1.

Record Nr.

UNINA9910787712003321

Autore

Vidas Moulie <1983->

Titolo

Tradition and the formation of the Talmud / / Moulie Vidas

Pubbl/distr/stampa

Princeton, New Jersey ; ; Oxfordshire, England : , : Princeton University Press, , 2014

©2014

ISBN

1-4008-5047-9

Edizione

[Core Textbook]

Descrizione fisica

1 online resource (251 p.)

Disciplina

296.1/25066

Soggetti

Talmud - History

Jewish law - Interpretation and construction

Lingua di pubblicazione

Inglese

Formato

Materiale a stampa

Livello bibliografico

Monografia

Note generali

Based on a thesis (Ph. D) Princeton University, 2009.

Nota di bibliografia

Includes bibliographical references and indexes.

Nota di contenuto

Front matter -- Contents -- A Note on Style Conventions -- Introduction -- Part I -- Chapter One. The Alterity of Tradition -- Chapter Two. The Division into Layers -- Chapter Three. Composition as Critique -- Part II -- Chapter Four. Scholars, Transmitters, and the Making of Talmud -- Chapter Five. The Debate about Recitation -- Chapter Six. Tradition and Vision -- Conclusion -- Acknowledgments -- Bibliography -- Source Index -- Subject Index

Sommario/riassunto

Tradition and the Formation of the Talmud offers a new perspective on perhaps the most important religious text of the Jewish tradition. It is widely recognized that the creators of the Talmud innovatively interpreted and changed the older traditions on which they drew. Nevertheless, it has been assumed that the ancient rabbis were committed to maintaining continuity with the past. Moulie Vidas argues on the contrary that structural features of the Talmud were designed to produce a discontinuity with tradition, and that this discontinuity was part and parcel of the rabbis' self-conception. Both this self-conception and these structural features were part of a debate within and beyond the Jewish community about the transmission of tradition. Focusing on the Babylonian Talmud, produced in the rabbinic academies of late ancient Mesopotamia, Vidas analyzes key passages to show how the Talmud's creators contrasted their own voice with that of their predecessors. He also examines Zoroastrian, Christian, and mystical



Jewish sources to reconstruct the debates and wide-ranging conversations that shaped the Talmud's literary and intellectual character.