LEADER 04869nam 2200805 a 450 001 9910779474503321 005 20200520144314.0 010 $a1-283-89816-0 010 $a0-8122-0694-0 024 7 $a10.9783/9780812206944 035 $a(CKB)2550000000707659 035 $a(OCoLC)824729216 035 $a(CaPaEBR)ebrary10642139 035 $a(SSID)ssj0000787242 035 $a(PQKBManifestationID)11501103 035 $a(PQKBTitleCode)TC0000787242 035 $a(PQKBWorkID)10812754 035 $a(PQKB)10746048 035 $a(MdBmJHUP)muse19132 035 $a(DE-B1597)449628 035 $a(OCoLC)979833939 035 $a(DE-B1597)9780812206944 035 $a(Au-PeEL)EBL3441804 035 $a(CaPaEBR)ebr10642139 035 $a(CaONFJC)MIL421066 035 $a(MiAaPQ)EBC3441804 035 $a(EXLCZ)992550000000707659 100 $a20120130d2012 uy 0 101 0 $aeng 135 $aurcn||||||||| 181 $ctxt 182 $cc 183 $acr 200 10$aTextual mirrors$b[electronic resource] $ereflexivity, Midrash, and the rabbinic self /$fDina Stein 205 $a1st ed. 210 $aPhiladelphia $cUniversity of Pennsylvania Press$dc2012 215 $a1 online resource (211 p.) 225 1 $aDivinations : rereading late ancient religion 300 $aBibliographic Level Mode of Issuance: Monograph 311 $a0-8122-4436-2 320 $aIncludes bibliographical references and index. 327 $t Frontmatter -- $tContents -- $tIntroduction -- $tChapter 1. Simon the Just and the Nazirite: Reflections of (Im)Possible Selves -- $tChapter 2. A King, a Queen, and the Discourse Between: The Riddle of Midrash -- $tChapter 3. The Blind Eye of the Beholder: Tall Tales, Travelogues, and Midrash -- $tChapter 4. Being There: Serah. bat Asher, Magical Language, and Rabbinic Textual Interpretation -- $tChapter 5. A Maidservant and Her Master's Voice: From Narcissism to Mimicry -- $tEpilogue: Midrash, Ruins, and Self-Reflexivity -- $tAppendix: bBava Batra 73a-75b -- $tNotes -- $tBibliography -- $tIndex -- $tAcknowledgments 330 $aAs they were entering Egypt, Abram glimpsed Sarai's reflection in the Nile River. Though he had been married to her for years, this moment is positioned in a rabbinic narrative as a revelation. "Now I know you are a beautiful woman," he says; at that moment he also knows himself as a desiring subject, and knows too to become afraid for his own life due to the desiring gazes of others.There are few scenes in rabbinic literature that so explicitly stage a character's apprehension of his or her own or another's literal reflection. Still, Dina Stein argues, the association of knowledge and reflection operates as a central element in rabbinic texts. Midrash explicitly refers to other texts; biblical texts are both reconstructed and taken apart in exegesis, and midrashic narrators are situated liminally with respect to the tales they tell. This inherent structural quality underlies the propensity of rabbinic literature to reflect or refer to itself, and the "self" that is the object of reflection is not just the narrator of a tale but a larger rabbinic identity, a coherent if polyphonous entity that emerges from this body of texts.Textual Mirrors draws on literary theory, folklore studies, and semiotics to examine stories in which self-reflexivity operates particularly strongly to constitute rabbinic identity through the voices of Simon the Just and a handsome shepherd, the daughter of Asher, the Queen of Sheba, and an unnamed maidservant. In Stein's readings, these self-reflexive stories allow us to go through the looking glass: where the text comments upon itself, it both compromises the unity of its underlying principles-textual, religious, and ideological-and confirms it. 410 0$aDivinations. 606 $aMidrash 606 $aRabbinical literature$xHistory and criticism 606 $aSelf-consciousness (Awareness)$xReligious aspects$xJudaism 606 $aReflection (Philosophy)$xReligious aspects$xJudaism 606 $aAuthority$xReligious aspects$xJudaism 606 $aRabbis$xOffice 610 $aCultural Studies. 610 $aJewish Studies. 610 $aLiterature. 610 $aReligion. 610 $aReligious Studies. 615 0$aMidrash. 615 0$aRabbinical literature$xHistory and criticism. 615 0$aSelf-consciousness (Awareness)$xReligious aspects$xJudaism. 615 0$aReflection (Philosophy)$xReligious aspects$xJudaism. 615 0$aAuthority$xReligious aspects$xJudaism. 615 0$aRabbis$xOffice. 676 $a296.1/406 700 $aStein$b Dina$01490618 801 0$bMiAaPQ 801 1$bMiAaPQ 801 2$bMiAaPQ 906 $aBOOK 912 $a9910779474503321 996 $aTextual mirrors$93712090 997 $aUNINA