In the second degree : paratextual literature in ancient Near Eastern and ancient Mediterranean culture and its reflections in medieval literature /
:
To better understand the phenomenon of Literature in the Second Degree - in Jewish and Biblical studies often characterized as parabiblical or Rewritten Bible - the current volume applies the theories of Gerard Genette to ancient and medieval literature from various cultures. Literature in the Second Degree realigns earlier (authoritative) texts to the dynamics of developing cultures and their changing cultural memories. In the case of authoritative base texts, Literature in the Second Degree reaffirms their authority by way of interpretative actualization. In the case of non-authoritative base texts it replaces them to effect cultural forgetting. Far from being just literary forgery (pseudepigraphy), Literature in the Second Degree has an important function in the development of the ancient and medieval cultures.
:
1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references. :
9789004194199 :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
Rabbinic traditions between Palestine and Babylonia /
:
In this book various authors explore how rabbinic traditions that were formulated in the Land of Israel migrated to Jewish study houses in Babylonia. The authors demonstrate how the new location and the unique literary character of the Babylonian Talmud combine to create new and surprising texts out of the old ones. Some authors concentrate on inner rabbinic social structures that influence the changes the traditions underwent. Others show the influence of the host culture on the metamorphosis of the traditions. The result is a complex study of cultural processes, as shaped by a unique historical moment.
:
Includes index. :
1 online resource (pages) :
9789004277311 :
1871-6636 ; :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
Legal fiction s studies of law and narrative in the discursive worlds of ancient Jewish sectarians and sages /
:
Ancient Jewish writings combine interpretive narratives of Israel's sacred history with legal prescriptions for a divinely ordered way of life. Two ancient Jewish societies have left us extensive textual corpora preserving interpenetrating legal and narrative interpretive teachings: the sectarian community of the Dead Sea Scrolls and the sage-disciple circles of the early Rabbis. This book comprises studies that explore specific aspects of the interplay of interpretative, narrative, and legal rhetoric with an eye to pedagogic function and social formation for each of these communities and for both of them in comparison. It addresses questions of how best to approach these writings for purposes of historical retrieval and reconstruction by recognizing the inseparability of literary-rhetorical textual analysis and a non-reductive historiography.
:
1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references and indexes. :
9789004201842 :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
What is good, and what God demands : normative structures in Tannaitic literature /
:
The normative rhetoric of tannaitic literature (the earliest extant corpus of rabbinic Judaism) is predominantly deontological. Prior scholarship on rabbinic supererogation, and on points of contact with Greco-Roman virtue discourse, has identified non-deontological aspects of tannaitic normativity. However, these two frameworks overlook precisely the productive intersection of deontological with non-deontological, the first because supererogation defines itself against obligation, and the second because the Greco-Roman comparate discourages serious treatment of law-like elements. This book addresses ways in which alternative normative forms entwine with the core deontological rhetoric of tannaitic literature. This perspective exposes, inter alia, echoes of the post-biblical wisdom tradition in tannaitic law, the rich polyvalence of the category mitzvah, and telling differences between the schools of Akiva and Ishmael.
:
1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references and an indexes. :
9789004188297 :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
From Scrolls to Traditions : A Festschrift Honoring Lawrence H. Schiffman /
:
This Festschrift in honor of Professor Lawrence H. Schiffman, a renowned authority on the Dead Sea Scrolls and Rabbinic Judaism, includes contributions by twenty of his former doctoral students, now colleagues. The volume is divided into two sections, the "Biblical and Second Temple Period" and "Rabbis, Other Jews, and Neighboring Cultures." The diverse topics covered and the wide range of interdisciplinary approaches employed reflect Professor Schiffman's success in cultivating a school of scholars who are making unique contributions to the study of the Jews and Judaism.
:
1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789004443891
9789004443884
The Literature of the Sages : A Re-Visioning /
:
This volume presents the major works of classical rabbinic Judaism as inter-related aggregates analyzed through three central themes. Part 1, "Intertextuality," investigates the multi-directional relationships among and between rabbinic texts and nonrabbinic Jewish sources. Part 2, "East and West" explores the impact on rabbinic texts of the cultures of the Hellenistic, Roman, and Christian West and the Sasanian East. Part 3, "Halakha and Aggada," interrogates the relationship of law and narrative in rabbinic sources. This bold volume uncovers alliances and ruptures -- textual, cultural, and generic -- obscured by document-based approaches to rabbinic literature.
:
This volume abandons the document-based approach of standard introductions and investigates aggregates of classical rabbinic texts through three broad perspectives - intertextuality, east and west, halakhah and aggadah - generating fresh insights that will reset the scholarly agenda. :
1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789004515697
9789004515420
On the fringe of commentary : metatextuality in ancient Near Eastern and ancient Mediterranean cultures /
:
This volume contains the papers of the second meeting of the international scholarly network "The Hermeneutic of Judaism, Christianity and Islam," held in Aix-en-Provence (September 25-27, 2008). Drawing on Gerard Genette's theory of the five different types of "transtextuality" (Palimpsestes, Paris 1982) - intertextuality, paratextuality, metatextuality, hypertextuality, and architextuality - , the volume discusses the practices of metatextuality as diverse as commentaries, hypomnemata, pesharim, targumim, Talmud, allegoresis, glosses, scholia, catenae, questions-and-responses (erotapocriseis), prophetic extracts, hypotheses, homilies, integumenta and involucra, Keys to Dreams, translations, and transliterations in the ancient Mediterranean and Near Eastern cultures. Presented with an introduction designed to expand and re-contextualize this issue, the eighteen communications discuss common strategies of metatextuality in Greek and Jewish culture as well as its various manifestations in the Septuagint and other Jewish texts, in the literature of the Ancient Near East and Egypt, in the Greco-Roman world, and in the late antique and medieval literature.
:
International conference proceedings, September 2008, Aix-Marseille University. :
xx, 472 pages ; 25 cm. :
Includes bibliographical references. :
9789042930735
Simeon the Righteous in rabbinic literature : a legend reinvented /
:
In Simeon the Righteous in Rabbinic Literature: A Legend Reinvented , Amram Tropper investigates the rabbinic traditions about Simeon the Righteous, a renowned Jewish leader of Second Temple times. Tropper not only interprets these traditions from a literary perspective but also deploys a relatively new critical approach towards rabbinic literature with which he explores the formation history of the traditions. With the help of this approach, Tropper seeks to uncover the literary and cultural matrices, both rabbinic and Graeco-Roman, which supplied the raw materials and literary inspiration to the rabbinic authors and editors of the traditions. Tropper's analysis reveals that in reinventing the legend of Simeon the Righteous, the rabbis constructed the Second Temple past in the image of their own present.
:
1 online resource (vii, 249 pages) :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789004245020 :
1871-6636 ; :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
Sustain me with raisin-cakes : Pesikta deRav Kahana and the popularization of rabbinic Judaism /
:
History and literature come together in a new way in this study of the midrashic collection Pesikta deRav Kahana. The book combines the findings of rabbinic historians and early Christianity scholars with a close reading of this midrashic text on its own and in relation to the tannaitic midrashim which preceded it. The rich picture that emerges suggests that PRK, in its new homiletical and aggadic stance, develops a religious language more appealing and accessible to the masses, an outreach language meant to win rabbinic popularity. Exploring issues of power and rhetoric, the book also places PRK's outreach language into the cultural context of the imperialism of Roman Christian homily.
:
Revision of author's thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Pennsylvania, 2004 under title: Rabbinic preachers and their audiences in the Amoraic midrashim Pesikta derav Kahana and Leviticus rabbah. :
1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references (p. [209]-214) and indexes. :
9789047442288 :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
Mine and yours are hers : retrieving women's history from rabbinic literature /
:
This book discusses the interaction between history, rabbinic literature and feminist studies. Recent approaches to rabbinic literature have overturned the traditional view of these writings and new literary methods were suggested, mostly denying them all historical value. But rabbinic literature constitutes the main source for the lives of Jews in Palestine and Babylonia during the late Roman period, and thus should not be totally rejected. This study suggests a new post-literary approach, id est it discusses the residue of the texts after these have been analyzed and dissected by literary critics. But mainly this is a book about women's history, adopting many assumptions of feminist criticism about the androcentric nature of all ancient texts, and approaches them with due suspicion. The Rabbis treated women differently from the way they treated men. This resulted in the former's marginalization and manipulation by the texts. On the other hand, however, it created an ironic situation whereby principles useful for the recovery of historical information on women, are useless when applied to men. This study describes such principles and demonstrates them with the help of many examples.
:
1 online resource (xiii, 346 pages) :
Includes bibliographical references (p. 319-331) and indexes. :
9789004332454 :
0169-734X ; :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.