From Mesopotamia to the Mishnah PDF Download

Author: Jonathan S. Milgram
Publisher: Mohr Siebeck
ISBN: 9783161540219
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 230

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Book Description
In this study, Jonathan S. Milgram demonstrates that the transformation of inheritance law from the biblical to the tannaitic period is best explained against the backdrop of the legal and social contexts in which the tannaitic laws were formulated. Employing text and source critical methods, he argues that, in the absence of the hermeneutic underpinnings for tannaitic innovations, the laws were not the result of the rabbinic imagination and its penchant for inventive interpretation of Scripture. Turning to the rich repositories in biblical, ancient near eastern, Second Temple, Greek, Elephantine, Judean desert, and Roman sources, the author searches for conceptual parallels and antecedents as well as formulae and terminology adopted and adapted by the tannaim. Since the tannaitic traditions reflect the social and economic contexts of the tannaitic period - the nuclear family on privatized landholdings in urban centers - the author also considers the degree to which tannaitic inheritance laws may have emerged out of these contexts.

Author: Shaye J. D. Cohen
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 0674293703
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 545

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Book Description
The Mishnah is the foundational document of rabbinic Judaism—all of rabbinic law, from ancient to modern times, is based on the Talmud, and the Talmud, in turn, is based on the Mishnah. But the Mishnah is also an elusive document; its sources and setting are obscure, as are its genre and purpose. In January 2021 the Harvard Center for Jewish Studies and the Julis-Rabinowitz Program on Jewish and Israeli Law of the Harvard Law School co-sponsored a conference devoted to the simple yet complicated question: “What is the Mishnah?” Leading scholars from the United States, Europe, and Israel assessed the state of the art in Mishnah studies; and the papers delivered at that conference form the basis of this collection. Learned yet accessible, What Is the Mishnah? gives readers a clear sense of current and future direction of Mishnah studies.

Author: Burton Visotzky
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 0429979983
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 273

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Book Description
From Mesopotamia to Modernity is a one volume introduction to both Jewish history and literature from its earliest times up to the present. Leading experts in each field of Jewish history and literature contribute original and comprehensive essays introducing their subjects. Beginning readers will learn the rudiments for further study, and scholars will be refreshed by the balanced, yet challenging treatments found here.These introductory essays cover most major aspects of Jewish studies from the Bible and its time up to modern Judaism. The work is designed to serve undergraduate and graduate courses in Judaism as well as Church and Synagogue adult study courses. Ideal for reading groups, this work will lead readers to further study of the varied subjects considered. Each essay covers the basic field, be it in a given era of Jewish history or in a defined area of Jewish literature. Suggestions for further reading will assist the reader in moving beyond this volume to explore a given area in further detail. The introductions range from encyclopedic detail through elegiac essay and enthusiastic appreciation of the field considered. The authors hold positions in major academic institutions throughout the United States and Israel.

Author: Burton Visotzky
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 0429968906
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 280

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Book Description
From Mesopotamia to Modernity is a one volume introduction to both Jewish history and literature from its earliest times up to the present. Leading experts in each field of Jewish history and literature contribute original and comprehensive essays introducing their subjects. Beginning readers will learn the rudiments for further study, and scholars will be refreshed by the balanced, yet challenging treatments found here.These introductory essays cover most major aspects of Jewish studies from the Bible and its time up to modern Judaism. The work is designed to serve undergraduate and graduate courses in Judaism as well as Church and Synagogue adult study courses. Ideal for reading groups, this work will lead readers to further study of the varied subjects considered. Each essay covers the basic field, be it in a given era of Jewish history or in a defined area of Jewish literature. Suggestions for further reading will assist the reader in moving beyond this volume to explore a given area in further detail. The introductions range from encyclopedic detail through elegiac essay and enthusiastic appreciation of the field considered. The authors hold positions in major academic institutions throughout the United States and Israel.

Author: J. Cale Johnson
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG
ISBN: 1501502506
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 336

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Book Description
In the Wake of the Compendia examines the composition of technical literature in the ancient Semitic-speaking world. Compendia on astrology, magic, medicine, lexicography, and alchemy were composed in several languages and relate to earlier Mesopotamian models. This volume offers new perspectives on the early history of these compendia and their subsequent transmission into later post-cuneiform compilations, curricula, and scholarly writings.

Author: Yael Landman
Publisher: SBL Press
ISBN: 1951498879
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 208

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Book Description
Prescriptive law writings rarely mirror the ways a society practices law, a fact that raises special problems for the social and legal historian. Through close analysis of the laws of bailment (i.e., temporary safekeeping) in Exodus 22, Yael Landman probes the relationship of law in the biblical law collections and law-in-practice in ancient Israel and exposes a vision of divine justice at the heart of pentateuchal law. Landman further demonstrates that ancient Near Eastern bailment laws continue to influence postbiblical Jewish law. This book advances an approach to the study of biblical law that connects pentateuchal and ancient Near Eastern law collections, biblical narrative and prophecy, and Mesopotamian legal documents and joins philological and comparative analysis with humanistic legal approaches, in order to access how people thought about and practiced law in ancient Israel.

Author: Richard Hidary
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1107177405
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 349

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Book Description
Shows the unique perspective of Talmudic rabbis as they navigate between platonic objective truth and the realm of rhetorical argumentation.

Author:
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9004515690
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 672

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Book Description
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.

Author: Pamela Barmash
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0199392676
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 640

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Book Description
Major innovations have occurred in the study of biblical law in recent decades. The legal material of the Pentateuch has received new interest with detailed studies of specific biblical passages. The comparison of biblical practice to ancient Near Eastern customs has received a new impetus with the concentration on texts from actual ancient legal transactions. The Oxford Handbook of Biblical Law provides a state of the art analysis of the major questions, principles, and texts pertinent to biblical law. The thirty-three chapters, written by an international team of experts, deal with the concepts, significant texts, institutions, and procedures of biblical law; the intersection of law with religion, socio-economic circumstances, and politics; and the reinterpretation of biblical law in the emerging Jewish and Christian communities. The volume is intended to introduce non-specialists to the field as well as to stimulate new thinking among scholars working in biblical law.

Author: Katell Berthelot
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 0691264805
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 552

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Book Description
How encounters with the Roman Empire compelled the Jews of antiquity to rethink their conceptions of Israel and the Torah Throughout their history, Jews have lived under a succession of imperial powers, from Assyria and Babylonia to Persia and the Hellenistic kingdoms. Jews and Their Roman Rivals shows how the Roman Empire posed a unique challenge to Jewish thinkers such as Philo, Josephus, and the Palestinian rabbis, who both resisted and internalized Roman standards and imperial ideology. Katell Berthelot traces how, long before the empire became Christian, Jews came to perceive Israel and Rome as rivals competing for supremacy. Both considered their laws to be the most perfect ever written, and both believed they were a most pious people who had been entrusted with a divine mission to bring order and peace to the world. Berthelot argues that the rabbinic identification of Rome with Esau, Israel's twin brother, reflected this sense of rivalry. She discusses how this challenge transformed ancient Jewish ideas about military power and the use of force, law and jurisdiction, and membership in the people of Israel. Berthelot argues that Jewish thinkers imitated the Romans in some cases and proposed competing models in others. Shedding new light on Jewish thought in antiquity, Jews and Their Roman Rivals reveals how Jewish encounters with pagan Rome gave rise to crucial evolutions in the ways Jews conceptualized the Torah and conversion to Judaism.