The Vitality of Rabbinic Imagination


Book Description

Assessed against comparable documents of Scripture and the Qumran library, the Mishnah shows itself as a triumph of imagination. It exhibits remarkable capacity to think in new and astonishing ways about familiar things. This study compares the Mishnah to four biblical codes and two codes found among the Dead Sea Scrolls. The comparison provides perspective upon the uniqueness of the Mishnah in its Israelite context of Scripture and tradition. Linked to Scripture and in dialogue with Scripture, the Mishnah struck out in new paths altogether from those set forth by Scripture's codes and those that imitated them. The capacity to think in fresh ways about the Scripture's own imperatives and their implications attests to the validity of Rabbinic imagination that reaches concrete expression in the Mishnah, a triumph of reconstruction and creative recapitulation.




Is Scripture the Origin of the Halakhah?


Book Description

The Halakhah constitutes a coherent construction comprised by category-formations defined by topics purposively amplified. These category-formations everywhere pursue a cogent analytical program, addressing diverse subjects, treated systematically, a single set of questions of definition and analysis. Is Scripture the origin of the Halakhic system, which defines the norms of Judaism? At stake is not the starting point of discrete bits of legal data. At issue is the origin of the comprehensive structure comprised by the Halakhic category-formations, by these topics and no others. Scripture forms the natural starting point for any inquiry into the origins of Judaism. So it is quite natural to treat Scripture as the base-line and the Halakhic category-formations as the variable when seeking the origin of the system. But what happens when, as in this project, we treat the system as the base-line and Scripture as the variable? Then we see that the Halakhic system viewed as a coherent statement does not originate in Scripture. Important parts of that statement do, important parts do not. But the system viewed whole does not.







Contours of Coherence in Rabbinic Judaism


Book Description

Part one of a three part set of monographs on the coherence of Rabbinic Judaism in its literature: In the Rabbinic literature of late antiquity disputes and alternative interpretations of a common datum form a medium of expressing coherence. The print edition is available as a set of two volumes (9789004142312).




A Theological Commentary to the Midrash: Lamentations Rabbati


Book Description

This theological commentary to the Rabbinic Midrash explores a simple proposition, in three parts: I. The reading of Scripture by principal parts of the Rabbinic Midrash is formed by compositions and composites that are animated by a cogent theological system. II. These primary components of the Midrash-compilations, further, are in part aimed at systematic demonstrations of theorems of a theological character. III. While forming a principal part of a large theological structure and system, each document is unique.




A Theological Commentary to the Midrash: Leviticus Rabbah


Book Description

This theological commentary to the Rabbinic Midrash explores a simple proposition, in three parts. I. The reading of Scripture by principal parts of the Rabbinic Midrash is formed by compositions and composites that are animated by a cogent theological system. II. These primary components of the Midrash-compilations, further, are in part aimed at systematic demonstrations of theorems of a theological character. III. While forming a principal part of a large theological structure and system, each document is unique. This commentary in its concluding chapter presents what is common to the animating theology of Rabbinic Judaism in all its documentary components and what is unique to Leviticus Rabbah.




A Theological Commentary to the Midrash: Song of Songs Rabbah


Book Description

This theological commentary to the Rabbinic Midrash explores a simple proposition, in three parts. I. The reading of Scripture by principal parts of the Rabbinic Midrash is formed by compositions and composites that are animated by a cogent theological system. II. These primary components of the Midrash-compilations, further, are in part aimed at systematic demonstrations of theorems of a theological character. III. While forming a principal part of a large theological structure and system, each document is unique. This commentary in its concluding chapter presents what is common to the animating theology of Rabbinic Judaism in all its documentary components and what is unique to Song of Songs Rabbah.




Dual Discourse, Single Judaism


Book Description

The dual discourse tells a continuous story."--BOOK JACKET.