Jenny R. Labendz, "Beyond Hope: Rabbinic Eschatology of Late Antiquity in Comparative Perspective" (Oxford UP, 2026)

In Conversation: An OUP Podcast · Jul 28, 2026 · 51m

In Beyond Hope: Rabbinic Eschatology of Late Antiquity in Comparative Perspective (Oxford UP, 2026) Jenny Labendz addresses distinct patterns within rabbinic eschatology that have been overlooked in scholarship and in Jewish thought. Contrary to what is usually expected of eschatology, this book demonstrates that the rabbis held a sustained eschatology of irresolution. While the rabbis occasionally waxed poetic along the lines of a perfected new world in the eschaton, a vast store of rabbinic texts depicts a deeply imperfect eschaton. This is the profound difference between rabbinic and early…