Judaic Studies

BJS launches Open Access Books program

Brown Judaic Studies (BJS) announces the launch of our Open Access Books program.

During the 2019-2020 academic year, with the support of a grant from the NEH/Mellon Humanities Open Books program, we have been digitizing about fifty titles from our backlist in order to make them publicly accessible at no cost in perpetuity. The books are available for download in different formats, including PDF, EPUB, HTML, and plain text (for text-mining). Most of the books have received additional copyediting and several contain new prefaces by the authors. Print on Demand editions of these new editions will also be available for purchase.

BJS Open Books will be available on the Brown Judaic Studies website in all formats. The books can also be accessed, in different formats, through a number of other sites: JSTOR (HTML and PDF); Project MUSE (HTML and PDF); the Hathi Trust (PDF); SBL Press (Print on Demand); Amazon (e-Reader); and the Brown Digital Repository (PDF, HTML, e-Reader and TXT). The Association for Jewish Studies will also post a link to our titles.

Current available titles, with links to JSTOR, are below. We hope to have all of our open access titles available on all platforms during this summer.

Brown Judaic Studies is a book series specializing in high-quality scholarly books in Jewish studies. Run by the faculty of the Program in Judaic Studies at Brown University, we have published over 350 volumes over forty years. For more information about Brown Judaic Studies and our recent publications.

Currently Available Volumes

History and Literature: New Readings of Jewish Texts in Honor of Arnold J. Band by William Cutter, and David C. Jacobson 

Kol Nidre: Studies in the Development of Rabbinic Votive Institutions by Moshe Benovitz

Claude Montefiore and Christianity by Maurice Gerald Bowler

The Jewish Family in Antiquity by Shaye J.D. Cohen

Diasporas in Antiquity by Shaye J.D. Cohen, and Ernest S. Frerichs 

The Peri Pascha Attributed to Melito of Sardis: Setting, Purpose, Sources by Lynn H. Cohick 

Behind the Essenes: History and Ideology in the Dead Sea Scrolls by Philip R. Davies 

The Law of Jealousy: Anthropology of Sotah by Adriana Destro 

Barukh Kurzweil and Modern Hebrew Literature by James S. Diamond 

The Libes Briv of Isaac Wetzlar by Morris M. Faierstein 

Essays on Biblical Method and Translation by Edward Greenstein 

Mishnah’s Theology of Tithing: A Study of Tractate Maaserot by Martin Jaffee 

A Conceptual Commentary on Midrash Leviticus Rabbah: Value Concepts in Rabbinic Thought by Max Kadushin 

Goodenough on the Beginnings of Christianity by A.T. Kraabel 

The Theology of Nahmanides Systematically Presented by David Novak 

A Wise and Discerning Mind: Essays in Honor of Burke O. Long by Saul Olyan, and Robert Culley 

A History of the United Jewish Appeal by Marc Lee Raphael 

Approaches to Modern Judaism by Marc Lee Raphael 

A History of Sukkot in the Second Temple and Rabbinic Periods by Jeffrey Rubenstein 

Scholastic Rabbinism: A Literary Study of the Fathers According to Rabbi Nathan by Anthony J. Saldarini

Tasting the Dish: Rabbinic Rhetorics of Sexuality by Michael Satlow               

Sectarian Law in the Dead Sea Scrolls: Courts, Testimony and the Penal Code by Lawrence H. Schiffman 

Jewish Thought Adrift: Max Wiener by Robert S. Schine 

Philo’s Perception of Women by Dorothy Sly 

From Rebuke to Consolation: Exegesis and Theology in the Liturgical Anthology of the Ninth Av Season by Elsie Stern