Three Questions of Formative Judaism

Three Questions of Formative Judaism

Author: Jacob Neusner

Publisher: BRILL

Published: 2021-10-01

Total Pages: 286

ISBN-13: 9004494197

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The academic study of Judaism requires a systematic inquiry into the history, literature, and religion—and eventually the theology—as revealed in the historical documents themselves. Under this premise, Three Questions of Formative Judaism encounters the canonical writings of Judaism in the context of their creation at a certain time and place. How something is said thus becomes as important as what is said. Bringing nearly fifty years of research to bear on these fundamental questions, Jacob Neusner challenges his readers to face the difficult, often unasked or neglected questions about the nature, background, and purposes of Rabbinic Judaism and rewards them with an enriched understanding and a stronger foundation for tackling the even more elusive questions concerning the theology of formative Judaism. This publication has also been published in paperback, please click here for details.


Rabbinic Narrative: A Documentary Perspective, Volume Three

Rabbinic Narrative: A Documentary Perspective, Volume Three

Author: Jacob Neusner

Publisher: BRILL

Published: 2021-11-22

Total Pages: 354

ISBN-13: 9004494545

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Each Rabbinic document, from the Mishnah through the Bavli, defines itself by a unique combination of indicative traits of rhetoric, topic, and particular logic that governs its coherent discourse. But narratives in the same canonical compilations do not conform to the documentary indicators that govern in these compilations, respectively. They form an anomaly for the documentary reading of the Rabbinic canon of the formative age. To remove that anomaly, this project classifies the types and forms of narratives and shows that particular documents exhibit distinctive preferences among those types. This detailed, systematic classification of Rabbinic narrative supplies these facts concerning the classification of narratives and their regularities: [1] what are the types and forms of narrative in a given document? [2] how are these distinctive types and forms of narrative distributed across the canonical documents of the formative age, the first six centuries C.E.? The answers for the documentary preferences are in Volumes One through Three, for the Mishnah-Tosefta, the Tannaite Midrash-compilations, and Rabbah-Midrash-compilations, respectively. Volume Four then sets forth the documentary history of each of the types of Rabbinic narrative, including the authentic narrative, the ma'aseh and the mashal. How the traits of the several types of narratives shift as the respective types move from document to document is spelled out in complete detail. This project opens an entirely new road toward the documentary analysis of Rabbinic narrative. It fills out an important chapter in the documentary hypothesis of the Rabbinic canon in the formative age.


The Documentary History of Judaism and Its Recent Interpreters

The Documentary History of Judaism and Its Recent Interpreters

Author: Jacob Neusner

Publisher: University Press of America

Published: 2012-07-10

Total Pages: 263

ISBN-13: 0761849793

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The result for the history of Judaism of a documentary reading of the Rabbinic canonical sources illustrates the working of that hypothesis. It is the first major outcome of that hypothesis, but there are other implications, and a variety of new problems emerge from time to time as the work proceeds. In the recent past, Neusner has continued to explore special problems of the documentary hypothesis of the Rabbinic canon. At the same time, Neusner notes, others join in the discussion that have produced important and ambitious analyses of the thesis and its implications. Here, Neuser has collected some of the more ambitious ventures into the hypothesis and its current recapitulations. Neusner begins with the article written by Professor William Scott Green for the Encyclopaedia Judaica second edition, as Green places the documentary hypothesis into the context of Neusner's entire oeuvre. Neuser then reproduces what he regards as the single most successful venture of the documentary hypothesis, contrasting between the Mishnah's and the Talmuds' programs for the social order of Israel, the doctrines of economics, politics, and philosophy set forth in those documents, respectively. Then come the two foci of discourse: Halakhah or normative law and Aggadah or normative theology. Professors Bernard Jackson of the University of Manchester, England and Mayer Gruber of Ben Gurion University of the Negev treat the Halakhic program that Neusner has devised, and Kevin Edgecomb of the University of California, Berkeley, has produced a remarkable summary of the theological system Neusner discerns in the Aggadic documents. Neusner concludes with a review of a book by a critic of the documentary hypothesis.


Rabbinic Narrative: A Documentary Perspective, Volume One

Rabbinic Narrative: A Documentary Perspective, Volume One

Author: Jacob Neusner

Publisher: BRILL

Published: 2003-07-01

Total Pages: 350

ISBN-13: 9047402200

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Each Rabbinic document, from the Mishnah through the Bavli, defines itself by a unique combination of indicative traits of rhetoric, topic, and particular logic that governs its coherent discourse. But narratives in the same canonical compilations do not conform to the documentary indicators that govern in these compilations, respectively. They form an anomaly for the documentary reading of the Rabbinic canon of the formative age. To remove that anomaly, this project classifies the types and forms of narratives and shows that particular documents exhibit distinctive preferences among those types. This detailed, systematic classification of Rabbinic narrative supplies these facts concerning the classification of narratives and their regularities: [1] what are the types and forms of narrative in a given document? [2] how are these distinctive types and forms of narrative distributed across the canonical documents of the formative age, the first six centuries C.E.? The answers for the documentary preferences are in Volumes One through Three, for the Mishnah-Tosefta, the Tannaite Midrash-compilations, and Rabbah-Midrash-compilations, respectively. Volume Four then sets forth the documentary history of each of the types of Rabbinic narrative, including the authentic narrative, the ma'aseh and the mashal. How the traits of the several types of narratives shift as the respective types move from document to document is spelled out in complete detail. This project opens an entirely new road toward the documentary analysis of Rabbinic narrative. It fills out an important chapter in the documentary hypothesis of the Rabbinic canon in the formative age.


Rabbinic Narrative: A Documentary Perspective, Volume Four

Rabbinic Narrative: A Documentary Perspective, Volume Four

Author: Jacob Neusner

Publisher: BRILL

Published: 2021-11-22

Total Pages: 304

ISBN-13: 9004493921

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Each Rabbinic document, from the Mishnah through the Bavli, defines itself by a unique combination of indicative traits of rhetoric, topic, and particular logic that governs its coherent discourse. But narratives in the same canonical compilations do not conform to the documentary indicators that govern in these compilations, respectively. They form an anomaly for the documentary reading of the Rabbinic canon of the formative age. To remove that anomaly, this project classifies the types and forms of narratives and shows that particular documents exhibit distinctive preferences among those types. This detailed, systematic classification of Rabbinic narrative supplies these facts concerning the classification of narratives and their regularities: [1] what are the types and forms of narrative in a given document? [2] how are these distinctive types and forms of narrative distributed across the canonical documents of the formative age, the first six centuries C.E.? The answers for the documentary preferences are in Volumes One through Three, for the Mishnah-Tosefta, the Tannaite Midrash-compilations, and Rabbah-Midrash-compilations, respectively. Volume Four then sets forth the documentary history of each of the types of Rabbinic narrative, including the authentic narrative, the ma'aseh and the mashal. How the traits of the several types of narratives shift as the respective types move from document to document is spelled out in complete detail. This project opens an entirely new road toward the documentary analysis of Rabbinic narrative. It fills out an important chapter in the documentary hypothesis of the Rabbinic canon in the formative age.


Jacob Neusner on Religion

Jacob Neusner on Religion

Author: Aaron W Hughes

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2015-11-19

Total Pages: 133

ISBN-13: 1317363086

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Jacob Neusner was a prolific and innovative contributor to the study of religion for over fifty years. A scholar of rabbinic Judaism, Neusner regarded Jewish texts as data to address larger questions in the academic study of religion that he helped to formulate. Jacob Neusner on Religion offers the first full critical assessment of his thought on the subject of religion. Aaron W. Hughes delineates the stages of Neusner’s career and provides an overview of Neusner’s personal biography and critical reception. This book is essential reading for students and scholars interested in Neusner specifically, or in the history of Religious Studies, Jewish Studies, and philosophy of religion more broadly.


Jacob Neusner

Jacob Neusner

Author: Aaron W. Hughes

Publisher: NYU Press

Published: 2016-09-13

Total Pages: 333

ISBN-13: 1479885851

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Biography: Neusner is a social commentator, a post-Holocaust theologian, and an outspoken political figure. Jacob Neusner (born 1932) is one of the most important figures in the shaping of modern American Judaism. He was pivotal in transforming the study of Judaism from an insular project only conducted by—and of interest to—religious adherents to one which now flourishes in the secular setting of the university. He is also one of the most colorful, creative, and difficult figures in the American academy. But even those who disagree with Neusner’s academic approach to ancient rabbinic texts have to engage with his pioneering methods. In this comprehensive biography, Aaron Hughes shows Neusner to be much more than a scholar of rabbinics. He is a social commentator, a post-Holocaust theologian, and was an outspoken political figure during the height of the cultural wars of the 1980s. Neusner’s life reflects the story of what happened as Jews migrated to the suburbs in the late 1940s, daring to imagine new lives for themselves as they successfully integrated into the fabric of American society. It is also the story of how American Jews tried to make sense of the world in the aftermath of the extermination of European Jewry and the subsequent creation of the State of Israel in 1948, and how they sought to define what it meant to be an American Jew. Unlike other great American Jewish thinkers, Neusner was born in the U.S., and his Judaism was informed by an American ethos. His Judaism is open, informed by and informing the world. It is an American Judaism, one that has enabled American Jews—the freest in history—to be fully American and fully Jewish.


First Century Galilee

First Century Galilee

Author: Bradley W. Root

Publisher: Mohr Siebeck

Published: 2014-10-17

Total Pages: 264

ISBN-13: 9783161534898

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This dissertation argues against the widespread belief among current scholars that Galilee experienced extensive Hellenization, rapid urbanization, and a socio-economic crisis in the first-century C.E. as a result of major socio-economic changes initiated by Herod the Great and his successors. My research indicates that earlier studies allowed the textual evidence to have an undue influence on the way that scholars interpret the archaeological evidence, and vice-versa. Unlike previous studies on Early Roman Galilee, the dissertation begins by attempting to interpret each source for the region individually and without recourse to other sources. After establishing what each source says on its own about Galilee, the dissertation analyzes the data as a whole and offers a reconstruction of Galilean society in the first-century C.E. that better reflects the available evidence. The major findings are that the region was politically stable until the Great Revolt of 66 C.E., that the region was much less Hellenized than some prominent scholars claim, that the urbanization process initiated by Herod Antipas had less of a negative immediate impact on Galilean society than modern scholars usually assume, and that Galilee was not experiencing any unusual or severe socio-economic problems prior to the revolt.


Challenging Colonial Discourse

Challenging Colonial Discourse

Author:

Publisher: BRILL

Published: 2005

Total Pages: 600

ISBN-13: 9004119620

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This first comprehensive analysis of the relationship between Jewish Studies and Protestant theology in Wilhelmine Germany challenges accepted opinions and contributes to a differentiated image of Jewish intellectual history as well as Jewish-Christian relations before the Holocaust.


Aposynagōgos and the Historical Jesus in John

Aposynagōgos and the Historical Jesus in John

Author: Jonathan Bernier

Publisher: BRILL

Published: 2013-09-12

Total Pages: 182

ISBN-13: 9004257799

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In Aposynagōgos and the Historical Jesus in John, Jonathan Bernier utilizes the critical-realist hermeneutics developed by Bernard Lonergan and Ben F. Meyer to survey historical data relevant to the Johannine expulsion passages (John 9:22, 12:42, 16:2). He evaluates the major two contemporary interpretative traditions regarding these passages, namely that they describe not events of Jesus’ lifetime but rather the implementation of the Birkat ha-Minim in the first first-century, or that they describe not historical events at all but serve only to construct Johannine identity. Against both traditions Bernier argues that these passages plausibly describe events that could have happened during Jesus’ lifetime.