The Legal Methodology of Late Nehardean Sages in Sasanian Babylonia


Book Description

Drawing on the scholasticism of the Late Nehardean amoraim, this book offers a comprehensive analysis of their halakhic/legal methodology, identity and dating. This analysis contributes to the scientific approach of the Bavli, and allows a better understanding of the development of Jewish Law.




The Anthology in Jewish Literature


Book Description

The anthology is a ubiquitous presence in Jewish literature--arguably its oldest literary genre, going back to the Bible itself, and including nearly all the canonical texts of Judaism: the Mishnah, the Talmud, classical midrash, and the prayerbook. In the Middle Ages, the anthology became the primary medium in Jewish culture for recording stories, poems, and interpretations of classical texts. In modernity, the genre is transformed into a decisive instrument for cultural retrieval and re-creation, especially in works of the Zionist project and in modern Yiddish and Hebrew literature. No less importantly, the anthology has played an indispensable role in the creation of significant fields of research in Jewish studies, including Hebrew poetry, folklore, and popular culture. This volume is the first book to bring together scholarly and critical essays that investigate the anthological character of these works and what might be called the "anthological habit" in Jewish literary culture--the tendency and proclivity for gathering together discrete, sometimes conflicting traditions and stories, and preserving them side by side as though there were no difference, conflict, or ambiguity between them. Indeed, The Anthology in Jewish Literature is the first book to recognize this habit and genre as one of the formative categories in Jewish literature and to investigate its manifold roles. The seventeen essays, each of which focuses on a specific literary work, many of them the great classics of Jewish tradition, consider such questions as: What are the many types of anthologies? How have anthologists, editors, even printers of anthologies been creative shapers of Jewish tradition and culture? What can we learn from their editorial practices? How have politics, gender, and class figured into the making of anthologies? What determinative role has the anthology played in creating the Jewish canon? How has the anthology served, especially in the modern period, to create and recreate Jewish culture. This landmark volume will interest educated laypersons as well as scholars in all areas of Jewish literature and culture, as well as students of world literature and cultural studies.




Talmudic Reasoning


Book Description

The development of explicit legal concepts and principles in rabbinic literature reflects rabbinic legal thought at its most creative and sophisticated, as many of these concepts and principles deal with abstract, metaphysical entities. In this study Leib Moscovitz systematically surveys the development and impact of abstraction and conceptualization in the various legal corpora of rabbinic literature, illustrating the critical and unique role that conceptualization plays in talmudic reasoning. He demonstrates how the analysis of rabbinic conceptualization can shed light on numerous important aspects of rabbinic scholarship, such as the character and development of rabbinic legal thought, techniques of rabbinic legal exegesis, rabbinic jurisprudence, and various philological and historical issues in rabbinics, such as the chronology of the anonymous stratum of the Babylonian Talmud. Rabbinic conceptualization, though unique in many respects, shares certain features with cognate disciplines, and this study utilizes these disciplines (mainly jurisprudence, cognitive psychology, and philosophy) to illuminate rabbinic conceptualization wherever relevant. The themes addressed in this study include the use of casuistics, generalization, and implicit conceptualization in the earlier strata of rabbinic literature, classification and legal definition, legal fictions, legal explanation, analogy and association, and the development and use of explicit legal concepts and principles in the later strata of rabbinic literature.




The Formation of the Talmud


Book Description

This book examines the talmudic writings, politics, and ideology of Y.I. Halevy (1847-1914), one of the most influential representatives of the pre-war eastern European Orthodox Jewish community. It analyzes Halevy’s historical model of the formation of the Babylonian Talmud, which, he argued, was edited by an academy of rabbis beginning in the fourth century and ending by the sixth century. Halevy's model also served as a blueprint for the rabbinic council of Agudath Israel, the Orthodox political body in whose founding he played a leading role. Foreword by Jay M. Harris, Harry Austryn Wolfson Professor of Jewish Studies at Harvard University and the author of How Do We Know This? Midrash and the Fragmentation of Modern Judaism, among other works.







Trial Stories in Jewish Antiquity


Book Description

Trial Stories in Jewish Antiquity is the first book to examine what early Jewish courtroom narratives can tell us about the capacity and limits of human justice. Drawing from affect theory and feminist legal thought, Chaya T. Halberstam offers original readings of some of the most famous trials in the ancient Jewish tradition.




ALWD Guide to Legal Citation


Book Description

p>Organizing legal citation into 40 thoroughly cogent and illustrated rules, the Guide is the ideal coursebook, supplement, or stand-alone reference for American legal citation. Students, law review staff, scholars, and practitioners can rely on the Guide 7E to provide precise citation rules for the full spectrum of legal sources, consistent with national standards. The clear explanations, examples, diagrams, and quick-reference tables in the Guide make teaching and researching legal citation efficient and stress-free for all. New to the Seventh Edition: Expanded and updated coverage of how to cite to the multitude of e-sources that practitioners and students use when conducting legal research in the real world today, including new and revised component diagrams and examples New appendix helps law review staff writers cross-reference the Guide’s citation rules with traditional legal citation standards Updated and revised Guide rules that are consistent with traditional legal citation standards Appendix 5 free online access to expanded list of periodical titles that can be updated frequently Appendix 2 free online access to coverage of local legal citation rules that can be updated frequently Professors and student will benefit from: Coverage of online media, such as e-books, listservs, forums, blogs, and social media Tips and directions for finding local rules Citing to case reporters, statutes, legislation, and regulations found on e-sources “Academic Formatting” icons note differences in citation style between academic legal writing and professional legal writing Fast Formats preview and refresh understanding of essential citation components Screenshots from electronic sources and snapshots of actual pages Sidebars explain the “why” of legal citations and how to avoid common errors Sample citation diagrams that illustrate the essential components of citation construction Cross-references within each rule connects content in other rules or in the Appendices Over 140 subsections with information not found in a traditional legal citation manual Detailed Appendices with abbreviations for use in citations and with information not found in other sources such as: Peer reviewed local court citation conventions, websites, and other resources Additional periodicals with full title abbreviations so writers do not have to memorize spacing rules to assemble abbreviations themselves Comprehensive rules for citing federal taxation materials




Introduction to the Talmud and Midrash


Book Description

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.




Babylonian Jews and Sasanian Imperialism in Late Antiquity


Book Description

Offers a radically new account of Babylonian Jewish and rabbinic engagement and negotiation with Sasanian rule.