’s orientation to a solar calendar, see “The Jewish Calendar in Jubilees,” a piece by Michael Segal for TheTorah.com.

[3] To hear more from Barbara Thiede, we encourage you to check out her previous appearance on Judaism Unbound — Episode 101: Not Your Rabbis’ Judaism - Barbara Thiede.

[4] Thiede and Lex discuss the Beta Israel, a group of Ethiopian Jews that did canonize the Book of Jubilees (and later Thiede mentions this community’s celebration of a holiday called Sigd). Learn more about the Beta Israel at this link.

[5] Take a look at the Binding of Isaac narrative in Jubilees by heading to this link (scroll to verse 17:15, and the story continues through 18:16).

[6] If you enjoyed this episode, you may be interested in a new weekly show, from jewishLIVE, that is looking at Biblical History. The show features Richard Elliott Friedman, author of Who Wrote the Bible? and is entitled Richard Elliott Friedman: Return to Torah. You can listen to his past appearances on Judaism Unbound by listening to Episode 27: Who Wrote the Bible? or Episode 83: The Exodus.