Description
Book SynopsisNarrating the Law: A Poetics of Talmudic Legal Stories creates a new theoretical framework for considering the relationship between law and narrative, models a new method of studying Talmudic law, and fills out the picture of the cultural life of the rabbis who contributed to the Talmud.
Trade Review"Applying insights from literary criticism and sociology to the Talmud is no mean feat, but Wimpfheimer accomplishes this with elegance. . . . This is one of the most significant contributions to Talmudic scholarship in recent years, and it has great relevance for anyone interested in the application of contemporary critical theory to ancient texts." *
Jewish Book World *
"Well trained in the critical study of rabbinic literature and informed by previous philological scholarship as well as by critical theory, Wimpfheimer provides a model that has the potential to narrow the gap that has divided the two major vectors of rabbinic thinking, Halakhah and Aggadah, law and folklore. His exacting analysis of the literary genre of legal narrative puts this dichotomization into sharp relief." * Elliot R. Wolfson, New York University *
Table of ContentsIntroduction
Chapter 1. Privileging Legal Narrative: Resisting Code as the Image of Jewish Law
Chapter 2. Deconstructing Halakhah and Aggadah
Chapter 3. A Touch of the Rabbinic Real: Rabbis and Outsiders
Chapter 4. Social Dynamics of Pedagogy: Rabbis and Students
Chapter 5. Torah as Cultural Capital: Rabbis and Rabbis
Chapter 6. Lengthy Bavli Narratives: A New Theory of Reading
Conclusion
Notes
Bibliography
Index
Acknowledgments
