Building Blocks Of Rabbinic Tradition

Preface

Introduction

The Documentary Foundation Of Rabbinic Culture

How Documents Relate And Why It Matters

Documents And Their Traits Form Analysis And The Documentary History Of Ideas

Extra- And Non-Documentary Writing In The Rabbinic Canon Of Late Antiquity

The Mishna’s Extra-Documentary Forms And Its Unpatterened Discourses

The Documentary Dimensions Of Talmudic Phenomenology

The Parable (Mashal) A Documentary Approach

Appendix: Bibliography Of Jacob Neusner

Additional Info
This 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.