Description
Book SynopsisThis book responds to a question that came to the author from Professor Maren Niehoff of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem: ''Have you written a simple introduction to your documentary theory and method, which can serve as a starting point for my students?'' In this book are gathered eight of the more fundamental items of documentary theory and practice_three in theory, five in practice_for Professor Neihoff''s students and anyone else who takes an interest in the formative history of Judaism. The documentary thesis of Rabbinic literature holds that the document_the Mishnah, Sifra, Lamentations, Rabbah, the Bavli, for example_forms the basic building block of the Rabbinic tradition. Excluded by that definition are sayings attributed to, and stories told about, named sages. These cannot serve in the reconstruction of the Rabbinic tradition, its literature, history, religion, and theology.
Trade ReviewThis book clearly sets out in user-friendly fashion the principles underlying the vast research programme which has occupied Neusner for so many years. Students will certainly welcome, and benefit from, this compliation, which presents the reader with a carefully judged combination of theoretical discussion and worked examples of texts. Spring 2009
Table of ContentsPart 1 Preface Chapter 2 Introduction Chapter 3 The Documentary Foundation of Rabbinic Culture Chapter 4 How Documents Relate and Why It Matters Chapter 5 Documents and Their Traits Form Analysis and the Documentary History of Ideas Chapter 6 Extra- and Non-Documentary Writing in the Rabbinic Canon of Late Antiquity Chapter 7 The Mishna's Extra-Documentary Forms and Its Unpatterened Discourses Chapter 8 The Documentary Dimensions of Talmudic Phenomenology Chapter 9 The Parable (Mashal) A Documentary Approach Part 10 Appendix: Bibliography of Jacob Neusner
