عنوان

"In the west, they laughed at him:

LA116084

انگلیسی

"In the west, they laughed at him:

[Article]

" The mocking realists of the Babylonian Talmud

Christine Hayes

Leiden

Brill | Nijhoff

In the present article I examine the rhetorical function of the phrase "in the west [the Land of Israel], they laughed at him/it" found in dialectical halakhic contexts in the Babylonian Talmud. I argue that the literary motif of "mocking westerners" allows Babylonian rabbinic authors/redactors to voice reservations about the nominalist or anti-realist orientation of some rabbinic legal interpretation as seen in the use of legal fictions, contrary-to-fact presumptions and judgments, a high degree of intentionalism, and acontextual interpretive techniques. The ability of Babylonian rabbinic authors/redactors to depict the rabbis' nominalist approach as the object of mockery by various external and, in this case, internal others indicates a high degree of rabbinic self-awareness regarding legal interpretative assumptions and methods. The paper concludes by suggesting that rabbinic nominalism flows from a distinctive and somewhat scandalous rabbinic understanding of divine law-one that self-consciously rejects an ideal of divine law that assumes its truth and verisimilitude. In the present article I examine the rhetorical function of the phrase "in the west [the Land of Israel], they laughed at him/it" found in dialectical halakhic contexts in the Babylonian Talmud. I argue that the literary motif of "mocking westerners" allows Babylonian rabbinic authors/redactors to voice reservations about the nominalist or anti-realist orientation of some rabbinic legal interpretation as seen in the use of legal fictions, contrary-to-fact presumptions and judgments, a high degree of intentionalism, and acontextual interpretive techniques. The ability of Babylonian rabbinic authors/redactors to depict the rabbis' nominalist approach as the object of mockery by various external and, in this case, internal others indicates a high degree of rabbinic self-awareness regarding legal interpretative assumptions and methods. The paper concludes by suggesting that rabbinic nominalism flows from a distinctive and somewhat scandalous rabbinic understanding of divine law-one that self-consciously rejects an ideal of divine law that assumes its truth and verisimilitude.

2013

137-167

Journal of Law, Religion and State

2/2

2212-4810

interpretation

nominalism

realism

reflexivity

Christine Hayes

10.1163/22124810-00202002

p

[Article]

275578

a

Y