Tag Archives: Talmud

“…studying Talmud…connects the (presumably) pluralistic ideas of the learner with the very activity in which they are engaged”

Even as the Shoah and the State of Israel were essential drivers of Greenberg and Hartman’s commitments to pluralism, neither thinker entirely derived their ideas from these historic events. In fact, both tried to locate pluralism as a critical feature of the classical rabbinic tradition. In articulating Jewish pluralism, they were bringing to the surface […]

“No talmudic discussion regards the recitation of [the Song of the Day] as anything other than temple practice”

…the daily Levitical songs (Pss 24, 48, 82, 94, 81, 93, 92) as recorded in a baraita appended to the end of m. Tam. as evidence. According to this baraita, the Levites would sing these psalms during the burning of the daily sacrifice. This passage provides proof for a rabbinic memory of a Second Temple […]

“A number of Rava’s rulings require intention as a necessary condition for establishing liability for both civil and ritual violations”

Where early generations of Babylonian Amoraim employed a system of strict liability in deciding civil cases, sages of the third generation began to employ subjective considerations, but in an inconsistent manner. It was not until the fourth generation that a clear emphasis on fault and intention emerged, seen most prominently in a number of Rava’s […]

“The fourth century was a period of great innovation in the history of Talmudic jurisprudence and legal conceptualization”

The fourth century was a period of great innovation in the history of Talmudic jurisprudence and legal conceptualization. Much of this may be attributed to the great fourth generation sage Rava, arguably the most creative and influential Amora of the Babylonian Talmud, whose influence far exceeds his own time. He not only issued countless rulings, […]

“Neusner was a rabbinic historian. He can be credited with reinventing rabbinic historiography in the modern period”

Neusner was a rabbinic historian. He can be credited with reinventing rabbinic historiography in the modern period. Prior rabbinic historians were either completely naïve in accepting traditional histories or, if they were critically-oriented, prioritized the production of a coherent story over the messy contradictions that emerge from the data of primary sources. Neusner taught the […]

“The field of rabbinics is peopled by two types of scholars—literary scholars and historians”

The field of rabbinics is peopled by two types of scholars—literary scholars and historians. Literary scholars produce scholarship on small quantities of text read very closely and squeezed with various methodologies to maximize the potential meanings of each word, sentence or section. Historians produce scholarship on large quantities of text read from a distance but […]

“The Korean Talmud and its outsized popularity can thus also be understood as a form of Occidentalism”

The turn to the Talmud as a book of Western wisdom in Japan, Korea, and China is reminiscent of a similar interest in and fetishizing of Eastern wisdom in the West. On a visit to any major bookstore in the United States, one is struck by how many “self-help” books appeal to popular notions of […]

“…the most important source for mapping Jewish settlement and…urban reality as a whole in Sasanian Babylonia is the Babylonian Talmud”

By far, the most important source for mapping Jewish settlement and, in a sense, urban reality as a whole in Sasanian Babylonia is the Babylonian Talmud. The dearth of any substantial late antique Jewish archaeology in Iraq, and the lack of prospects of this changing, guarantee that. What has changed is the way the sources […]

“The archaeological remains in Babylonia reveal few clear markers of Jewish identity”

The archaeological remains in Babylonia reveal few clear markers of Jewish identity. In the Greek and Roman world, with their so-called epigraphic habit, plenty of inscriptions have been unearthed that attest to a Jewish presence. We find the seven-branched candelabrum and donative inscriptions by private individuals on public buildings and in burial tombs that convey […]