The Open Past challenges a view of time that has dominated philosophical thought for the past two centuries. In that view, time originates from a relationship to the future, and the past can be only a fictitious beginning, the necessary phantom of a starting point, a chronological period of Gbefore. G This view of the past has permeated the study of the Talmud as well, resulting in the application of modern philosophical categories such as the Gthinking subject,G subjectivity, and temporality to the thinking displayed in the texts of the Talmud. The book seeks to reclaim the originary power and |