Books by John J. Collins

Ancient Jewish and Christian Scriptures examines the writings included in and excluded from the Jewish and Christian canons of Scripture and explores the social settings in which some of this literature was viewed as authoritative and some was viewed either as uninspired or as heretical.

A title that proceeds through the canon of the Old Testament and the apocrypha, judiciously presenting the state of historical, archaeological, and literary understanding of the biblical text, and engaging the student in questions of significance and interpretation for the contemporary world.

This is a 1-volume, edition of the 3-volume "Encyclopedia of Apocalypticism" published in 1998. The main historical surveys have been retained, while essays of a thematic nature, and a few whose subject matter is not central to the historical development, have been omitted.

Four respected scholars of the Hebrew Bible and early Judaism provide a clear portrait of the family in ancient Israel. Important theological and ethical implications are made for the family today.The Family, Culture, and Religion series offers informed and responsible analyses of the state of the American family from a religious perspective...

Most people understand Judaism to be the Torah and the Torah to be Judaism. However, in TheInvention of Judaism, John J. Collins persuasively argues this was not always the case. The Torah became the touchstone for most of Judaism's adherents only in the hands of the rabbis of late antiquity. For 600 years prior, from the Babylonian Exile to the Roman destruction of the Second Temple, there was enormous variation in the way the Torah was understood. Collins provides a comprehensive account of the role of the Torah in ancient Judaism, exploring key moments in its history, beginning with the formation of Deuteronomy and continuing through the Maccabean revolt and the rise of Jewish sectarianism and early Christianity.

This is a collection of recent articles by one of the bestselling Old Testament professors in the U.S. Collins wrote the Fortress Press volume Introduction to the Hebrew Bible with CD-ROM (2004). An engaging writer, Collins explores a diversity of topics, from the role of the Bible in culture to major themes within the Bible: messianism, revelation, natural theology, and so on.

This volume explores the issue of apocalypticism in the Scrolls; how the notions of the 'end', Messianic expectation and eternal life affected the Dead Sea sect, influenced Judaism and filtered into Christianity.