Holiday Weekend Study Retreat Labor Day Weekend 2010
The Dr. Harvey H. Ammerman Memorial Study Retreat
September 5th & 6th 2010
Location: Pearlstone Conference and Retreat Center Reisterstown, MD

The Bodies of God and the World of Ancient Israel: Do the ancient texts really mean what they say, or are they just symbolic? What do these texts imply about the Jewish understandings of God?

• Yesh Lo Demut Ha-Guf? Does the Bible’s God Have a Body?
  Can a human see God? Isaiah 6, Ezekiel 1-3, Exodus 33-34, Jeremiah 1. God’s Body in Genesis 1, Genesis 3, Exodus 24, and Amos 9.
• How Many Bodies Does God Have?
  Selected Babylonian and Canaanite texts; selections from Genesis, Exodus, and Hosea.
• Just One! Just One!
  The Shem and the Kavod: the Shema, Solomon’s Prayer, and other deuteronomic texts; Exodus 39-40 and Ezekiel 8-10.
• God’s Bodies and Our Own Judaism
  Selected New Testament texts; selected kabbalistic texts; Anim Zemirot; Yigdal.

Dr. Benjamin Sommer
Dr. Benjamin D. Sommer is a Professor of Bible and Ancient Semitic Languages at the Jewish Theological Seminary. Previously, he was the Director of the Crown Family Center for Jewish Studies at Northwestern University. He has been a visiting faculty member at the Hebrew University, Shalom Hartman Institute, and the University of Chicago. Dr. Sommer received a B.A. from Yale University, a M.A. from Brandeis University, and a Ph.D. from The University of Chicago.

Dr. Sommer’s second book, The Bodies of God and the World of Ancient Israel (Cambridge University Press, 2009), received the Jordan Schnitzer Award from the Association for Jewish Studies for the best book in Bible, Rabbinics, or Archaeology published in 2006-2009. His first book, A Prophet Reads Scripture: Allusion in Isaiah 40-66 (Stanford University Press, 1998), was awarded the Salo Wittmayer Baron Prize by the American Academy for Jewish Research for the best first book on ancient Judaism published in 1998. Dr. Sommer serves as the Editor of the Psalms commentary to be published by the Jewish Publication Society Bible and is writing the first volume of that five-volume set. He and his wife, Jennifer Dugdale, have three children, Avraham Ayyal, Sarah Gilah, and Eliana Shlomit.

Registration PRIOR TO AUGUST 20: $350 dbl. occupancy - $250 single
Registration AFTER AUGUST 20: $380 dbl. occupancy - $280 single

For more information click here.

The Book of Samuel I
Fall 2010-Spring 2011
With Gideon Amir

 

At The Dennis and Phillip Ratner Museum
10001 Old Georgetown Road,
Bethesda, MD 20814

The Books of Samuel describe the transition from a tribal system to a monarchy. In the Books of Joshua and Judges, the tribal system played a major role; the Book of Samuel shows the different efforts to create a central leadership for the whole of Israel. These efforts start with God’s messenger Samuel, first of the Major Prophets to prophesize inside the Land of Israel. Samuel was at the cusp between two eras, and was instrumental in establishing Israel’s Monarchy with the anointing of the first two kings of Israel: Saul and David.

Session One
Chapters 1-10 Samuel: The Last of the Hebrew Judges and First of the Major Prophets
Sundays, September 26th – December 12th

Session Two
Chapters 11-20 Saul: The First King of Israel
Sundays, January 9th – March 22nd

Session Three
Chapters 21-31 David: The Second King of Israel
Sundays April 1st – June 26th

For more information click here.
To register for an individual session or all three sessions click here.