American Talmud

American Talmud PDF Author: Ezra Cappell
Publisher: State University of New York Press
ISBN: 0791479951
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 246

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Book Description
In American Talmud, Ezra Cappell redefines the genre of Jewish American fiction and places it squarely within the larger context of American literature. Cappell departs from the conventional approach of defining Jewish American authors solely in terms of their ethnic origins and sociological constructs, and instead contextualizes their fiction within the theological heritage of Jewish culture. By deliberately emphasizing historical and ethnographic links to religions, religious texts, and traditions, Cappell demonstrates that twentieth-century and contemporary Jewish American fiction writers have been codifying a new Talmud, an American Talmud, and argues that the literary production of Jews in America might be seen as one more stage of rabbinic commentary on the scriptural inheritance of the Jewish people.

American Talmud

American Talmud PDF Author: Ezra Cappell
Publisher: State University of New York Press
ISBN: 0791479951
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 246

Get Book Here

Book Description
In American Talmud, Ezra Cappell redefines the genre of Jewish American fiction and places it squarely within the larger context of American literature. Cappell departs from the conventional approach of defining Jewish American authors solely in terms of their ethnic origins and sociological constructs, and instead contextualizes their fiction within the theological heritage of Jewish culture. By deliberately emphasizing historical and ethnographic links to religions, religious texts, and traditions, Cappell demonstrates that twentieth-century and contemporary Jewish American fiction writers have been codifying a new Talmud, an American Talmud, and argues that the literary production of Jews in America might be seen as one more stage of rabbinic commentary on the scriptural inheritance of the Jewish people.

The Talmud and the Internet

The Talmud and the Internet PDF Author: Jonathan Rosen
Publisher: A&C Black
ISBN: 9780826455345
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 156

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Book Description
Examining the contradictions of his inheritance as a modern American and a Jew, the author blends memoir, religious history, and literary reflection while exploring the parallel between a page of the Talmud and the home page of a Web site, and reflects on the contrasting deaths of his American and European grandmothers.

Jews, Gentiles, and Other Animals

Jews, Gentiles, and Other Animals PDF Author: Mira Beth Wasserman
Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press
ISBN: 0812294084
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 327

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Book Description
In Jews, Gentiles, and Other Animals, Mira Beth Wasserman undertakes a close reading of Avoda Zara, arguably the Talmud's most scandalous tractate, to uncover the hidden architecture of this classic work of Jewish religious thought. She proposes a new way of reading the Talmud that brings it into conversation with the humanities, including animal studies, the new materialisms, and other areas of critical theory that have been reshaping the understanding of what it is to be a human being. Even as it comments on the the rabbinic laws that govern relations between Jews and non-Jews, Avoda Zara is also an attempt to reflect on what all people share in common, and on how humans fit into a larger universe of animals and things. As is typical of the Talmud in general, it proceeds by incorporating a vast and confusing array of apparently digressive materials, but Wasserman demonstrates that there is a whole greater than the sum of the parts, a sustained effort to explore human identity and difference. In centuries past, Avoda Zara has been a flashpoint in Jewish-Christian relations. It was partly due to its content that the Talmud was subject to burning and censorship by Christian authorities. Wasserman develops a twenty-first-century reading of the tractate that aims to reposition it as part of a broader quest to understand what connects human beings to each other and to the world around them.

Trans Talmud

Trans Talmud PDF Author: Max K. Strassfeld
Publisher: Univ of California Press
ISBN: 0520397398
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 261

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Book Description
Trans Talmud places eunuchs and androgynes at the center of rabbinic literature and asks what we can learn from them about Judaism and the project of transgender history. Rather than treating these figures as anomalies to be justified or explained away, Max K. Strassfeld argues that they profoundly shaped ideas about law, as the rabbis constructed intricate taxonomies of gender across dozens of texts to understand an array of cultural tensions. Showing how rabbis employed eunuchs and androgynes to define proper forms of masculinity, Strassfeld emphasizes the unique potential of these figures to not only establish the boundary of law but exceed and transform it. Trans Talmud challenges how we understand gender in Judaism and demonstrates that acknowledging nonbinary gender prompts a reassessment of Jewish literature and law.

Why Study Talmud in the Twenty-first Century?

Why Study Talmud in the Twenty-first Century? PDF Author: Paul Socken
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 9780739142004
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 270

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Book Description
Since religion in general and Judaism in particular are relevant in the twenty-first century, this book serves as an assessment of the Talmud's role in our religious and educational experience. This collection of essays demonstrates that the two-thousand-year-old Talmud remain...

Tradition and the Formation of the Talmud

Tradition and the Formation of the Talmud PDF Author: Moulie Vidas
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 069117086X
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 249

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Book Description
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.

The Wisdom of Judaism

The Wisdom of Judaism PDF Author: Rabbi Dov Peretz Elkins
Publisher: Turner Publishing Company
ISBN: 1580234771
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 186

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Book Description
Discover the Talmud and its universal values for all people. While the Hebrew Bible is the cornerstone of Judaism, it is the Talmud that provides many central values for living. The Talmud sets out specific guidelines and lyrical admonitions regarding many of life's ordinary events, and offers profound words of advice for life’s most intractable dilemmas. This accessible introduction to the Talmud explores the essence of Judaism through reflections on the words of the rabbinic sages, from one of American Judaism’s foremost teachers and writers, Rabbi Dov Peretz Elkins. Dr. Elkins provides fresh insight into ancient aphorisms and shows you how they can be applied to your life today. Topics include: Kindness through Giving, Welcoming and Sharing; Human Relationships; Personal Values; Family Values; Teaching and Learning; and Life’s Puzzles. Enlightening and inspiring, the values of the Talmud can be appreciated not just by Jews, but by anyone seeking a greater understanding of life and its mysteries.

Jesus in the Talmud

Jesus in the Talmud PDF Author: Peter Schäfer
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 1400827612
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 228

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Book Description
Scattered throughout the Talmud, the founding document of rabbinic Judaism in late antiquity, can be found quite a few references to Jesus--and they're not flattering. In this lucid, richly detailed, and accessible book, Peter Schäfer examines how the rabbis of the Talmud read, understood, and used the New Testament Jesus narrative to assert, ultimately, Judaism's superiority over Christianity. The Talmudic stories make fun of Jesus' birth from a virgin, fervently contest his claim to be the Messiah and Son of God, and maintain that he was rightfully executed as a blasphemer and idolater. They subvert the Christian idea of Jesus' resurrection and insist he got the punishment he deserved in hell--and that a similar fate awaits his followers. Schäfer contends that these stories betray a remarkable familiarity with the Gospels--especially Matthew and John--and represent a deliberate and sophisticated anti-Christian polemic that parodies the New Testament narratives. He carefully distinguishes between Babylonian and Palestinian sources, arguing that the rabbis' proud and self-confident countermessage to that of the evangelists was possible only in the unique historical setting of Persian Babylonia, in a Jewish community that lived in relative freedom. The same could not be said of Roman and Byzantine Palestine, where the Christians aggressively consolidated their political power and the Jews therefore suffered. A departure from past scholarship, which has played down the stories as unreliable distortions of the historical Jesus, Jesus in the Talmud posits a much more deliberate agenda behind these narratives.

The Talmud

The Talmud PDF Author: Barry Scott Wimpfheimer
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 0691209227
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 313

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Book Description
The Babylonian Talmud, a postbiblical Jewish text that is part scripture and part commentary, is an unlikely bestseller. Written in a hybrid of Hebrew and Aramaic, it is often ambiguous to the point of incomprehension, and its subject matter reflects a narrow scholasticism that should hardly have broad appeal. Yet the Talmud has remained in print for centuries and is more popular today than ever. Barry Scott Wimpfheimer tells the remarkable story of this ancient Jewish book and explains why it has endured for almost two millennia.0Providing a concise biography of this quintessential work of rabbinic Judaism, Wimpfheimer takes readers from the Talmud's prehistory in biblical and second-temple Judaism to its present-day use as a source of religious ideology, a model of different modes of rationality, and a totem of cultural identity. He describes the book's origins and structure, its centrality to Jewish law, its mixed reception history, and its golden renaissance in modernity. He explains why reading the Talmud can feel like being swept up in a river or lost in a maze, and why the Talmud has come to be venerated--but also excoriated and maligned-in the centuries since it first appeared.0An incomparable introduction to a work of literature that has lived a full and varied life, this accessible book shows why the Talmud is at once a received source of traditional teachings, a touchstone of cultural authority, and a powerful symbol of Jewishness for both supporters and critics.

The Complete Idiot's Guide to the Talmud

The Complete Idiot's Guide to the Talmud PDF Author: Aaron Parry
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 1440696179
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 372

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Book Description
An insightful look at one of the most unusual written works ever created. Compiled centuries ago by a group of wise men as a way to preserve the oral traditions of the Jewish faith, the Talmud has challenged and thrilled some of the world’s greatest minds with its complex approach to exploring ideas and subjects from virtually every possible angle. This essential guide makes the ancient text of the “oral Torah” accessible for all readers, whether they’re Jewish or not. In this Complete Idiot’s Guide®, you get. • An examination of Talmudic logic and debate. • Discussion of how science and medicine relate to Talmudic philosophies. • Description of proper behavior and conduct as expected within Talmudic lifestyle. • The significance of seeds and blessings found in the Talmud.