Download or read book Studies in Ancient Midrash written by James L. Kugel and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2001 with total page 198 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Studies in Ancient Midrash is the proceedings of a conference, held at Harvard University, surveying the beginnings of ancient biblical interpretation. Essays include "Ancient Biblical Interpretation and the Biblical Sage," by James Kugel; "Literacy and the Polemics Surrounding Biblical Interpretation," by A. I. Baumgarten; "Garments of Skin, Garments of Glory," by Gary Anderson; "Leave the Dead to Bury Their Own Dead," by Menahem Kister; "Contours of Genesis Interpretation at Qumran," by Moshe Bernstein; "Qohelet's Reception and Interpretation," by Marc Hirshman; "Law, Morality and Rhetoric in Some Sayings of Jesus," by Menahem Kister; and "Biblical Interpretation in Some Qumran Prayers and Hymns," by James Kugel.
Download or read book Midrash and Theory written by David Stern and published by Northwestern University Press. This book was released on 1996 with total page 130 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Midrash and Theory, David Stern presents an approach to midrashic literature through the prism of contemporary theory. As midrash--the literature of classical Jewish Scriptural interpretation--has become the focus of new interest in contemporary literary circles, it has been invoked as a precursor of post-structuralist theory and criticism. At the same time, the midrashic imagination has undergone a revival in the larger Jewish community and shown itself capable of exercising a powerful influence and hold on a new type of contemporary Jewish writing. Stern examines this resurgence of fascination with ancient Jewish interpretation from the persepctive of the cultural relevance of midrash and its connection to its original historical and literary contexts.
Download or read book Learning to Read Midrash written by Simi Peters and published by . This book was released on 2004 with total page 320 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Presenting a systematic approach to the study of midrash, each of the readings presented in this book attempts to reconstruct the reasoning behind midrashic commentary on biblical narrative. The goal of the book is to convey a sensitivity to the language and meanings of the Tanakh, and to develop a reverent appreciation for the language and teachings of the Jewish sages.
Download or read book The Origins of Midrash From Teaching to Text written by Paul D. Mandel and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2017-05-22 with total page 423 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In The Origins of Midrash: From Teaching to Text, Paul Mandel presents a comprehensive study of the words darash and midrash from the Bible until the early rabbinic periods (3rd century CE). In contrast to current understandings in which the words are identified with modes of analysis of the biblical text, Mandel claims that they refer to instruction in law and not to an interpretation of text. Mandel traces the use of these words as they are associated with the scribe (sofer), the doresh ha-torah in the Dead Sea scrolls, the “exegetes of the laws” in the writings of Josephus and the rabbinic “sage” (ḥakham), showing the development of the uses of midrash as a form of instruction throughout these periods.
Download or read book Sustaining Fictions written by Lesleigh Cushing Stahlberg and published by Bloomsbury Publishing USA. This book was released on 2009-05-01 with total page 253 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Even before the biblical canon became fixed, writers have revisited and reworked its stories. The author of Joshua takes the haphazard settlement of Israel recorded in the Book of Judges and retells it as an orderly military conquest. The writer of Chronicles expurgates the David cycle in Samuel I and II, offering an upright and virtuous king devoid of baser instincts. This literary phenomenon is not contained to inner-biblical exegesis. Once the telling becomes known, the retellings begin: through the New Testament, rabbinic midrash, medieval mystery plays, medieval and Renaissance poetry, nineteenth century novels, and contemporary literature, writers of the Western world have continued to occupy themselves with the biblical canon. However, there exists no adequate vocabulary-academic or popular, religious or secular, literary or theological-to describe the recurring appearances of canonical figures and motifs in later literature. Literary critics, bible scholars and book reviewers alike seek recourse in words like adaptation, allusion, echo, imitation and influence to describe what the author, for lack of better terms, has come to call retellings or recastings. Although none of these designations rings false, none approaches precision. They do not tell us what the author of a novel or poem has done with a biblical figure, do not signal how this newly recast figure is different from other recastings of it, and do not offer any indication of why these transformations have occurred. Sustaining Fictions sets out to redress this problem, considering the viability of the vocabularies of literary, midrashic, and translation theory for speaking about retelling.
Download or read book Current Trends in the Study of Midrash written by Carol Bakhos and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2022-01-04 with total page 342 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This important collection of essays by leading scholars of rabbinics reflects the current methodological approaches to the study of midrash. The volume situates midrash within the broader contexts of hermeneutics, rabbinics and postmodern studies, and thus presents a comprehensive view of the kinds of issues scholars in the field are engaging.
Download or read book Written for Us Paul s Interpretation of Scripture and the History of Midrash written by Yael Fisch and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2023-01-16 with total page 233 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume is a study in ancient scriptural hermeneutics, that promotes new ways to think about Paul’s interpretation of scripture and rabbinic midrash together and for the benefit of both. It analyses exegetical techniques that both Paul and the Tannaim use and opens new perspectives on how they conceive of scripture and its ideal readers.
Download or read book Science in the Bet Midrash written by Menachem Marc Kellner and published by Academic Studies PRess. This book was released on 2009 with total page 404 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book explores the religious thought of Moses Maimonides (1138-1204), the single most influential Jew of the last thousand years. While covering many aspects of his religious philosophy, the central focus of these essays is the way Maimonides elucidated and expressed the universalistic thrust of the Jewish tradition.
Download or read book Medieval Midrash written by Bernard H. Mehlman and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2016-10-05 with total page 207 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Medieval Midrash: The House for Inspired Innovation is the first book-length study of this under-examined genre of Jewish Literature. Mehlman and Limmer cover the history of scholarship of these curious texts and evaluate the origins, dating, and authors of Medieval Midrash. In addition to addressing such scholarly questions, Medieval Midrash illustrates its themes and judgments through the annotated translation of the six extant texts that revolve around the key figure of King Solomon. This book, whose underlying tropes speak to the continuing need for creative religious expression, will be of interest to scholars and non-academics alike.
Download or read book The Study of ancient Judaism written by Jacob Neusner and published by . This book was released on 1981 with total page 199 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Web of Life written by Galit Hasan-Rokem and published by Stanford University Press. This book was released on 2000 with total page 306 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Web of Life weaves its suggestive interpretation of Jewish culture in the Palestine of late antiquity on the warp of a singular, breathtakingly tragic, and sublime rabbinic text, Lamentations Rabbah. The textual analyses that form the core of the book are informed by a range of theoretical paradigms rarely brought to bear on rabbinic literature: structural analysis of mythologies and folktales, performative approaches to textual production, feminist theory, psychoanalytical analysis of culture, cultural criticism, and folk narrative genre analysis. The concept of context as the hermeneutic basis for literary interpretation reactivates the written text and subverts the hierarchical structures with which it has been traditionally identified. This book reinterprets rabbinic culture as an arena of multiple dialogues that traverse traditional concepts of identity regarding gender, nation, religion, and territory. The author's approach is permeated by the idea that scholarly writing about ancient texts is invigorated by an existential hermeneutic rooted in the universality of human experience. She thus resorts to personal experience as an idiom of communication between author and reader and between human beings of our time and of the past. This research acknowledges the overlap of poetic and analytical language as well as the language of analysis and everyday life. In eliciting folk narrative discourses inside the rabbinic text, the book challenges traditional views about the social basis that engendered these texts. It suggests the subversive potential of the constitutive texts of Jewish culture from late antiquity to the present by pointing out the inherent multi-vocality of the text, adding to the conventionally acknowledged synagogue and academy the home, the marketplace, and other private and public socializing institutions.
Download or read book Womanist Midrash written by Wilda C. Gafney and published by Westminster John Knox Press. This book was released on 2017-08-15 with total page 302 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Womanist Midrash is an in-depth and creative exploration of the well- and lesser-known women of the Hebrew Scriptures. Using her own translations, Gafney offers a midrashic interpretation of the biblical text that is rooted in the African American preaching tradition to tell the stories of a variety of female characters, many of whom are often overlooked and nameless. Gafney employs a solid understanding of womanist and feminist approaches to biblical interpretation and the sociohistorical culture of the ancient Near East. This unique and imaginative work is grounded in serious scholarship and will expand conversations about feminist and womanist biblical interpretation.
Download or read book From Tradition to Commentary written by Steven D. Fraade and published by State University of New York Press. This book was released on 2012-02-01 with total page 365 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book examines Torah and its interpretation both as a recurring theme in the early rabbinic commentary and as the very practice of the commentary. It studies the phenomenon of ancient rabbinic scriptural commentary in relation to the perspectives of literary and historical criticisms and their complex intersection. The author discusses extensively the nature of ancient commentary, comparing and contrasting it with the antecedents in the pesharim of the Dead Sea Scrolls and the allegorical commentaries of Philo of Alexandria. He develops a model for a dynamic understanding of the literary structure and sociohistorical function of early rabbinic commentary, and then applies this model to the Sifre — to the oldest extant running commentary to Deuteronomy and one of the oldest rabbinic collections of exegesis. Fraade examines the commentary's representation of revelation and its reception at Mt. Sinai, with particular attention to its fractured refiguration and interrelation of Scripture, tradition, and history. He discusses the commentary's discursive empowering of the class of sages in their collective self-understanding as Israel's authorized teachers, leaders, legislators, and judges. The author also probes the tension between Torah and nature as witnesses to Israel's covenant with God.
Download or read book Scripture as Logos written by Azzan Yadin and published by University of Pennsylvania Press. This book was released on 2013-06-15 with total page 247 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The study of midrash—the biblical exegesis, parables, and anecdotes of the Rabbis—has enjoyed a renaissance in recent years. Most recent scholarship, however, has focused on the aggadic or narrative midrash, while halakhic or legal midrash—the exegesis of biblical law—has received relatively little attention. In Scripture as Logos, Azzan Yadin addresses this long-standing need, examining early, tannaitic (70-200 C.E.) legal midrash, focusing on the interpretive tradition associated with the figure of Rabbi Ishmael. This is a sophisticated study of midrashic hermeneutics, growing out of the observation that the Rabbi Ishmael midrashim contain a dual personification of Scripture, which is referred to as both "torah" and "ha-katuv." It is Yadin's significant contribution to note that the two terms are not in fact synonymous but rather serve as metonymies for Sinai on the one hand and, on the other, the rabbinic house of study, the bet midrash. Yadin develops this insight, ultimately presenting the complex but highly coherent interpretive ideology that underlies these rabbinic texts, an ideology that—contrary to the dominant view today—seeks to minimize the role of the rabbinic reader by presenting Scripture as actively self-interpretive. Moving beyond textual analysis, Yadin then locates the Rabbi Ishmael hermeneutic within the religious landscape of Second Temple and post-Temple literature. The result is a series of surprising connections between these rabbinic texts and Wisdom literature, the Dead Sea Scrolls, and the Church Fathers, all of which lead to a radical rethinking of the origins of rabbinic midrash and, indeed, of the Rabbis as a whole.
Download or read book Commentary on Midrash Rabba in the Sixteenth Century written by Benjamin Williams and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2016 with total page 238 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This work highlights the importance of Abraham ben Asher's commentary on Genesis Rabba, demonstrating the influence of this commentary on both his contemporaries and printed editions of the classical Midrashim to the present day.
Download or read book Studies in Midrash and Historiography written by R. T. France and published by Burns & Oates. This book was released on 1983 with total page 312 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The Midrashic Imagination written by Michael Fishbane and published by State University of New York Press. This book was released on 2012-02-01 with total page 305 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This innovative and original book examines the broad range of Jewish interpretation from antiquity through the medieval and renaissance periods. Its primary focus is on Midrash and midrashic creativity, including the entire range of nonlegal interpretations of the Bible. Considering Midrash as a literary and cultural form, the book explores aspects of classical Midrash from various angles including mythmaking and parables. The relationship between this exoteric mode and more esoteric forms in late antiquity is also examined. This work also focuses on some of the major genres of medieval biblical exegesis: plain sense, allegory, and mystical.
