Narrative and Document in the Rabbinic Canon

Jacob Neusner

doi:10.5771/9780761852124

Summary

The author states in his preface: For a thousand years, from its earliest documents of the second century to the High Middle Ages, Rabbinic Judaism preferred to compose and collect anecdotes, not to construct of them sustained and connected biographies. This is a study of the inclusion of biographical narratives about sages in some of the components of the unfolding canon of Rabbinic Judaism in the formative age, the documents of the first six centuries C.E., exclusive of the two Talmuds. A sage here is defined as a man who embodies the Rabbinic system. A sage-story, then, is an anecdote about the life and deeds of a Rabbinic sage. A biographical narrative in general is the record of things done on a concrete and specific past-tense occasion by named individuals. The stories are not told as part of a sustained biographical account of those individuals' lives, birth to death. I am able in this way to correlate the unfolding of the authorized biography in the counterpart-Christian one. The documentary hypothesis yields the correlation between the advent of the Christian authorized biography and the advent of the sage-story in the later documents of the Rabbinic canon.

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Bibliographic data

Copyright year: 2010
ISBN-Print: 978-0-7618-5211-7
ISBN-Online: 978-0-7618-5212-4
Publisher: Hamilton Books, Lanham
Language: English
Pages: 307
Product type: Book Titles

1. Table of Contents No access
2. Preface No access
1. I: The Anecdotal setting for an exchange of opinions No access
2. II: Biographical Composites No access
3. III: The Anecdote and its Analysis No access
4. IV: Relationships among sages and between Sage and Women and other Common Folk, Sage and King. Sage and Patriarch. Sage and Roman Emperor No access
1. I: The Yerushalmi's Anecdotal setting for an exchange of opinions No access
2. II: The Yerushalmi's Biographical Composites No access
3. III: The Yerushalmi's Topical Composites No access
4. IV: The Yerushalmi's Anecdote and its Analysis No access
5. V: Relationships among sages and between Sage and Women and other Common Folk, Sage and King. Sage and Patriarch. Sage and Roman Emperor No access
6. VI: Narrative and Document in the Yerushalmi No access
1. I: The Bavli's Anecdotal setting for an exchange of opinions No access
2. II: The Bavli's Biographical Composites No access
3. III: The Bavli's Topical Composites No access
4. IV: The Bavli's Anecdote and its analysis No access
5. V: Relationships among sages and between Sage and Women and other Common Folk, Sage and King. Sage and Patriarch. Sage and Roman Emperor No access
6. VI: Narrative and Document in the Bavli No access
1. I: The Yerushalmi and the Bavli No access
2. II: The Yerushalmi, the Bavli, and the Mishnah No access
3. III: The Yerushalmi, the Bavli, and Tractate Abot and the Tosefta No access
4. IV: The Yerushalmi, the Bavli, and: Mekhilta Attributed to R. Ishmael, Sifra, Sifré to Numbers, Sifré to Deuteronomy, and Sifré Zuta No access
5. V: The Yerushalmi, the Bavli, and Genesis Rabbah No access
6. VI: The Yerushalmi, the Bavli, and Leviticus Rabbah and Pesiqta Derab Kahana No access
7. VII: The Yerushalmi, the Bavli, and Song of Songs Rabbah No access
8. VIII: The Yerushalmi, the Bavli, and Esther Rabbah I No access
9. IV: The Yerushalmi, the Bavli, and Ruth Rabbah No access
10. X: The Yerushalmi, the Bavli, and Lamentations Rabbah No access
11. XI: The Yerushalmi, the Bavli, and Abot Der. Natan No access
12. XII: Conclusion No access
1. I: Yerushalmi Berakhot No access
2. II: Yerushalmi Peah No access
3. III: Yerushalmi Demai No access
4. IV: Yerushalmi Kilayim No access
5. V: Yerushalmi Shebiit No access
6. VI: Yerushalmi Terumot No access
7. VII: Yerushalmi Shabbat No access
8. VIII: Yerushalmi Yoma No access
9. IX: Yerushalmi Besah No access
10. X: Yerushalmi Taanit No access
11. XI: Yerushalmi Hagigah No access
12. XII: Yerushalmi Moed Qatan No access
13. XIII: Yerushalmi Ketubot No access
14. XIV: Yerushalmi Sheqalim No access
15. XV: Yerushalmi Qiddushin No access
16. XVI: Yerushalmi Sotah No access
17. XVII: Yerushalmi Sanhedrin No access
18. XVIII: Yerushalmi Abodah Zarah No access
1. I: Bavli Berakhot No access
2. II: Bavli Shabbat No access
3. III: Bavli Erubin No access
4. IV: Bavli Pesahim No access
5. V: Bavli Yoma No access
6. VI: Bavli Sukkah No access
7. VII: Bavli Besah No access
8. VIII: Bavli Taanit No access
9. IX: Bavli Megillah No access
10. X: Bavli Moed Qatan No access
11. XI: Bavli Hagigah No access
12. XII: Bavli Ketubot No access
13. XIII: Bavli Nedarim No access
14. XIV: Bavli Gittin No access
15. XV: Bavli Qiddushin No access
16. XVI: Bavli Baba Qamma No access
17. XVII: Bavli Baba Mesia No access
18. XVIII: Bavli Baba Batra No access
19. XIX: Bavli Sanhedrin No access
20. XX: Bavli Horayot No access
21. XXI: Bavli Abodah Zarah No access
22. XXII: Bavli Menahot No access
23. XXIII: Bavli Hullin No access