Papers by Marzena Zawanowska
Strangers in the Land: Traveling Texts, Imagined Others, and Captured Souls in Jewish, Christian, and Muslim Traditions in Late Antique and Mediaeval Times [Studies in the Childrn of Abraham, vol. 11] , 2024
Kwartalnik Historii Żydów - Jewish History Quarterly, 2024
Journal of Jewish Languages, 2023
תור הזהב הקראי - אנתולוגיה של היצירה הקראית במאות התשיעית עד השתים־עשרה, 2022
Kwartalnik Historii Żydów - Jewish Quarterly Review, 2022
Lost and Bound: Reconstruction Techniques in Fragmentary Manuscripts of the Jewish and Christian Tradition [Arameo Arabica et Graeca, vol. 5], 2022
Medieval History Journal, 2022
Two main historiographic motifs invented in the Middle Ages have dominated all later Jewish histo... more Two main historiographic motifs invented in the Middle Ages have dominated all later Jewish historical reconstructions of the origins of Karaism. One connects it with the activity of 'Anan ben David, while the other associates the Karaites with the Sadducees. The aim of the article is to revisit the question of the origins of the Sadduceean motif and Halevi's role in its creation. Accordingly, its purpose is not to explore the actual relationship between the Karaites and the Sadducees, but the way in which medieval Jews imagined this relationship, especially in terms of the Karaites' past and the beginnings of their movement. It argues that against his explicit statements to the contrary, Halevi contributed to the establishment of a direct, historical link between the Karaites and the Sadducees. In addition, the article demonstrates that when creating his narrative on the emergence of Karaism, Halevi might have been inspired by Karaite sources such as Yūsuf al-Baṣīr's Book of Precepts. It offers an analysis of a relevant passage of this legal Code through an attempt to reconstruct a complex process of cross-sectoral interchanges and transfers of ideas behind the creation of the Sadduceean myth of the origins of Karaism.
From Theodulf to Rashi and Beyond: Texts, Techniques, and Transfer in Western European Exegesis (800 - 1100), Leiden: Brill, 2022
History of Religions, 2022
Journal of Jewish Languages, 2023
The Character of David in Judaism, Christianity and Islam Warrior, Poet, Prophet and King [Themes in Biblical Narrative, vol. 29]], 2021
Encyclopedia of the Bible and its Reception (Berlin - New York: DE GRUYTER, 2021), 2021
1. (z Michaelem Wechslerem) , [w:] Encyclopedia of the Bible and its Reception, DE GRUYTER, Berli... more 1. (z Michaelem Wechslerem) , [w:] Encyclopedia of the Bible and its Reception, DE GRUYTER, Berlin, New York 2021, s. 1106–1111.
Encyclopedia of the Bible and its Reception (Berlin-New York, DE GRUYTER, 2015), 2015
Jewish Quarterly Review, 2021
Traditional Jewish interpretations of the story of the tower of Babel, as preserved in various mi... more Traditional Jewish interpretations of the story of the tower of Babel, as preserved in various midrashic collections, concentrated on sins committed by the builders on account of which they deserved divine punishment. The main purpose of such an approach was to draw from the scriptural account a moral lesson, regardless of the historicity of the narrated events, their dating, chronology, etc. In contrast, medieval Karaites living in the lands of medieval Islam shifted the main focus of their exegetical interest in this text to history, including the history of the text. Exploring historicizing tendencies in medieval Karaite commentaries on this biblical narrative, this essay ponders the seemingly simple question of what made the Karaite exegetes of the time discover history and read biblical stories as true histories. It demonstrates how the exegetes' novel approach to Scripture may have resulted from their engagement with the surrounding Muslim culture, which was concerned with establishing the historical context of the qur'anic revelation and investigating the reasons and circumstances of revelation (asbāb al-nuzūl). Tracing specific Islamic influences on the Karaites' reading of the story of the tower of Babel, the essay argues that they can be detected not in direct borrowings of specific interpretations, but on a meta level, owing to differences between Muslim and Jewish conceptualizations of revelation, which engendered diverging exegetical responses to Scripture in the two religions. Finally, the essay addresses the question of the Karaites' contribution to the history of Jewish exegesis of this chapter.
AJS Review, 2021
On the basis of a letter preserved in the Cairo Geniza, Judah Halevi is assumed to have originall... more On the basis of a letter preserved in the Cairo Geniza, Judah Halevi is assumed to have originally composed his influential book of religious thought, the Kuzari, as a polemical response to a Karaite convert. However, he neither perceived nor described the Karaites as heretics. In fact, his depiction of the adherents of this alternative to Rabbanite Judaism and their origins so appealed to the Karaites that some of them believed that the author had been a (crypto-)Karaite himself, and his reconstructions of the movement's history became appropriated as the founding myth of Karaism. This paper attempts to discern Halevi's attitude toward the Karaites, and his perception of their main fault. It also addresses the fundamental question of his purpose in writing the Kuzari.
Judaism Die Religionen der Menschheit/Religions of Humanity, eds. Burton Visotzky, Michael Tilly (Stuttgart: W. Kohlhammer Verlag, 2020), 2020
Israel in Egypt. The Land of Egypt as Concept and Reality for Jews in Antiquity and the Early Medieval Period, eds. Alison Salvesen, Sarah Pearce, Miriam Frenkel (Leiden: Brill), 2020
Kwartalnik Historii Żydów, 2020
Kwartalnik Historii Żydów, 2019
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Papers by Marzena Zawanowska