Neusner continues his criticism of recent scholarship on Judaism, naming names and addressing their work chapter and verse. Here he takes on Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz's 1989 The Talmud. The Steinsaltz Edition. A Reference Guide. He find misrepresentations that the Talmud has no formal external order, deals with all possible subjects in the world, is not written in a systematic fashion, and has an associative structure. No index or bibliography. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

This collection of systematic Auseinandersetzungen articulates difference and spells out what is at issue. Learning atrophies when political consensus substitutes for criticism, and when other than broadly-accepted viewpoints, approaches, and readings find a hearing only with difficulty, if at all. The editors therefore have invited colleagues systematically to outline their views in an Auseinandersetzung with contrary ones. The several participants explain how, in broad and sweeping terms, they see the state of learning in their areas of special interest. The editors invited leading players in the USA, Europe, and the State of Israel, in the study of ancient Judaism, both in Second Temple Times and after 70 C.E. The work commences with a thoroughly fresh perspective of a theoretical question: what, in a religion so concerned with social norms and public policy, can we possibly mean by "law" when we speak of law in Judaism. It then proceeds with two chapters on Second Temple Judaism, and two on the special subject of the Dead Sea library. The two papers in the present part provide an overview of matters and a systematic, critical account of the fading consensus, respectively. The next set of papers ought to stand as the definitive account of the diverse viewpoints on a basic question of method. Because of the willingness of contending parties to meet one another in a single frame of discourse, the work is able to portray with considerable breadth the presently-contending viewpoints concerning the use of Rabbinic literature for historical purposes. Then proceed a number of other accounts of how matters look from the perspective of major participants in scholarly debate. At the same time as the requirements of historical-critical reading of the Rabbinic literature precipitated sustained and vigorous debate, other problems have attracted attention. Among these a critical issue emerges in the hermeneutics to govern the reading of the documents for the purposes of other-than-historical study, feminist interests, for example.

The Talmud is important because it sets forth the law and theology of Judaism in its authoritative statement, continuing for centuries to attract commentators and forming the curriculum for the culture of Judaism. In these pages, important and representative compositions afford an encounter with this classic, ancient document in its own terms and framework, but in English translation. Examples include the following: Law: "An Eye for an Eye" Bavli Baba Qamma 8:1/83b-84b; "In the case of anything of which I am liable to take care, I am deemed to render possible whatever damage it may do" Bavli Baba Qamma 1:2/9b-11a; "He who steals food and feeds what he stole to his children, or left it to them Theology: "All Israel has a portion in the world to come" Bavli Sanhedrin 11:1-2/90a-92a; "When will the Messiah come?" Bavli Sanhedrin 11:1-2/96b-99a; "By that same measure by which a man metes out to others, with that measure do they mete out to him" Bavli Sotah 1:7-9/9b-14a Narratives: "The law concerning the usurping occupant: " Adapting to historical events, the destruction of the second Temple in particular Bavli Gittin 5:6/55B-57b; "My master in wisdom, and my disciple in accepting my rulings: " Resolving Conflict in the Law Bavli Rosh Hashanah 2:8-9/25A-25B

The canonical documents of Rabbinic Judaism impose upon most of their components fixed patterns of rhetoric, recurrent logic of coherent discourse, and a well-defined topic or program, for example, a commentary on a biblical book or on a legal topic. But some few compositions and composites of the Rabbinic canon of late antiquity diverge from the formal norms of the compilations in which they occur. In these pages, Neusner assembles anomalous compositions that occur in the Mishnah, Tosefta, four Tannaite Midrashim, and Genesis Rabbah, and he further tests the uniformity of the forms that govern in a familiar chapter of the Bavli. Neusner's surveys show for the documents probed here that some small segment of the composites and compositions of the surveyed documents does not conform to the indicative rules of rhetoric, topic, and logic. Consequently, we face the challenge of constructing models of lost documents of the Rabbinic canon, conforming to the models governing anomalous compositions. These follow other topical and rhetorical norms and therefore belong in other, different types of documents from those in which they now are located. These anomalous writings in topic, logic, or rhetoric (or all three) in theory reveal indicative characteristics other than the ones defining the compositions and composites of the documents in which they are now located.

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.

In 2004, Mayer Gruber?s landmark Rashi?s Commentary on Psalms made one of the 11th-century scholar?s most important works accessible to a larger audience for the first time. The JPS paperback edition of this exceptional volume includes the complete original Hebrew text and acclaimed linguist Mayer Gruber?s contemporary English translation and supercommentary. Fully annotated by Gruber, Rashi?s Commentary on Psalms places Rashi, the most influential Hebrew biblical commentator of all time, in the larger context of biblical exegesis. Gruber identifies Rashi?s sources, pinpoints the exegetical questions to which Rashi responds, defines the nuances of Rashi?s terminology, and guides the reader to use the English translation as a tool to access the original Hebrew text. Gruber?s extensive introduction takes a critical look at Rashi and his enduring legacy.

While in contemporary culture we tend to resort to a single, if broadly defined, range of discourse for the results of systematic thought about public matters of the social order, this is not the case in Rabbinic Judaism. Judaism's authoritative documents set forth the entire structure of belief and system of behavior in two distinct modes of discourse, Halakhic and Aggadic, or broadly construed, statements of law and lore. Theology in Action shows how the Talmud of Babylonia (a.k.a., the Bavli) account of normative action sets forth in a dual discourse the single, coherent theology of Rabbinic Judaism.

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.

Examines the history, philosophy and hermeneutics, and law and literature of formative Judaism.