Richard Kalmin
- Published in print:
- 2006
- Published Online:
- September 2006
- ISBN:
- 9780195306194
- eISBN:
- 9780199784998
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/0195306198.001.0001
- Subject:
- Religion, Judaism
The Babylonian Talmud was compiled in the 3rd through 6th centuries CE, by rabbis living under Sasanian Persian rule in the area between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers. What kind of society did ...
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The Babylonian Talmud was compiled in the 3rd through 6th centuries CE, by rabbis living under Sasanian Persian rule in the area between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers. What kind of society did these rabbis inhabit? What effect did that society have on important rabbinic texts? This book offers a re-examination of rabbinic culture of late antique Babylonia. It shows how this culture was shaped in part by Persia on the one hand, and by Roman Palestine on the other. The mid 4th century CE in Jewish Babylonia was a period of particularly intense “Palestinianization,” at the same time that the Mesopotamian and east Persian Christian communities were undergoing a period of intense “Syrianization.” The book argues that these closely related processes were accelerated by 3rd-century Persian conquests deep into Roman territory, which resulted in the resettlement of thousands of Christian and Jewish inhabitants of the eastern Roman provinces in Persian Mesopotamia, eastern Syria, and western Persia, profoundly altering the cultural landscape for centuries to come. The book also offers new interpretations of several fascinating rabbinic texts of late antiquity. It also demonstrates how Babylonian rabbis interacted with the non-rabbinic Jewish world, often in the form of the incorporation of centuries-old non-rabbinic Jewish texts into the developing Talmud, rather than via the encounter with actual non-rabbinic Jews in the streets and marketplaces of Babylonia.Less
The Babylonian Talmud was compiled in the 3rd through 6th centuries CE, by rabbis living under Sasanian Persian rule in the area between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers. What kind of society did these rabbis inhabit? What effect did that society have on important rabbinic texts? This book offers a re-examination of rabbinic culture of late antique Babylonia. It shows how this culture was shaped in part by Persia on the one hand, and by Roman Palestine on the other. The mid 4th century CE in Jewish Babylonia was a period of particularly intense “Palestinianization,” at the same time that the Mesopotamian and east Persian Christian communities were undergoing a period of intense “Syrianization.” The book argues that these closely related processes were accelerated by 3rd-century Persian conquests deep into Roman territory, which resulted in the resettlement of thousands of Christian and Jewish inhabitants of the eastern Roman provinces in Persian Mesopotamia, eastern Syria, and western Persia, profoundly altering the cultural landscape for centuries to come. The book also offers new interpretations of several fascinating rabbinic texts of late antiquity. It also demonstrates how Babylonian rabbis interacted with the non-rabbinic Jewish world, often in the form of the incorporation of centuries-old non-rabbinic Jewish texts into the developing Talmud, rather than via the encounter with actual non-rabbinic Jews in the streets and marketplaces of Babylonia.
Moulie Vidas
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- October 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780691154862
- eISBN:
- 9781400850471
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Princeton University Press
- DOI:
- 10.23943/princeton/9780691154862.003.0003
- Subject:
- Religion, Judaism
This chapter examines the historical development of the anonymous layer, complicating the notion that the division in style and function between the stam and the traditions reflects a difference in ...
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This chapter examines the historical development of the anonymous layer, complicating the notion that the division in style and function between the stam and the traditions reflects a difference in provenance between two corpora. Instead, it argues that the Babylonian Talmud's creators produced both the anonymous layer and the cited traditions, or better, the division between them. This division is not simply a reflection of the different dating of these elements; it was, rather, constructed and imposed by the Bavli on earlier structures and sources. The chapter compares a sugya preserved in the Palestinian Talmud as well as in the Babylonian Talmud. In the earlier, Palestinian version, attributed traditions are employed both for interpretive, narrating functions and for apodictic rulings and brief exegetical comments. The Bavli reorganizes the sugya to create a distinction in function, dividing the material between two layers: a narrating, interpretive, discursive anonymous layer, and a layer of brief, non-discursive, attributed rulings.Less
This chapter examines the historical development of the anonymous layer, complicating the notion that the division in style and function between the stam and the traditions reflects a difference in provenance between two corpora. Instead, it argues that the Babylonian Talmud's creators produced both the anonymous layer and the cited traditions, or better, the division between them. This division is not simply a reflection of the different dating of these elements; it was, rather, constructed and imposed by the Bavli on earlier structures and sources. The chapter compares a sugya preserved in the Palestinian Talmud as well as in the Babylonian Talmud. In the earlier, Palestinian version, attributed traditions are employed both for interpretive, narrating functions and for apodictic rulings and brief exegetical comments. The Bavli reorganizes the sugya to create a distinction in function, dividing the material between two layers: a narrating, interpretive, discursive anonymous layer, and a layer of brief, non-discursive, attributed rulings.
Beth A. Berkowitz
- Published in print:
- 2006
- Published Online:
- February 2006
- ISBN:
- 9780195179194
- eISBN:
- 9780199784509
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/0195179196.003.0005
- Subject:
- Religion, Religion and Society
This chapter completes the study of the cast of characters found in rabbinic execution, turning attention to the criminal’s relatives and to the role of the Rabbis themselves. In exploring the part ...
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This chapter completes the study of the cast of characters found in rabbinic execution, turning attention to the criminal’s relatives and to the role of the Rabbis themselves. In exploring the part of the relatives, it extricates the relevant passages of Mishnah from their accepted interpretation by the Babylonian Talmud to show that the criminal is permanently buried in a location separate from the family burial site. It argues that the Mishnah’s laws prescribing separate burial, prohibiting the relatives from mourning, and requiring the relatives to reconcile with the court are all means of asserting the primacy of the rabbinic community over the bonds of family. Finally, the chapter examines narratives in which sages are portrayed as agents of execution. It shows that these stories project the power of execution onto the Rabbis, but also evince a strategic ambivalence about that power.Less
This chapter completes the study of the cast of characters found in rabbinic execution, turning attention to the criminal’s relatives and to the role of the Rabbis themselves. In exploring the part of the relatives, it extricates the relevant passages of Mishnah from their accepted interpretation by the Babylonian Talmud to show that the criminal is permanently buried in a location separate from the family burial site. It argues that the Mishnah’s laws prescribing separate burial, prohibiting the relatives from mourning, and requiring the relatives to reconcile with the court are all means of asserting the primacy of the rabbinic community over the bonds of family. Finally, the chapter examines narratives in which sages are portrayed as agents of execution. It shows that these stories project the power of execution onto the Rabbis, but also evince a strategic ambivalence about that power.
Moulie Vidas
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- October 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780691154862
- eISBN:
- 9781400850471
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Princeton University Press
- DOI:
- 10.23943/princeton/9780691154862.003.0001
- Subject:
- Religion, Judaism
This book examines compositional practices, historical developments, and passages that reveal the way the creators of the Babylonian Talmud (or Bavli) conceived themselves. It complements the ...
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This book examines compositional practices, historical developments, and passages that reveal the way the creators of the Babylonian Talmud (or Bavli) conceived themselves. It complements the continuous creative revision with a freezing of tradition and its containment in a way that produces discontinuity; it complements the fusing of horizons with a literary design that foregrounds one horizon from another. Part I of the book explores the Talmud's literary practice through a close analysis of selected passages, or sugyot. Part II focuses on the Talmud's creators‘ rhetoric of self-presentation and self-definition, arguing that they defined themselves in opposition to those who focused on the transmission of tradition, and that the opposition and hierarchy they created between scholars and transmitters allows us both to understand better the way they conceived of their project as well as to see this project as part of a debate about sacred texts within the Jewish community and more broadly in late ancient Mesopotamia.Less
This book examines compositional practices, historical developments, and passages that reveal the way the creators of the Babylonian Talmud (or Bavli) conceived themselves. It complements the continuous creative revision with a freezing of tradition and its containment in a way that produces discontinuity; it complements the fusing of horizons with a literary design that foregrounds one horizon from another. Part I of the book explores the Talmud's literary practice through a close analysis of selected passages, or sugyot. Part II focuses on the Talmud's creators‘ rhetoric of self-presentation and self-definition, arguing that they defined themselves in opposition to those who focused on the transmission of tradition, and that the opposition and hierarchy they created between scholars and transmitters allows us both to understand better the way they conceived of their project as well as to see this project as part of a debate about sacred texts within the Jewish community and more broadly in late ancient Mesopotamia.
Alexander Samely
- Published in print:
- 2007
- Published Online:
- May 2007
- ISBN:
- 9780199296736
- eISBN:
- 9780191712067
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199296736.003.0010
- Subject:
- Religion, Judaism
This chapter examines the literary features in the Babylonian Talmud. The Gemara's use of earlier rabbinic voices appears partly carefully orchestrated and partly merely accumulative. The lemmatic ...
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This chapter examines the literary features in the Babylonian Talmud. The Gemara's use of earlier rabbinic voices appears partly carefully orchestrated and partly merely accumulative. The lemmatic division which defines the Gemara as a commentary of sorts on the Mishnah is described, the dialectical conversation which gives it its ‘talmudic’ flavour is analyzed, and some recurrent drills by which the Gemara interprets the Mishnah are listed. The way in which the Gemara suggests that the statements it quotes were historically connected, while presenting itself in an unbounded diversity of form and contents, is discussed.Less
This chapter examines the literary features in the Babylonian Talmud. The Gemara's use of earlier rabbinic voices appears partly carefully orchestrated and partly merely accumulative. The lemmatic division which defines the Gemara as a commentary of sorts on the Mishnah is described, the dialectical conversation which gives it its ‘talmudic’ flavour is analyzed, and some recurrent drills by which the Gemara interprets the Mishnah are listed. The way in which the Gemara suggests that the statements it quotes were historically connected, while presenting itself in an unbounded diversity of form and contents, is discussed.
Moulie Vidas
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- October 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780691154862
- eISBN:
- 9781400850471
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Princeton University Press
- DOI:
- 10.23943/princeton/9780691154862.003.0005
- Subject:
- Religion, Judaism
This chapter examines three passages that associate with the “conservative,” transmission-oriented aspects of Torah study the occupation with the two bodies of knowledge that the rabbis received: the ...
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This chapter examines three passages that associate with the “conservative,” transmission-oriented aspects of Torah study the occupation with the two bodies of knowledge that the rabbis received: the Written Torah (Scripture) and the Oral Torah (rabbinic tradition). These passages are all premised on a dichotomy between the “received” knowledge of Scripture and oral tradition, on the one hand, and the innovative, creative aspects of study on the other. Building on the work of Daniel Boyarin, Jeffrey Rubenstein, and others who showed that the Babylonian Talmud places a high value on dialectic and analysis at the expense of tradition and memorization, the chapter demonstrates the centrality of this preference to the self-perception of the Talmud's creators and situates it within a polemical conversation among Jews in late ancient Mesopotamia.Less
This chapter examines three passages that associate with the “conservative,” transmission-oriented aspects of Torah study the occupation with the two bodies of knowledge that the rabbis received: the Written Torah (Scripture) and the Oral Torah (rabbinic tradition). These passages are all premised on a dichotomy between the “received” knowledge of Scripture and oral tradition, on the one hand, and the innovative, creative aspects of study on the other. Building on the work of Daniel Boyarin, Jeffrey Rubenstein, and others who showed that the Babylonian Talmud places a high value on dialectic and analysis at the expense of tradition and memorization, the chapter demonstrates the centrality of this preference to the self-perception of the Talmud's creators and situates it within a polemical conversation among Jews in late ancient Mesopotamia.
RICHARD KALMIN
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- January 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780197264744
- eISBN:
- 9780191734663
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- British Academy
- DOI:
- 10.5871/bacad/9780197264744.003.0011
- Subject:
- History, Middle East History
This chapter evaluates the use of the Babylonian Talmud for the study of the history of late-Roman Palestine using astrology as a case example. It explains that the Babylonian Talmud contains much ...
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This chapter evaluates the use of the Babylonian Talmud for the study of the history of late-Roman Palestine using astrology as a case example. It explains that the Babylonian Talmud contains much material which derives from Palestine and may sometimes preserve Palestinian rabbinic material in a form closer to the original than is found in Palestinian compilations. Palestinian sources often do not contain trustworthy evidence about Palestinian Sages and institutions.Less
This chapter evaluates the use of the Babylonian Talmud for the study of the history of late-Roman Palestine using astrology as a case example. It explains that the Babylonian Talmud contains much material which derives from Palestine and may sometimes preserve Palestinian rabbinic material in a form closer to the original than is found in Palestinian compilations. Palestinian sources often do not contain trustworthy evidence about Palestinian Sages and institutions.
Jason Sion Mokhtarian
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- May 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780520286207
- eISBN:
- 9780520961548
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University of California Press
- DOI:
- 10.1525/california/9780520286207.001.0001
- Subject:
- Religion, Judaism
This book is a synthetic study of the impact of the Persian Sasanian context on the Babylonian Talmud, perhaps the most important corpus in the Jewish sacred canon. What impact did the Persian ...
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This book is a synthetic study of the impact of the Persian Sasanian context on the Babylonian Talmud, perhaps the most important corpus in the Jewish sacred canon. What impact did the Persian Zoroastrian Empire, as both a real historical force and imaginary interlocutor, have on rabbinic identity and authority as expressed in the Talmud? Drawing from the field of comparative religion, this monograph aims to answer this question by bringing into mutual fruition Talmudic studies and ancient Iranology, two historically distinct disciplines. In addition to providing a vigorous defense of the need to contextualize the Talmud in its Sasanian milieu, as well as a roadmap for how to do so, the book includes a detailed examination of the Talmud’s dozens of texts that portray three Persian “others”—namely, the Persians, the Sasanian kings, and the Zoroastrian priests. While most research on the Talmud assumes that the rabbis were an insular group isolated from the cultural horizon outside of the rabbinic academies, this book contextualizes the rabbis and Talmud within a broader sociocultural orbit by drawing from a wide range of sources from Sasanian Iran, including Middle Persian Zoroastrian literature, archaeological data such as seals and inscriptions, and the Aramaic magical bowl spells. The final chapters of the book target two specific social contexts—courts of law and magic—where the Jews interacted with other groups. In all, this book demonstrates the rich penetration of Persian imperial society and culture on the Jews of late antique Iran.Less
This book is a synthetic study of the impact of the Persian Sasanian context on the Babylonian Talmud, perhaps the most important corpus in the Jewish sacred canon. What impact did the Persian Zoroastrian Empire, as both a real historical force and imaginary interlocutor, have on rabbinic identity and authority as expressed in the Talmud? Drawing from the field of comparative religion, this monograph aims to answer this question by bringing into mutual fruition Talmudic studies and ancient Iranology, two historically distinct disciplines. In addition to providing a vigorous defense of the need to contextualize the Talmud in its Sasanian milieu, as well as a roadmap for how to do so, the book includes a detailed examination of the Talmud’s dozens of texts that portray three Persian “others”—namely, the Persians, the Sasanian kings, and the Zoroastrian priests. While most research on the Talmud assumes that the rabbis were an insular group isolated from the cultural horizon outside of the rabbinic academies, this book contextualizes the rabbis and Talmud within a broader sociocultural orbit by drawing from a wide range of sources from Sasanian Iran, including Middle Persian Zoroastrian literature, archaeological data such as seals and inscriptions, and the Aramaic magical bowl spells. The final chapters of the book target two specific social contexts—courts of law and magic—where the Jews interacted with other groups. In all, this book demonstrates the rich penetration of Persian imperial society and culture on the Jews of late antique Iran.
Moulie Vidas
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- October 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780691154862
- eISBN:
- 9781400850471
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Princeton University Press
- DOI:
- 10.23943/princeton/9780691154862.003.0004
- Subject:
- Religion, Judaism
This chapter examines a thematic series of sugyot that concern the genealogical division of the Jewish people, arguing that the Babylonian Talmud trains its audience to view the production of ...
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This chapter examines a thematic series of sugyot that concern the genealogical division of the Jewish people, arguing that the Babylonian Talmud trains its audience to view the production of genealogical knowledge, and the traditions in which it is transmitted, as manipulated and personally motivated. The chapter offers a critique of this genealogical knowledge, which encompasses statements, rulings, bits of information that the rabbis transmitted in the matter of Jewish genealogy, in particular, the classification of certain persons, families, or regions as genealogically “unfit” or “impure” for the purpose of marriage. Two principal sections of the Bavli's discussion of m. Qidd., each illustrating a different aspect of Talmudic composition, are analyzed. The first is a conversational sugya, which focuses on the purification of Israel. The second segment has at its center a long story about Rav Yehuda, and it concludes with a list of genealogical traditions.Less
This chapter examines a thematic series of sugyot that concern the genealogical division of the Jewish people, arguing that the Babylonian Talmud trains its audience to view the production of genealogical knowledge, and the traditions in which it is transmitted, as manipulated and personally motivated. The chapter offers a critique of this genealogical knowledge, which encompasses statements, rulings, bits of information that the rabbis transmitted in the matter of Jewish genealogy, in particular, the classification of certain persons, families, or regions as genealogically “unfit” or “impure” for the purpose of marriage. Two principal sections of the Bavli's discussion of m. Qidd., each illustrating a different aspect of Talmudic composition, are analyzed. The first is a conversational sugya, which focuses on the purification of Israel. The second segment has at its center a long story about Rav Yehuda, and it concludes with a list of genealogical traditions.
Moulie Vidas
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- October 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780691154862
- eISBN:
- 9781400850471
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Princeton University Press
- DOI:
- 10.23943/princeton/9780691154862.003.0008
- Subject:
- Religion, Judaism
This book has argued that it is precisely when the Babylonian Talmud's creators seem most conservative—when they preserve traditions rather than reject or revise them—that we find their most profound ...
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This book has argued that it is precisely when the Babylonian Talmud's creators seem most conservative—when they preserve traditions rather than reject or revise them—that we find their most profound break with tradition. It has examined recitation as a practice against which the Talmud's creators shape their own literary practice, as well as the authority of the Talmud as an important factor in the reception of the layered structure. This conclusion recapitulates the book's central arguments and considers their implications. It also offers some reflections on developments in Jewish history that directed rabbinic culture away from the concerns and contexts studied in this book. It suggests that even if the Talmud's negotiation of tradition and its ideology of scholarship were born out of a particular historical dynamic, they still belong in the longer intellectual history of Judaism.Less
This book has argued that it is precisely when the Babylonian Talmud's creators seem most conservative—when they preserve traditions rather than reject or revise them—that we find their most profound break with tradition. It has examined recitation as a practice against which the Talmud's creators shape their own literary practice, as well as the authority of the Talmud as an important factor in the reception of the layered structure. This conclusion recapitulates the book's central arguments and considers their implications. It also offers some reflections on developments in Jewish history that directed rabbinic culture away from the concerns and contexts studied in this book. It suggests that even if the Talmud's negotiation of tradition and its ideology of scholarship were born out of a particular historical dynamic, they still belong in the longer intellectual history of Judaism.
Moulie Vidas
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- October 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780691154862
- eISBN:
- 9781400850471
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Princeton University Press
- DOI:
- 10.23943/princeton/9780691154862.003.0007
- Subject:
- Religion, Judaism
This chapter considers Hekhalot literature to show that the Sar ha-Torah narrative from this corpus responds to the Talmudic academies‘ ideology of Torah study, presenting an alternative vision for ...
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This chapter considers Hekhalot literature to show that the Sar ha-Torah narrative from this corpus responds to the Talmudic academies‘ ideology of Torah study, presenting an alternative vision for Jewish culture in which retention and recitation are central rather than marginalized. It argues that this response correlates with other Hekhalot texts that recruit powerful images such as heavenly vision, transformation, and angelic liturgy to the project of memorizing and reciting the Oral Torah. It also contends that there is some evidence that the individuals whom the Babylonian Talmud marks as its opponents—the tanna'im—had a role in the shaping of Hekhalot traditions. Finally, the chapter suggests, based on the fact that the Hekhalot texts enter Jewish history as texts transmitted by Babylonian reciters, as well as on other connections between the tanna'im and Hekhalot texts, that the Babylonian reciters took active part in the shaping of Hekhalot traditions.Less
This chapter considers Hekhalot literature to show that the Sar ha-Torah narrative from this corpus responds to the Talmudic academies‘ ideology of Torah study, presenting an alternative vision for Jewish culture in which retention and recitation are central rather than marginalized. It argues that this response correlates with other Hekhalot texts that recruit powerful images such as heavenly vision, transformation, and angelic liturgy to the project of memorizing and reciting the Oral Torah. It also contends that there is some evidence that the individuals whom the Babylonian Talmud marks as its opponents—the tanna'im—had a role in the shaping of Hekhalot traditions. Finally, the chapter suggests, based on the fact that the Hekhalot texts enter Jewish history as texts transmitted by Babylonian reciters, as well as on other connections between the tanna'im and Hekhalot texts, that the Babylonian reciters took active part in the shaping of Hekhalot traditions.
Ruth Langer
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- January 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780199783175
- eISBN:
- 9780199919161
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199783175.003.0002
- Subject:
- Religion, Judaism
The earliest surviving texts of the birkat haminim were found in the Cairo geniza and date from c. 1000 CE. These texts allow a well-grounded discussion of the still highly flexible contents of the ...
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The earliest surviving texts of the birkat haminim were found in the Cairo geniza and date from c. 1000 CE. These texts allow a well-grounded discussion of the still highly flexible contents of the prayer and its intentions. While the chapter begins with a survey of the evidence for the prayer in geonic (early medieval rabbinic) literature, it focuses on an analysis of the possible meanings of the key elements of the geniza texts of the prayer, including especially the terms meshummadim (apostates), nozerim (Christians), minim (heretics), and malkhut zadon (empire of insolence). This analysis draws heavily on earlier rabbinic literature, especially the Babylonian Talmud, that which the rabbis of this period taught and promulgated as the key text of Oral Torah.Less
The earliest surviving texts of the birkat haminim were found in the Cairo geniza and date from c. 1000 CE. These texts allow a well-grounded discussion of the still highly flexible contents of the prayer and its intentions. While the chapter begins with a survey of the evidence for the prayer in geonic (early medieval rabbinic) literature, it focuses on an analysis of the possible meanings of the key elements of the geniza texts of the prayer, including especially the terms meshummadim (apostates), nozerim (Christians), minim (heretics), and malkhut zadon (empire of insolence). This analysis draws heavily on earlier rabbinic literature, especially the Babylonian Talmud, that which the rabbis of this period taught and promulgated as the key text of Oral Torah.
Peter Schäfer
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- October 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780691153902
- eISBN:
- 9781400842285
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Princeton University Press
- DOI:
- 10.23943/princeton/9780691153902.003.0005
- Subject:
- Religion, History of Christianity
This chapter focuses on Metatron, that enigmatic figure assuming the title “Lesser God.” It begins with an analysis of a midrash transmitted only in the Bavli, in which Rav Idith—a Babylonian amora ...
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This chapter focuses on Metatron, that enigmatic figure assuming the title “Lesser God.” It begins with an analysis of a midrash transmitted only in the Bavli, in which Rav Idith—a Babylonian amora of the fourth or fifth century—deflects the fierce attacks of certain heretics who insist on assigning Metatron divine status. No doubt, the notion of a second divine power alongside that of God has gained followers among the Babylonian Jews. In order to substantiate this claim, the chapter surveys all the relevant Metatron passages preserved in rabbinic literature. It turns out that almost all of them are found either in the Babylonian Talmud or in the Hekhalot literature, most notably in 3 Enoch. The Metatron of the Bavli and the Hekhalot literature is a deliberate response on the part of the Babylonian Jews to the challenges posed by Christianity.Less
This chapter focuses on Metatron, that enigmatic figure assuming the title “Lesser God.” It begins with an analysis of a midrash transmitted only in the Bavli, in which Rav Idith—a Babylonian amora of the fourth or fifth century—deflects the fierce attacks of certain heretics who insist on assigning Metatron divine status. No doubt, the notion of a second divine power alongside that of God has gained followers among the Babylonian Jews. In order to substantiate this claim, the chapter surveys all the relevant Metatron passages preserved in rabbinic literature. It turns out that almost all of them are found either in the Babylonian Talmud or in the Hekhalot literature, most notably in 3 Enoch. The Metatron of the Bavli and the Hekhalot literature is a deliberate response on the part of the Babylonian Jews to the challenges posed by Christianity.
Moulie Vidas
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- October 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780691154862
- eISBN:
- 9781400850471
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Princeton University Press
- DOI:
- 10.23943/princeton/9780691154862.003.0002
- Subject:
- Religion, Judaism
This chapter examines the famous opening sugya of tractate Bava Qamma to show how the Babylonian Talmud's creators could use an ambitious literary design to highlight the gap between their own words ...
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This chapter examines the famous opening sugya of tractate Bava Qamma to show how the Babylonian Talmud's creators could use an ambitious literary design to highlight the gap between their own words and an Amoraic tradition. This sugya has been used before as an example of the strategies the Talmud's creators employed seamlessly to incorporate tradition to the literary and logical structures they constructed. This chapter suggests the opposite, arguing that the sugya is designed to emphasize the distance between the approach expressed by the stam (the creators‘ anonymous layer) and the approach expressed by the Amoraic dictum that it cites. Far from “hiding” themselves behind tradition or voicing their agenda through it, the authors of the stam become a presence in their own creation.Less
This chapter examines the famous opening sugya of tractate Bava Qamma to show how the Babylonian Talmud's creators could use an ambitious literary design to highlight the gap between their own words and an Amoraic tradition. This sugya has been used before as an example of the strategies the Talmud's creators employed seamlessly to incorporate tradition to the literary and logical structures they constructed. This chapter suggests the opposite, arguing that the sugya is designed to emphasize the distance between the approach expressed by the stam (the creators‘ anonymous layer) and the approach expressed by the Amoraic dictum that it cites. Far from “hiding” themselves behind tradition or voicing their agenda through it, the authors of the stam become a presence in their own creation.
Richard Kalmin
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- January 2015
- ISBN:
- 9780520277250
- eISBN:
- 9780520958999
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University of California Press
- DOI:
- 10.1525/california/9780520277250.001.0001
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, Ancient Religions
This book situates the Babylonian Talmud, or Bavli, in its cultural context by reading several rich rabbinic stories against the background of Greek, Syriac, Arabic, Persian, and Mesopotamian ...
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This book situates the Babylonian Talmud, or Bavli, in its cultural context by reading several rich rabbinic stories against the background of Greek, Syriac, Arabic, Persian, and Mesopotamian literature of late antiquity and the early Middle Ages, much of it Christian in origin. The book argues that non-Jewish literature deriving from the eastern Roman provinces is a crucially important key to interpreting Babylonian rabbinic literature, to a degree unimagined by earlier scholars. The book demonstrates the extent to which rabbinic Babylonia was part of the Mediterranean world of late antiquity and part of the emerging but never fully realized cultural unity forming during this period in Palestine, Syria, Mesopotamia, and western Persia. It recognizes that the Bavli contains remarkable diversity, incorporating motifs derived from the cultures of contemporaneous religious and social groups.Less
This book situates the Babylonian Talmud, or Bavli, in its cultural context by reading several rich rabbinic stories against the background of Greek, Syriac, Arabic, Persian, and Mesopotamian literature of late antiquity and the early Middle Ages, much of it Christian in origin. The book argues that non-Jewish literature deriving from the eastern Roman provinces is a crucially important key to interpreting Babylonian rabbinic literature, to a degree unimagined by earlier scholars. The book demonstrates the extent to which rabbinic Babylonia was part of the Mediterranean world of late antiquity and part of the emerging but never fully realized cultural unity forming during this period in Palestine, Syria, Mesopotamia, and western Persia. It recognizes that the Bavli contains remarkable diversity, incorporating motifs derived from the cultures of contemporaneous religious and social groups.
Sergey Dolgopolski
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- May 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780823244928
- eISBN:
- 9780823252497
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Fordham University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5422/fordham/9780823244928.001.0001
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Philosophy of Religion
The book shows how the characters in the Talmud live their lives as performances of remembering the past traditions better. As the book argues much life of the characters means constant verification ...
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The book shows how the characters in the Talmud live their lives as performances of remembering the past traditions better. As the book argues much life of the characters means constant verification of the memory of the past through intrinsically open process of refuting, counterrefuting, and reinventing, that gives the characters their authority, and by the same token, keeps their past in the open. Reading the Talmud and philosophical discourse in light of each other the book takes up the fundamental problem of time. It asks: What are the modes of thinking in late ancient texts of the Talmud? Resulting from a heuristic rereading of the texts of the Babylonian Talmud against the grid of its reception in twentieth century text-critical scholarship on the Talmud, Talmud criticism, the answer has to do with historically older forms of the virtual agents, agency, and of the virtual as such. The analysis discerns and renegotiates two tacit philosophical subscriptions that continue to inform Talmud criticism: the medieval concept of a virtual agency called “thinking subject” and its modern continuations privileging the future over the past in understanding of the nature of time, in which the “thinking subject” lives. These assumptions defined how critical scholars have understood the named, nameless and “anonymous” characters in the Talmud. Predicating life of the “thinking subject” on having a future made modern philosophers—and scholars on the Talmud with them—reduce the past to a necessary fiction of the starting point, thereby erasing a possibility of looking at the past, rather than future, as informing human experience of living in the world with others, and in particular with the other others. Departing from the paradigm of the “thinking subject” living in futurist time, the book shows how the characters displayed in the Talmud return the erased possibility of approaching both the past and the virtual differently.Less
The book shows how the characters in the Talmud live their lives as performances of remembering the past traditions better. As the book argues much life of the characters means constant verification of the memory of the past through intrinsically open process of refuting, counterrefuting, and reinventing, that gives the characters their authority, and by the same token, keeps their past in the open. Reading the Talmud and philosophical discourse in light of each other the book takes up the fundamental problem of time. It asks: What are the modes of thinking in late ancient texts of the Talmud? Resulting from a heuristic rereading of the texts of the Babylonian Talmud against the grid of its reception in twentieth century text-critical scholarship on the Talmud, Talmud criticism, the answer has to do with historically older forms of the virtual agents, agency, and of the virtual as such. The analysis discerns and renegotiates two tacit philosophical subscriptions that continue to inform Talmud criticism: the medieval concept of a virtual agency called “thinking subject” and its modern continuations privileging the future over the past in understanding of the nature of time, in which the “thinking subject” lives. These assumptions defined how critical scholars have understood the named, nameless and “anonymous” characters in the Talmud. Predicating life of the “thinking subject” on having a future made modern philosophers—and scholars on the Talmud with them—reduce the past to a necessary fiction of the starting point, thereby erasing a possibility of looking at the past, rather than future, as informing human experience of living in the world with others, and in particular with the other others. Departing from the paradigm of the “thinking subject” living in futurist time, the book shows how the characters displayed in the Talmud return the erased possibility of approaching both the past and the virtual differently.
Moulie Vidas
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- October 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780691154862
- eISBN:
- 9781400850471
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Princeton University Press
- DOI:
- 10.23943/princeton/9780691154862.001.0001
- Subject:
- Religion, Judaism
This book offers a new perspective on perhaps the most important religious text of the Jewish tradition. It is widely recognized that the creators of the Talmud innovatively interpreted and changed ...
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This book offers a new perspective on perhaps the most important religious text of the Jewish tradition. It is widely recognized that the creators of the Talmud innovatively interpreted and changed the older traditions on which they drew. Nevertheless, it has been assumed that the ancient rabbis were committed to maintaining continuity with the past. This book argues on the contrary that structural features of the Talmud were designed to produce a discontinuity with tradition, and that this discontinuity was part and parcel of the rabbis‘ self-conception. Both this self-conception and these structural features were part of a debate within and beyond the Jewish community about the transmission of tradition. Focusing on the Babylonian Talmud, produced in the rabbinic academies of late ancient Mesopotamia, the book analyzes key passages to show how the Talmud's creators contrasted their own voice with that of their predecessors. It also examines Zoroastrian, Christian, and mystical Jewish sources to reconstruct the debates and wide-ranging conversations that shaped the Talmud's literary and intellectual character.Less
This book offers a new perspective on perhaps the most important religious text of the Jewish tradition. It is widely recognized that the creators of the Talmud innovatively interpreted and changed the older traditions on which they drew. Nevertheless, it has been assumed that the ancient rabbis were committed to maintaining continuity with the past. This book argues on the contrary that structural features of the Talmud were designed to produce a discontinuity with tradition, and that this discontinuity was part and parcel of the rabbis‘ self-conception. Both this self-conception and these structural features were part of a debate within and beyond the Jewish community about the transmission of tradition. Focusing on the Babylonian Talmud, produced in the rabbinic academies of late ancient Mesopotamia, the book analyzes key passages to show how the Talmud's creators contrasted their own voice with that of their predecessors. It also examines Zoroastrian, Christian, and mystical Jewish sources to reconstruct the debates and wide-ranging conversations that shaped the Talmud's literary and intellectual character.
Moulie Vidas
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- October 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780691154862
- eISBN:
- 9781400850471
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Princeton University Press
- DOI:
- 10.23943/princeton/9780691154862.003.0006
- Subject:
- Religion, Judaism
This chapter examines discourses about recitation in Zoroastrian and Christian literature. It first considers a Zoroastrian distinction similar to the one the Babylonian Talmud makes between the ...
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This chapter examines discourses about recitation in Zoroastrian and Christian literature. It first considers a Zoroastrian distinction similar to the one the Babylonian Talmud makes between the reciter and the scholar. It then looks at a Christian author who is also using a negative portrayal of Zoroastrian recitation and argues that in both the Talmud and the Christian text, the representation of Zoroastrian practice is employed to promote particular visions of Judaism and Christianity and dehabilitate others. Both texts contrast the performative, embodying practice of recitation with the scholarly approach that they promote, and by associating that recitation with Zoroastrian ritual they seek to mark it as foreign, as non-Jewish or non-Christian. It is possible that the encounter with Zoroastrian culture, in which recitation took a central role as a main component of ritual and as the exclusive interface to sanctified traditions, increased the importance of recitation for some Mesopotamian Jews and Christians.Less
This chapter examines discourses about recitation in Zoroastrian and Christian literature. It first considers a Zoroastrian distinction similar to the one the Babylonian Talmud makes between the reciter and the scholar. It then looks at a Christian author who is also using a negative portrayal of Zoroastrian recitation and argues that in both the Talmud and the Christian text, the representation of Zoroastrian practice is employed to promote particular visions of Judaism and Christianity and dehabilitate others. Both texts contrast the performative, embodying practice of recitation with the scholarly approach that they promote, and by associating that recitation with Zoroastrian ritual they seek to mark it as foreign, as non-Jewish or non-Christian. It is possible that the encounter with Zoroastrian culture, in which recitation took a central role as a main component of ritual and as the exclusive interface to sanctified traditions, increased the importance of recitation for some Mesopotamian Jews and Christians.
Sergey Dolgopolski
- Published in print:
- 2009
- Published Online:
- March 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780823229345
- eISBN:
- 9780823236725
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Fordham University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5422/fso/9780823229345.001.0001
- Subject:
- Religion, Judaism
True disagreements are hard to achieve, and even harder to maintain, for the ghost of final agreement constantly haunts them. The Babylonian Talmud, however, escapes from that ghost of agreement, and ...
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True disagreements are hard to achieve, and even harder to maintain, for the ghost of final agreement constantly haunts them. The Babylonian Talmud, however, escapes from that ghost of agreement, and provokes unsettling questions: Are there any conditions under which disagreement might constitute a genuine relationship between minds? Are disagreements always only temporary steps toward final agreement? Must a community of disagreement always imply agreement, as in an agreement to disagree? This book rethinks the task of philological, literary, historical, and cultural analysis of the Talmud. It introduces an aspect of this task that has best been approximated by the philosophical, anthropological, and ontological interrogation of human beings in relationship to the Other—whether animal, divine, or human. In both engagement and disengagement with post-Heideggerian traditions of thought, the book complements philological-historical and cultural approaches to Talmud with an anthropological, ontological, and Talmudic inquiry. It redefines the place of the Talmud and its study, both traditional and academic, in the intellectual map of the West, arguing that the Talmud is a scholarly art of its own and represents a fundamental intellectual discipline, not a mere application of logical, grammatical, or even rhetorical arts for the purpose of textual hermeneutics. In Talmudic intellectual art, disagreement is a fundamental category. This book rediscovers disagreement as the ultimate condition of finite human existence or co-existence.Less
True disagreements are hard to achieve, and even harder to maintain, for the ghost of final agreement constantly haunts them. The Babylonian Talmud, however, escapes from that ghost of agreement, and provokes unsettling questions: Are there any conditions under which disagreement might constitute a genuine relationship between minds? Are disagreements always only temporary steps toward final agreement? Must a community of disagreement always imply agreement, as in an agreement to disagree? This book rethinks the task of philological, literary, historical, and cultural analysis of the Talmud. It introduces an aspect of this task that has best been approximated by the philosophical, anthropological, and ontological interrogation of human beings in relationship to the Other—whether animal, divine, or human. In both engagement and disengagement with post-Heideggerian traditions of thought, the book complements philological-historical and cultural approaches to Talmud with an anthropological, ontological, and Talmudic inquiry. It redefines the place of the Talmud and its study, both traditional and academic, in the intellectual map of the West, arguing that the Talmud is a scholarly art of its own and represents a fundamental intellectual discipline, not a mere application of logical, grammatical, or even rhetorical arts for the purpose of textual hermeneutics. In Talmudic intellectual art, disagreement is a fundamental category. This book rediscovers disagreement as the ultimate condition of finite human existence or co-existence.
Jenny R. Labendz
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- September 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780199934560
- eISBN:
- 9780199345793
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199934560.003.0009
- Subject:
- Religion, Judaism
While the Babylonian Talmud preserves two examples of Socratic Torah between a Palestinian rabbi and a non-Jew, it does not include many dialogues about Torah between Babylonian rabbis and non-Jews. ...
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While the Babylonian Talmud preserves two examples of Socratic Torah between a Palestinian rabbi and a non-Jew, it does not include many dialogues about Torah between Babylonian rabbis and non-Jews. When it does, it portrays quite the opposite of Socratic Torah in terms of openness to sharing Torah with non-Jews and creative flexibility in answering their questions in ways appropriate to their own backgrounds. Furthermore, the editors of the Babylonian Talmud appear less interested than their Palestinian counterparts are in presenting dialogues between rabbis and non-Jews as examples of sharing rabbinic knowledge with those who seek it. Thus, while the Babylonian Talmud echoes many of the interests that originated in the Palestinian contexts the book focused on until now, it does not appear to actively share the values expressed through Socratic Torah and related Palestinian texts.Less
While the Babylonian Talmud preserves two examples of Socratic Torah between a Palestinian rabbi and a non-Jew, it does not include many dialogues about Torah between Babylonian rabbis and non-Jews. When it does, it portrays quite the opposite of Socratic Torah in terms of openness to sharing Torah with non-Jews and creative flexibility in answering their questions in ways appropriate to their own backgrounds. Furthermore, the editors of the Babylonian Talmud appear less interested than their Palestinian counterparts are in presenting dialogues between rabbis and non-Jews as examples of sharing rabbinic knowledge with those who seek it. Thus, while the Babylonian Talmud echoes many of the interests that originated in the Palestinian contexts the book focused on until now, it does not appear to actively share the values expressed through Socratic Torah and related Palestinian texts.
