Books by Martin Sicker

In the view of Dr. Martin Sicker, it was with the emergence of Islam that the combination of geopolitics and religion reached its most volatile form and provided the ideological context for war and peace in the Middle East for more than a millennium.

The story of the evolution of Judaism from its origins in the remote past into the complex and various forms by which it is known in the present day does not lend itself to a straightforward historical narrative. The following study attempts to understand how the Second Hebrew Commonwealth came into being and the critical role that Mosaic religion played in the process, which resulted in what may be termed Pharisaic Judaism, which effectively came to an end with the destruction of the Second Temple by the Romans in 70 CE. By the sheer willpower and intellectual ability of the sages who survived the national disaster, Pharisaic Judaism was morphed into Rabbinic Judaism, which ultimately evolved over a period of two millennia into the variety of forms that presently adorn the religious landscape of the Jewish people.Part 1 of this study is concerned with the story of Pharisaic Judaism, which emerged in a period in which the majority of the Jewish people were political factors in the history of the Jewish nation, something that would only emerge once again in the twentieth century with the creation of the modern State of Israel. Ancient Judaea existed in the midst of the region properly known as Cisjordan, the region between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River, which constituted the land-bridge between Africa and Asia, through which the more accessible one of the two primary trade and military routes between Egypt and Mesopotamia passed. This made it a critical chunk of territory, the control of which was a constant objective of contending powers throughout the history of the Middle East, and gave Judaea a strategic importance virtually unrelated to its natural resources or wealth. Accordingly, in presenting the story of Pharisaic Judaism, considerable space will be given to the geopolitics and domestic politics in which the Jewish religious authorities necessarily were deeply involved, as is the case today in modern Israel.

Pharisaic Judaism, discussed in part 1 of this study, was an inseparable element in the political history of the Second Hebrew Commonwealth. With the destruction of the Second Temple in Jerusalem, along with the skeleton of what was once a Jewish state, Judaism entered a period of crisis far more severe than experienced with the destruction of the First Temple, along with the First Hebrew Commonwealth. Pharisaic Judaism, integral to the now nonexistent Jewish state, of necessity gave way to Rabbinic Judaism, which, as a minority religious culture, took root primarily in the enclaves of Jews strewn throughout the diaspora with little or mostly no control over their very existence. And in the absence of a centralized religious authority such as the Sanhedrin in the Temple complex, Jewish communities throughout the Diaspora developed different religious customs, traditions, and in some instances, belief systems, all nominally based on the core teachings of Scripture. Part 2 of this study of the evolution of Judaism from Ezra to the present day will attempt to trace significant developments along that evolutionary path from the transition from Pharisaic to Rabbinic Judaism, that is, Judaism as understood by the different schools of rabbis, as decisors, scholars, and teachers over the past two millennia.

The stories in the book of Genesis have been studied intensely for more than two millennia, providing a virtual mountain of commentary on every aspect of the narratives contained therein. Viewed from a traditional perspective, the stories related in Genesis are essentially graphic philosophical and theological narratives designed to convey profound ideas and insights that would otherwise be found only in tomes designed for students of philosophy and theology. A close substantive examination of these narratives, as presented in the Masoretic text but often lost in translation where the subtleties of the Hebrew wording are glossed over, will reveal a treasure trove of insights into the fundamental issues of religious belief, the divine-human relationship, freewill and determinism, the complex nature of humankind, and theodicy, to name a few of the issues dealt with in the narratives. The present work contains four "deep dive" studies of key interrelated narratives in the first twenty-two chapters of Genesis that address the questions of the nature of man and his relationship to God and, most critically, the distinction between divine justice and human justice.It is the hope and expectation of the author of these studies that the reader will come away from them with even more questions about the biblical texts than they had before. As will be seen, there has always been little consensus over the centuries about the meanings of these essentially right-brained texts, primarily because they are constructed and written in a manner that tends to challenge left-brained analysis. Nonetheless, they remain intellectually important because the topics they deal with are of great pertinence to contemporary society.

The subject of this study is the continuing story of the transition of the ancient Israelites from a loose confederation of ethnically related tribes into a territorially based nation and state and its subsequent transition to a monarchy, as depicted in the biblical books of Samuel. The work that follows begins with the succession of Ahaziah, the son of Ahab, to the throne of the kingdom of Israel and concludes with the end of the kingdom of Judah and the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem in 586.The term prophetic history is employed to describe the subject because prophecy in biblical thought is not fatalistic and does not predict future events. What it does is assert that the moral course a society chooses to follow in the present can determine its probable but not inevitable future. The purpose of the biblical book is to inform the reader of the historical consequences of the failure to observe the terms of the divine covenant entered into between God and the children of Israel at Mount Sinai, following the exodus from Egypt. Although the narrative is based on events that were believed to have taken place, the primary focus of prophetic history is on the moral implications of the decisions taken by men rather than the factual accuracy of the details of the events described, which have been studied exhaustively by archaeologists and historians of the ancient world.

Written for students of Middle Eastern politics and other readers who seek to understand why a solution to the Arab-Israeli conflict still seems so remote, this book examines how the question of physical security has constituted the most fundamental concern of Israel since the country came into being in 1948. The author's immediate purpose is to provide the reader with the necessary background to understand why Israel has proved reluctant to agree to the numerous peace plans and processes proposed over the years, demonstrating that--at least from the predominant Israeli perspective--each of these plans posed unacceptable risks to Israel's security.Sicker shows that there has been a remarkable consistency in actual security policy throughout Israel's history, regardless of which party was in power and irrespective of the significant differences in declared policy between the country's left and right governments. He explains why Israel has consistently refused to define the limits of its territorial claims in advance of peace negotiations and explores the influence of the concept of `land for peace' from its origins in the 1947 UN partition plan to the present. Challenging the conventional wisdom, Sicker argues that there is no solid evidence that the Arab states are prepared to accept the legitimacy of Israel and that until this happens there is little likelihood of peace. Further, he asserts that there are no territorial concessions that Israel can realistically offer that will satisfy the Arabs and that peace, therefore, depends upon a fundamental change in the Arab view of Israel's claims. By offering a clear and unequivocal outline of the stakes involved, Sicker enables readers to better evaluate both past, present, and future developments in this strategically critical region.

Its existence is a reality of everyday life, yet the notion of the state is not well understood. Sicker does not consider this as just another academic question: The citizen's moral obligation to obey the state is intimately related to the legitimacy of the state's authority and the latter depends largely on its sources.

The Making of a Pariah State takes the reader behind the flamboyance and apparent irrationality of Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi to expose his attempt to impose national cohesion on the Arab, Muslim, and Third World elements under his leadership.

In his provocative analysis of Soviet goals in Southwest Asia, particularly Iran, Sicker argues that Soviet imperialism in this area exhibits a remarkable consistency from tsarist times to the present.

The Trials of Abraham is based on the premise that the primary concern of the Torah is with establishing a conceptual framework within which a unique nation might emerge and flourish for the exclusive purpose of facilitating the emergence of a model civilization for eventual emulation by all the peoples of the earth. The Trials of Abraham is devoted to a consideration of how the biblical author sought to explain through narrative rather than analysis why Abraham was chosen to be the founding patriarch of that new nation.The saga of Abraham is presented in the book of Genesis in a group of stories reflecting a series of progressively severe tests or trials to which Abraham was subjected in order to demonstrate to all but especially to posterity his worthiness to be the founder of a unique nation committed to God's service. The trials illustrate the discrete steps by which he underwent transformation from a natural philosopher to a religious sage, from being a consummate rationalist to becoming a man of faith capable of suppressing even the most pressing demands of reason.Understanding the biblical narrative requires that we strive to comprehend what the text as we have it is telling us, explicitly as well as implicitly. As is the case with many biblical texts, it is not always clear what is being conveyed or why certain bits of information are provided and others omitted. The challenge for the sympathetic reader is to attempt fill in the seemingly obvious gaps in the narrative and to make sense of that which is or is not said. It is the purpose of The Trials of Abraham to assist the reader in doing just that.