Download or read book The Literature of the Jewish People in the Period of the Second Temple and the Talmud Volume 3 The Literature of the Sages written by Shmuel Safrai and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2014-12-15 with total page 490 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The literary creation of the ancient Jewish teachers or Sages--also called rabbinic literature--consists of the teachings of thousands of Sages, many of them anonymous. For a long period, their teachings existed orally, which implied a great deal of flexibility in arrangement and form. Only gradually, as parts of the amorphous oral tradition became fixed, was the literature written down, a process that began in the third century CE and continued into the Middle Ages. Thus the documents of the rabbinic literature are the result of a remarkably long and complex process of creation and editing. This volume gives a careful and succinct analysis both of the content and specific nature of the various documents, and of their textual and literary forms, paying special attention to the continuing discovery and publication of new textual material. The contributors are all engaged in academic teaching and research in Israel. Incorporating ground-breaking developments in research, their essays give a comprehensive presentation published here for the first time.

Download or read book The Yerushalmi the Talmud of the Land of Israel written by Jacob Neusner and published by Jason Aronson. This book was released on 1993 with total page 216 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Yerushalmi, also known as the Jerusalem Talmud or the Talmud of the Land of Israel, is the lesser known and leser studied of the two Talmuds of Jewish tradition. The "talmud" that is generally studied, the one that has had the most profound influence on Jewish life and culture, is actually the Bavli, or Babylonian Talmud. These two Talmuds, developed in different parts of the Jewish world nearly two millennia ago, differ in many ways, despite the fact that they are both structured as Jewish oral law as set forth by Rabbi Judah the Prince. The Yerushalmi, famous for its incomprehensibility, consists of hundreds of pages of what Dr. Jacob Neusner calls "barely intelligible writing." In The Yerushalmi--The Talmud of the Land of Israel: An Introduction, Dr. Neusner, regarded by some as one of the foremost Jewish scholars today, offers the first clear and careful book-length study of this important document, and he provides the modern reader with a rich understanding of its history, its content, and its significance. As Dr. Neusner explains, "The Yerushalmi has suffered an odious but deserved reputation for the difficulty in making sense of its discourse. That reputation is only partly true; there are many passages that are scarcely intelligible. But there are a great many more that are entirely or mainly accessible." In this groundbreaking introduction to the Yerushalmi, Dr. Neusner looks at the Talmud of the Land of Israel as literature and then deals with its three most important topics: the sages, Torah, and history. In his engaging preface, Dr. Neusner invites his readers to think about the excitement generated by the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls in 1947. He then compares that significant discovery to the kind of reaction that would be inspired if a document like the Yerushalmi were found in the same kind of hillside cave: Consider in your mind's eye the sensation such a discovery--the sudden, unanticipated discovery of the Yerushalmi--would cause, the scholarly lives and energies that would flow to the find and its explication...To call the contents of that hillside cave a revolution, to compare them to the finds at Qumran, at the Dead Sea, or at Nag Hammadi, or to any of the other great contemporary discoveries from ancient times, would hardly be deemed an exaggeration. The Yerushalmi is just such a library. The Yerushalmi--The Talmud of the Land of Israel: An Introduction is the third in Dr. Neusner's series of introductory volumes on classical rabbinic literature.

Download or read book The Culture of the Babylonian Talmud written by Jeffrey L. Rubenstein and published by JHU Press. This book was released on 2004-12-01 with total page 247 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this pathbreaking study Jeffrey L. Rubenstein reconstructs the cultural milieu of the rabbinic academy that produced the Babylonian Talmud, or Bavli, which quickly became the authoritative text of rabbinic Judaism and remains so to this day. Unlike the rabbis who had earlier produced the shorter Palestinian Talmud (the Yerushalmi) and who had passed on their teachings to students individually or in small and informal groups, the anonymous redactors of the Bavli were part of a large institution with a distinctive, isolated, and largely undocumented culture. The Culture of the Babylonian Talmud explores the cultural world of these Babylonian rabbis and their students through the prism of the stories they included in the Bavli, showing how their presentation of earlier rabbinic teachings was influenced by their own values and practices. Among the topics explored in this broad-ranging work are the hierarchical structure of the rabbinic academy, the use of dialectics in teaching, the functions of violence and shame within the academy, the role of lineage in rabbinic leadership, the marital and family lives of the rabbis, and the relationship between the rabbis and the rest of the Jewish population. This book provides a unique and new perspective on the formative years of rabbinic Judaism and will be essential reading for all students of the Talmud.

Download or read book Between the Babylonian and Palestinian Talmuds written by Christine Elizabeth Hayes and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 1997-04-24 with total page 289 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this book, Hayes addresses the central concern in talmudic studies over the genesis of halakhic (legal) divergence between the Talmuds produced by the Palestinian rabbinic community (c. 370 C.E.) and the Babylonian rabbinic community (c. 650 C.E.). Hayes analyzes selected divergences between parallel passages of the two Talmuds. Proceeding on a case-by-case basis, she considers whether external influences (cultural or regional differences), internal factors (textual, hermeneutical, or dialectical), or some intersection of the two best accounts for the differences.

Download or read book A Dictionary of Jewish Palestinian Aramaic of the written by Michael Sokoloff and published by JHU Press. This book was released on 2002 with total page 864 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Since the Middle Ages, lexographies of Talmudic and other rabbinic literature have combined in one entry Babylonian, Palestinian, and Targumic words from various periods. Because morphologically identical words in even closely related dialects can frequently differ in both meaning and nuance, their consolidation into one dictionary entry is often misleading. Scholars now realize the need to treat each dialect separately, and in A Dictionary of Jewish Palestinian Aramaic, Michael Sokoloff provides a complete lexicon of the dialect spoken and written by Jews in Palestine during the Byzantine period, from the third century C.E. to the tenth century. Sokoloff draws on a wide range of sources, from inscriptions discovered in the remains of synagogues and on amulets, fragments of letters and other documents, poems, and marginal notations to local Targumim, the Palestinian Midrashim and Talmud, texts addressing religious law (halacha), and Palestinian marriage documents (ketubbot) from the Arabic period. Many of these sources were unavailable to previous lexographers, who based their dictionaries on corrupt nineteenth-century editions of the rabbinic literature. The discovery of new manuscripts in both European libraries and the Cairo Geniza over the course of the twentieth century has revolutionized the textual basis of Jewish Palestinian Aramaic. Each entry in A Dictionary of Jewish Palestinian Aramaic is divided into six parts: lemma or root, part of speech, English gloss, etymology, semantic features, and bibliographic references. Sokoloff also includes an index of all cited passages. This major reference work, updated to reflect the publication of new texts over the last decade, will both provide students and scholars with a tool for an accurate understanding of the Aramaic dialect of Jewish Palestinian literature of the Byzantine period and help Aramaist and Semitic linguists to see the relationship between this dialect and others, especially the contemporary dialects of Palestine.

Download or read book A Talmud in Exile written by Alyssa M. Gray and published by . This book was released on 2005 with total page 304 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book The Iranian Talmud written by Shai Secunda / Yitz Landes and published by University of Pennsylvania Press. This book was released on 2013-10-09 with total page 273 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Although the Babylonian Talmud, or Bavli, has been a text central and vital to the Jewish canon since the Middle Ages, the context in which it was produced has been poorly understood. Delving deep into Sasanian material culture and literary remains, Shai Secunda pieces together the dynamic world of late antique Iran, providing an unprecedented and accessible overview of the world that shaped the Bavli. Secunda unites the fields of Talmudic scholarship with Old Iranian studies to enable a fresh look at the heterogeneous religious and ethnic communities of pre-Islamic Iran. He analyzes the intercultural dynamics between the Jews and their Persian Zoroastrian neighbors, exploring the complex processes and modes of discourse through which these groups came into contact and considering the ways in which rabbis and Zoroastrian priests perceived one another. Placing the Bavli and examples of Middle Persian literature side by side, the Zoroastrian traces in the former and the discursive and Talmudic qualities of the latter become evident. The Iranian Talmud introduces a substantial and essential shift in the field, setting the stage for further Irano-Talmudic research.

Download or read book Rewriting the Talmud written by Marcus Mordecai Schwartz and published by Mohr Siebeck. This book was released on 2019-07-05 with total page 163 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this study, Marcus Mordecai Schwartz argues that there were two distinct periods in which traditions from Rabbinic Palestine exerted their influence upon extended passages of B. Rosh Hashanah. This doubling of influence resulted in a Babylonian-born text with two distinct Palestinian ancestries. This oddly mixed parentage was responsible for Bavli texts that both resemble synoptic passages in the Yerusalmi and differ from them in substantial ways. The main project of this book is to trace the dynamics of this doubled Palestinian influence and to account for the mark it left on passages of B. Rosh Hashanah.

Download or read book A Traveling Homeland written by Daniel Boyarin and published by University of Pennsylvania Press. This book was released on 2015-07-16 with total page 192 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In A Traveling Homeland, Daniel Boyarin makes the case that the Babylonian Talmud is a diasporist manifesto producing and defining the practices that constitute Jewish diasporic identity in the form of textual, interpretive communities built around talmudic study.

Download or read book The Geonim of Babylonia and the Shaping of Medieval Jewish Culture written by Robert Brody and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 1998-01-01 with total page 420 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Geonic period from about the late sixth to mid-eleventh centuries is of crucial importance in the history of Judaism. The Geonim, for whom this era is named, were the heads of the ancient talmudic academies of Babylonia. They gained ascendancy over the older Palestinian center of Judaism and were recognized as the leading religious and spiritual authorities by most of the world's Jewish population. The Geonim and their circles enshrined the Babylonian Talmud as the central canonical work of rabbinic literature and the leading guide to religious practice, and it was a predominantly Babylonian version of Judaism that was transplanted to newer centers of Judaism in North Africa and Europe. Robert Brody's book -- the first survey in English of the Geonic period in almost a century -focuses on the cultural milieu of the Geonim and on their intellectual and literary creativity. Brody describes the cultural spheres in which the Geonim were active and the historical and cultural settings within which they functioned. He emphasizes the challenges presented by other Jewish institutions and individuals, ranging from those within the Babylonian Jewish setting -- specially the political leadership represented by the Exilarch -- to the competing Palestinian Jewish center and to sectarian movements and freethinkers who rejected rabbinic authority altogether. He also describes the variety of ways in which the development of Geonic tradition was affected by the surrounding non-Jewish cultures, both Muslim and Christian. "This book is a fresh and thorough examination of the period in question, a masterpiece of scholarship and erudition". -- Neil Danzig, Jewish Theological Seminary

Download or read book Jewish History Jewish Religion written by Israel Shahak and published by Pluto Press. This book was released on 1994-04-28 with total page 148 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 'Shahak subjects the whole history of Orthodoxy ... to a hilarious and scrupulous critique.' --Christopher Hitchens, The Nation

Download or read book The Rise and Fall of Arab Jerusalem written by Hillel Cohen and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2013-03 with total page 180 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book examines the politics of Jerusalem since 1967 and the city’s decline as an Arab city. Covering issues such as the Old City, the barrier, planning regulations and efforts to remove Palestinians from it, the book provides a broad overview of the contemporary situation and political relations inside the Palestinian community, but also with the Israeli authorities.

Download or read book Greek in Jewish Palestine written by Saul Lieberman and published by JTS Press. This book was released on 1994 with total page 502 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In these two books, now reprinted in one volume, master Talmudist and scholar of the Greco-Roman world, the late Professor Saul Lieberman, elucidates words, texts, customs and practices in either rabbinic or classical literature, often buy reference to passages in the other. In Greek in Jewish Palestine, he demonstrates that "almost ever foreign word and phrase have their raison d'etre in rabbinic literature" and that "all Greek phrases in rabbinic literature are quotations." Hellenism in Jewish Palestine is "an inquiry into the spirit of many rabbinic observations and investigations of the facts, insicents, opinions, notions and beliefs to which the Rabbis allude in their statements."

Download or read book Printing the Talmud written by Marvin J. Heller and published by Brooklyn, N.Y. : Im Hasefer. This book was released on 1992 with total page 474 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Becoming the People of the Talmud written by Talya Fishman and published by University of Pennsylvania Press. This book was released on 2012-01-31 with total page 424 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Becoming the People of the Talmud, Talya Fishman examines ways in which circumstances of transmission have shaped the cultural meaning of Jewish traditions. Although the Talmud's preeminence in Jewish study and its determining role in Jewish practice are generally taken for granted, Fishman contends that these roles were not solidified until the late eleventh and early twelfth centuries. The inscription of Talmud—which Sefardi Jews understand to have occurred quite early, and Ashkenazi Jews only later—precipitated these developments. The encounter with Oral Torah as a written corpus was transformative for both subcultures, and it shaped the roles that Talmud came to play in Jewish life. What were the historical circumstances that led to the inscription of Oral Torah in medieval Europe? How did this body of ancient rabbinic traditions, replete with legal controversies and nonlegal material, come to be construed as a reference work and prescriptive guide to Jewish life? Connecting insights from geonica, medieval Jewish and Christian history, and orality-textuality studies, Becoming the People of the Talmud reconstructs the process of cultural transformation that occurred once medieval Jews encountered the Babylonian Talmud as a written text. According to Fishman, the ascription of greater authority to written text was accompanied by changes in reading habits, compositional predilections, classroom practices, approaches to adjudication, assessments of the past, and social hierarchies. She contends that certain medieval Jews were aware of these changes: some noted that books had replaced teachers; others protested the elevation of Talmud-centered erudition and casuistic virtuosity into standards of religious excellence, at the expense of spiritual refinement. The book concludes with a consideration of Rhineland Pietism's emergence in this context and suggests that two contemporaneous phenomena—the prominence of custom in medieval Ashkenazi culture and the novel Christian attack on Talmud—were indirectly linked to the new eminence of this written text in Jewish life.

Download or read book Introduction to the Talmud and Midrash written by Hermann Leberecht Strack and published by Fortress Press. This book was released on with total page 450 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Gunter Stemberger's revision of H. L. Strack's classic introduction to rabbinic literature, which appeared in its first English edition in 1991, was widely acclaimed. Gunter Stemberger and Markus Bockmuehl have now produced this updated edition, which is a significant revision (completed in 1996) of the 1991 volume. Following Strack's original outline, Stemberger discusses first the historical framework, the basic principles of rabbinic literature and hermeneutics and the most important Rabbis. The main part of the book is devoted to the Talmudic and Midrashic literature in the light of contemporary rabbinic research. The appendix includes a new section on electronic resources for the study of the Talmud and Midrash. The result is a comprehensive work of reference that no student of rabbinics can afford to be without.

Download or read book A Companion to Late Ancient Jews and Judaism written by Gwynn Kessler and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2020-03-26 with total page 615 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An innovative approach to the study of ten centuries of Jewish culture and history A Companion to Late Ancient Jews and Judaism explores the Jewish people, their communities, and various manifestations of their religious and cultural expressions from the third century BCE to the seventh century CE. Presenting a collection of 30 original essays written by noted scholars in the field, this companion provides an expansive examination of ancient Jewish life, identity, gender, sacred and domestic spaces, literature, language, and theological questions throughout late ancient Jewish history and historiography. Editors Gwynn Kessler and Naomi Koltun-Fromm situate the volume within Late Antiquity, enabling readers to rethink traditional chronological, geographic, and political boundaries. The Companion incorporates a broad methodology, drawing from social history, material history and culture, and literary studies to consider the diverse forms and facets of Jews and Judaism within multiple contexts of place, culture, and history. Divided into five parts, thematically-organized essays discuss topics including the spaces where Jews lived, worked, and worshiped, Jewish languages and literatures, ethnicities and identities, and questions about gender and the body central to Jewish culture and Judaism. Offering original scholarship and fresh insights on late ancient Jewish history and culture, this unique volume: Offers a one-volume exploration of “second temple,” “Greco-Roman,” and “rabbinic” periods and sources Explores Jewish life across most of the geographic places where Jews or Judaeans were known to have lived Features original maps of areas cited in every essay, including maps of Jewish settlement throughout Late Antiquity Includes an outline of major historical events, further readings, and full references A Companion to Late Ancient Jews and Judaism: 3rd Century BCE - 7th Century CE is a valuable resource for students, instructors, and scholars of Jewish studies, religion, literature, and ethnic identity, as well as general readers with interest in Jewish history, world religions, Classics, and Late Antiquity.