Author: Jacob Neusner
Publisher: University Press of America
ISBN: 0761849793
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 263
Book Description
The result for the history of Judaism of a documentary reading of the Rabbinic canonical sources illustrates the working of that hypothesis. It is the first major outcome of that hypothesis, but there are other implications, and a variety of new problems emerge from time to time as the work proceeds. In the recent past, Neusner has continued to explore special problems of the documentary hypothesis of the Rabbinic canon. At the same time, Neusner notes, others join in the discussion that have produced important and ambitious analyses of the thesis and its implications. Here, Neuser has collected some of the more ambitious ventures into the hypothesis and its current recapitulations. Neusner begins with the article written by Professor William Scott Green for the Encyclopaedia Judaica second edition, as Green places the documentary hypothesis into the context of Neusner's entire oeuvre. Neuser then reproduces what he regards as the single most successful venture of the documentary hypothesis, contrasting between the Mishnah's and the Talmuds' programs for the social order of Israel, the doctrines of economics, politics, and philosophy set forth in those documents, respectively. Then come the two foci of discourse: Halakhah or normative law and Aggadah or normative theology. Professors Bernard Jackson of the University of Manchester, England and Mayer Gruber of Ben Gurion University of the Negev treat the Halakhic program that Neusner has devised, and Kevin Edgecomb of the University of California, Berkeley, has produced a remarkable summary of the theological system Neusner discerns in the Aggadic documents. Neusner concludes with a review of a book by a critic of the documentary hypothesis.
The Documentary History of Judaism and Its Recent Interpreters
Author: Jacob Neusner
Publisher: University Press of America
ISBN: 0761849793
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 263
Book Description
The result for the history of Judaism of a documentary reading of the Rabbinic canonical sources illustrates the working of that hypothesis. It is the first major outcome of that hypothesis, but there are other implications, and a variety of new problems emerge from time to time as the work proceeds. In the recent past, Neusner has continued to explore special problems of the documentary hypothesis of the Rabbinic canon. At the same time, Neusner notes, others join in the discussion that have produced important and ambitious analyses of the thesis and its implications. Here, Neuser has collected some of the more ambitious ventures into the hypothesis and its current recapitulations. Neusner begins with the article written by Professor William Scott Green for the Encyclopaedia Judaica second edition, as Green places the documentary hypothesis into the context of Neusner's entire oeuvre. Neuser then reproduces what he regards as the single most successful venture of the documentary hypothesis, contrasting between the Mishnah's and the Talmuds' programs for the social order of Israel, the doctrines of economics, politics, and philosophy set forth in those documents, respectively. Then come the two foci of discourse: Halakhah or normative law and Aggadah or normative theology. Professors Bernard Jackson of the University of Manchester, England and Mayer Gruber of Ben Gurion University of the Negev treat the Halakhic program that Neusner has devised, and Kevin Edgecomb of the University of California, Berkeley, has produced a remarkable summary of the theological system Neusner discerns in the Aggadic documents. Neusner concludes with a review of a book by a critic of the documentary hypothesis.
Publisher: University Press of America
ISBN: 0761849793
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 263
Book Description
The result for the history of Judaism of a documentary reading of the Rabbinic canonical sources illustrates the working of that hypothesis. It is the first major outcome of that hypothesis, but there are other implications, and a variety of new problems emerge from time to time as the work proceeds. In the recent past, Neusner has continued to explore special problems of the documentary hypothesis of the Rabbinic canon. At the same time, Neusner notes, others join in the discussion that have produced important and ambitious analyses of the thesis and its implications. Here, Neuser has collected some of the more ambitious ventures into the hypothesis and its current recapitulations. Neusner begins with the article written by Professor William Scott Green for the Encyclopaedia Judaica second edition, as Green places the documentary hypothesis into the context of Neusner's entire oeuvre. Neuser then reproduces what he regards as the single most successful venture of the documentary hypothesis, contrasting between the Mishnah's and the Talmuds' programs for the social order of Israel, the doctrines of economics, politics, and philosophy set forth in those documents, respectively. Then come the two foci of discourse: Halakhah or normative law and Aggadah or normative theology. Professors Bernard Jackson of the University of Manchester, England and Mayer Gruber of Ben Gurion University of the Negev treat the Halakhic program that Neusner has devised, and Kevin Edgecomb of the University of California, Berkeley, has produced a remarkable summary of the theological system Neusner discerns in the Aggadic documents. Neusner concludes with a review of a book by a critic of the documentary hypothesis.
Chapters in the Formative History of Judaism
Author: Jacob Neusner
Publisher: University Press of America
ISBN: 0761852395
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 141
Book Description
This collection of eight essays draws on a half-year of work, the second six months of 2009. Neusner takes up three problems in the history of Religions, four essays on fundamental issues in form-history and the documentary hypothesis of the Rabbinic canon, and one theological essay. The reason Neusner periodically collects and publishes essays and reviews is to give them a second life, after they have served as lectures or as summaries of monographs or as free-standing articles or as expositions of Judaism in collections of comparative religions. This re-presentation serves a readership to whom the initial presentation in lectures or specialized journals or short-run monographs is inaccessible. Some of the essays furthermore provide a prZcis, for colleagues in kindred fields, of fully worked out monographs, the comparative Midrash exercise, for example.
Publisher: University Press of America
ISBN: 0761852395
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 141
Book Description
This collection of eight essays draws on a half-year of work, the second six months of 2009. Neusner takes up three problems in the history of Religions, four essays on fundamental issues in form-history and the documentary hypothesis of the Rabbinic canon, and one theological essay. The reason Neusner periodically collects and publishes essays and reviews is to give them a second life, after they have served as lectures or as summaries of monographs or as free-standing articles or as expositions of Judaism in collections of comparative religions. This re-presentation serves a readership to whom the initial presentation in lectures or specialized journals or short-run monographs is inaccessible. Some of the essays furthermore provide a prZcis, for colleagues in kindred fields, of fully worked out monographs, the comparative Midrash exercise, for example.
The Transformation of Judaism
Author: Jacob Neusner
Publisher: University Press of America
ISBN: 0761854401
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 318
Book Description
Jacob Neusner describes, analyzes, and interprets the transformation of one system of the Israelite social order by a connected but autonomous successor-system. He characterizes the successive systems classifying the one as philosophical and the other as religious. He explains the categorical account of each and sets forth the outcome of a number of topical studies on the category-formations of Rabbinic Judaism with special attention to the social order: politics, philosophy, and economics. These systems emerged as [1] autonomous when viewed synchronically, [2] connected when seen diachronically, and [3] as a continuous construction when seen at the end of their formative age. In their successive stages of categorical autonomy, connection, and finally continuity, the three distinct systems may be classified, respectively, as philosophical, religious, and theological, each one taking over and revising the definitive categories of the former and framing its own fresh, generative categories as well. The formative history of Judaism is the story of the presentations and re-presentations of categorical structures. In method, it is the exegesis of taxonomy and taxic systems. Now, after more than two decades, Neusner has decided to review the initial statement. Since the book summarizes ten years of work, from 1980 to 1990, on the Rabbinic category formations of social science politics, philosophy, and economics in the setting of the law and theology of Rabbinic Judaism from the Mishnah through the Bavli, 200-600 C.E., it seemed well worth the effort to recapitulate the original work. The revised introduction explains the omission of theology in his category-formation philosophy-religion-theology; Neusner's account of the Bavli produced the decade after this title was completed did not make possible the continuous description of the unfolding of the Rabbinic system. The pattern that appealed to Neusner from philosophy to religion to theology has not yet come to a satisfactory account. In the twenty years of work on the third layer of the canon up to the Bavli, a series of monographs clarified the theological system that sustained Rabbinic Judaism.
Publisher: University Press of America
ISBN: 0761854401
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 318
Book Description
Jacob Neusner describes, analyzes, and interprets the transformation of one system of the Israelite social order by a connected but autonomous successor-system. He characterizes the successive systems classifying the one as philosophical and the other as religious. He explains the categorical account of each and sets forth the outcome of a number of topical studies on the category-formations of Rabbinic Judaism with special attention to the social order: politics, philosophy, and economics. These systems emerged as [1] autonomous when viewed synchronically, [2] connected when seen diachronically, and [3] as a continuous construction when seen at the end of their formative age. In their successive stages of categorical autonomy, connection, and finally continuity, the three distinct systems may be classified, respectively, as philosophical, religious, and theological, each one taking over and revising the definitive categories of the former and framing its own fresh, generative categories as well. The formative history of Judaism is the story of the presentations and re-presentations of categorical structures. In method, it is the exegesis of taxonomy and taxic systems. Now, after more than two decades, Neusner has decided to review the initial statement. Since the book summarizes ten years of work, from 1980 to 1990, on the Rabbinic category formations of social science politics, philosophy, and economics in the setting of the law and theology of Rabbinic Judaism from the Mishnah through the Bavli, 200-600 C.E., it seemed well worth the effort to recapitulate the original work. The revised introduction explains the omission of theology in his category-formation philosophy-religion-theology; Neusner's account of the Bavli produced the decade after this title was completed did not make possible the continuous description of the unfolding of the Rabbinic system. The pattern that appealed to Neusner from philosophy to religion to theology has not yet come to a satisfactory account. In the twenty years of work on the third layer of the canon up to the Bavli, a series of monographs clarified the theological system that sustained Rabbinic Judaism.
Rabbi David
Author: Jacob Neusner
Publisher: University Press of America
ISBN: 0761858482
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 217
Book Description
Rabbinic documents of David, progenitor of the Messiah, carry forward the scriptural narrative of David the king. But he also is turned by Rabbinic writings of late antiquity—from the Mishnah through the Yerushalmi and the Bavli—into a sage. Consequently, the Rabbis’ Messiah is a rabbi. How did this transformation come about? Of what kinds of writings does it consist? What sequence of writings conveyed the transformation? And most important: what do we learn about the movement from one set of Israelite writings to take over, or submit to the values of, another set of writings? These are the questions answered here for David, king of Israel. Rabbi David proves that the first exposition of the figure of Rabbi David in a program of elaboration and of protracted exposition of law and Scripture is found in the Bavli. Prior to the closure of that document, that is, in the Rabbinic documents that came to closure before the Bavli, we do not find an elaborate exposition of the figure of David as a rabbi. By contrast, in the Bavli, ample canonical evidence attests to the sages’ transformation of David, king of Israel, into a rabbi. So while bits and pieces of Rabbi David find their way into most of the canonical documents, we find the elaborately spelled out Rabbi David to begin with in the Bavli, now represented as a disciple of sages and a devotee of study of the Torah. That usage attracts attention because when we encounter David in Rabbinic literature—as in all other Judaic canons, not only Rabbinic—this signals we are meeting the embodiment of the Messiah. The representation of the kings of Israel in the Davidic line as heirs of David forms a chapter in exposing the Messianic message of Rabbinic Judaism.
Publisher: University Press of America
ISBN: 0761858482
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 217
Book Description
Rabbinic documents of David, progenitor of the Messiah, carry forward the scriptural narrative of David the king. But he also is turned by Rabbinic writings of late antiquity—from the Mishnah through the Yerushalmi and the Bavli—into a sage. Consequently, the Rabbis’ Messiah is a rabbi. How did this transformation come about? Of what kinds of writings does it consist? What sequence of writings conveyed the transformation? And most important: what do we learn about the movement from one set of Israelite writings to take over, or submit to the values of, another set of writings? These are the questions answered here for David, king of Israel. Rabbi David proves that the first exposition of the figure of Rabbi David in a program of elaboration and of protracted exposition of law and Scripture is found in the Bavli. Prior to the closure of that document, that is, in the Rabbinic documents that came to closure before the Bavli, we do not find an elaborate exposition of the figure of David as a rabbi. By contrast, in the Bavli, ample canonical evidence attests to the sages’ transformation of David, king of Israel, into a rabbi. So while bits and pieces of Rabbi David find their way into most of the canonical documents, we find the elaborately spelled out Rabbi David to begin with in the Bavli, now represented as a disciple of sages and a devotee of study of the Torah. That usage attracts attention because when we encounter David in Rabbinic literature—as in all other Judaic canons, not only Rabbinic—this signals we are meeting the embodiment of the Messiah. The representation of the kings of Israel in the Davidic line as heirs of David forms a chapter in exposing the Messianic message of Rabbinic Judaism.
From the Shtetl to the Lecture Hall
Author: Luise Hirsch
Publisher: University Press of America
ISBN: 0761859934
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 335
Book Description
Until the 19th century, women were regularly excluded from graduate education. When this convention changed, it was largely thanks to Jewish women from Russia. Raised to be strong and independent, the daughters of Jewish businesswomen were able to utilize this cultural capital to fight their way into the universities of Switzerland and Germany. They became trailblazers, ensuring regular admission for women who followed their example. This book tells the story of Russian and German Jews who became the first female professionals in modern history. It describes their childhoods—whether in Berlin or in a Russian shtetl—their schooling, and their experiences at German universities. A final chapter traces their careers as the first female professionals and details how they were tragically destroyed by the Nazis.
Publisher: University Press of America
ISBN: 0761859934
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 335
Book Description
Until the 19th century, women were regularly excluded from graduate education. When this convention changed, it was largely thanks to Jewish women from Russia. Raised to be strong and independent, the daughters of Jewish businesswomen were able to utilize this cultural capital to fight their way into the universities of Switzerland and Germany. They became trailblazers, ensuring regular admission for women who followed their example. This book tells the story of Russian and German Jews who became the first female professionals in modern history. It describes their childhoods—whether in Berlin or in a Russian shtetl—their schooling, and their experiences at German universities. A final chapter traces their careers as the first female professionals and details how they were tragically destroyed by the Nazis.
Lost Documents of Rabbinic Judaism
Author: Jacob Neusner
Publisher: University Press of America
ISBN: 0761852425
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 238
Book Description
The canonical documents of Rabbinic Judaism impose upon most of their components fixed patterns of rhetoric, recurrent logic of coherent discourse, and a well-defined topic or program, for example, a commentary on a biblical book or on a legal topic. But some few compositions and composites of the Rabbinic canon of late antiquity diverge from the formal norms of the compilations in which they occur. In these pages, Neusner assembles anomalous compositions that occur in the Mishnah, Tosefta, four Tannaite Midrashim, and Genesis Rabbah, and he further tests the uniformity of the forms that govern in a familiar chapter of the Bavli. Neusner's surveys show for the documents probed here that some small segment of the composites and compositions of the surveyed documents does not conform to the indicative rules of rhetoric, topic, and logic. Consequently, we face the challenge of constructing models of lost documents of the Rabbinic canon, conforming to the models governing anomalous compositions. These follow other topical and rhetorical norms and therefore belong in other, different types of documents from those in which they now are located. These anomalous writings in topic, logic, or rhetoric (or all three) in theory reveal indicative characteristics other than the ones defining the compositions and composites of the documents in which they are now located.
Publisher: University Press of America
ISBN: 0761852425
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 238
Book Description
The canonical documents of Rabbinic Judaism impose upon most of their components fixed patterns of rhetoric, recurrent logic of coherent discourse, and a well-defined topic or program, for example, a commentary on a biblical book or on a legal topic. But some few compositions and composites of the Rabbinic canon of late antiquity diverge from the formal norms of the compilations in which they occur. In these pages, Neusner assembles anomalous compositions that occur in the Mishnah, Tosefta, four Tannaite Midrashim, and Genesis Rabbah, and he further tests the uniformity of the forms that govern in a familiar chapter of the Bavli. Neusner's surveys show for the documents probed here that some small segment of the composites and compositions of the surveyed documents does not conform to the indicative rules of rhetoric, topic, and logic. Consequently, we face the challenge of constructing models of lost documents of the Rabbinic canon, conforming to the models governing anomalous compositions. These follow other topical and rhetorical norms and therefore belong in other, different types of documents from those in which they now are located. These anomalous writings in topic, logic, or rhetoric (or all three) in theory reveal indicative characteristics other than the ones defining the compositions and composites of the documents in which they are now located.
Judaism Defined
Author: Benjamin Edidin Scolnic
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 0761851178
Category : Bible
Languages : en
Pages : 263
Book Description
Scholars have questioned every aspect of the story of Mattathias in 1 Maccabees; the revisionist narrative turns Mattathias and his Maccabees from the heroes of the Jewish holiday of Hanukkah and idealistic fighters for religious freedom, into merely ambitious men who ruthlessly strove for power and usurped the high priesthood of Judaea. Dr. Benjamin Edidin Scolnic takes a fresh, unbiased approach to every element of the story: the incident at Mode n, Mattathias's priestly credentials and their implications for his beliefs, the meaning of personal ambition and the greater ambition to create the Jewish kingdom promised by the sacred biblical texts, the meaning of circumcision in his time, and the decision to fight on the Sabbath. Mattathias's actions of zealous violence, as controversial as they were in both his day and as they often are seen today, were primarily for the preservation of his religion and people. Dr. Scolnic asserts that it was Mattathias who defined Judaism and Jewishness for his time.
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 0761851178
Category : Bible
Languages : en
Pages : 263
Book Description
Scholars have questioned every aspect of the story of Mattathias in 1 Maccabees; the revisionist narrative turns Mattathias and his Maccabees from the heroes of the Jewish holiday of Hanukkah and idealistic fighters for religious freedom, into merely ambitious men who ruthlessly strove for power and usurped the high priesthood of Judaea. Dr. Benjamin Edidin Scolnic takes a fresh, unbiased approach to every element of the story: the incident at Mode n, Mattathias's priestly credentials and their implications for his beliefs, the meaning of personal ambition and the greater ambition to create the Jewish kingdom promised by the sacred biblical texts, the meaning of circumcision in his time, and the decision to fight on the Sabbath. Mattathias's actions of zealous violence, as controversial as they were in both his day and as they often are seen today, were primarily for the preservation of his religion and people. Dr. Scolnic asserts that it was Mattathias who defined Judaism and Jewishness for his time.
The Rabbis and the Prophets
Author: Jacob Neusner
Publisher: University Press of America
ISBN: 0761854371
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 227
Book Description
This book shows how the Rabbis of late antiquity took over writings from what they recognized as ancient times and of divine origin and they re-presented selections of those writings in accord with their own project's requirements, glossing clauses of the prophetic Scriptures but not whole, propositional discourses.
Publisher: University Press of America
ISBN: 0761854371
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 227
Book Description
This book shows how the Rabbis of late antiquity took over writings from what they recognized as ancient times and of divine origin and they re-presented selections of those writings in accord with their own project's requirements, glossing clauses of the prophetic Scriptures but not whole, propositional discourses.
First Steps in the Talmud
Author: Jacob Neusner
Publisher: University Press of America
ISBN: 0761854363
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 223
Book Description
The Talmud is a confusing piece of writing. It begins no where and ends no where but it does not move in a circle. It is written in several languages and follows rules that in certain circumstances trigger the use of one language over others. Its components are diverse. To translating it requires elaborate complementary language. It cannot be translated verbatim into any language. So a translation is a commentary in the most decisive way. The Talmud, accordingly, cannot be merely read but only studied. It contains diverse programs of writing, some descriptive and some analytical. A large segment of the writing follows a clear pattern, but the document encompasses vast components of miscellaneous collections of bits and pieces, odds and ends. It is a mishmash and a mess. Yet it defines the program of study of the community of Judaism and governs the articulation of the norms and laws of Judaism, its theology and its hermeneutics, Above all else, the Talmud of Babylonia is comprised of contention and produces conflict and disagreement, with little effort at a resolution No wonder the Talmud confuses its audience. But that does not explain the power of the Talmud to define Judaism and shape its intellect. This book guides those puzzled by the Talmud and shows the system and order that animate the text.
Publisher: University Press of America
ISBN: 0761854363
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 223
Book Description
The Talmud is a confusing piece of writing. It begins no where and ends no where but it does not move in a circle. It is written in several languages and follows rules that in certain circumstances trigger the use of one language over others. Its components are diverse. To translating it requires elaborate complementary language. It cannot be translated verbatim into any language. So a translation is a commentary in the most decisive way. The Talmud, accordingly, cannot be merely read but only studied. It contains diverse programs of writing, some descriptive and some analytical. A large segment of the writing follows a clear pattern, but the document encompasses vast components of miscellaneous collections of bits and pieces, odds and ends. It is a mishmash and a mess. Yet it defines the program of study of the community of Judaism and governs the articulation of the norms and laws of Judaism, its theology and its hermeneutics, Above all else, the Talmud of Babylonia is comprised of contention and produces conflict and disagreement, with little effort at a resolution No wonder the Talmud confuses its audience. But that does not explain the power of the Talmud to define Judaism and shape its intellect. This book guides those puzzled by the Talmud and shows the system and order that animate the text.
Narrative and Document in the Rabbinic Canon
Author: Jacob Neusner
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 0761852115
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 320
Book Description
This study of the inclusion of biographical narratives examines sage-stories, anecdotes about the life and deeds of Rabbinic sages, in components of the unfolding canon of Rabbinic Judaism during the formative age. These documents, from the first six centuries C.E., are exclusive of the two Talmuds.
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 0761852115
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 320
Book Description
This study of the inclusion of biographical narratives examines sage-stories, anecdotes about the life and deeds of Rabbinic sages, in components of the unfolding canon of Rabbinic Judaism during the formative age. These documents, from the first six centuries C.E., are exclusive of the two Talmuds.