عنوان

The Humanity of the Talmud:

شماره

TL9x6842c5

زبان متن نوشتاري يا گفتاري و مانند آن

انگلیسی

عنوان اصلي

The Humanity of the Talmud:

نام عام مواد

[Thesis]

نام نخستين پديدآور

Wasserman, Mira Beth

عنوان اصلي به قلم نويسنده ديگر

Reading for Ethics in Bavli 'Avoda Zara

نام ساير پديدآوران

Boyarin, Daniel

نام ناشر، پخش کننده و غيره

UC Berkeley

تاریخ نشرو بخش و غیره

2014

کسي که مدرک را اعطا کرده

UC Berkeley

امتياز متن

2014

متن يادداشت

In this dissertation, I argue that there is an ethical dimension to the Babylonian Talmud, and that literary analysis is the approach best suited to uncover it. Paying special attention to the discursive forms of the Talmud, I show how juxtapositions of narrative and legal dialectics cooperate in generating the Talmud's distinctive ethics, which I characterize as an attentiveness to the "exceptional particulars" of life. To demonstrate the features and rewards of a literary approach, I offer a sustained reading of a single tractate from the Babylonian Talmud, Avoda Zara (AZ). AZ and other talmudic discussions about non-Jews offer a rich resource for considerations of ethics because they are centrally concerned with constituting social relationships and with examining aspects of human experience that exceed the domain of Jewish law. AZ investigates what distinguishes Jews from non-Jews, what Jews and non-Jews share in common, and what it means to be a human being. I read AZ as a cohesive literary work unified by the overarching project of examining the place of humanity in the cosmos. The talmudic materials are organized as a journey down the cosmic chain of being, from the supernal realm of souls and spirit, to the material world of embodied, animal existence, to the inanimate domain of physical objects. In tracing this descent, I discover in AZ the outlines of a rabbinic anthropology that affirms the common humanity of Jews and non-Jews, and highlights the role of Jewish law in constituting Jewish difference. As I make my way through AZ, I bring the talmudic text into dialogue with critical insights and issues from philosophy and literary theory. Pointing to ways that the editors of AZ engage the philosophic currents of their time, I challenge the prevailing characterization of the Bavli editors as inwardly focused. Even more important, I explore how AZ engages the critical questions of our time--questions of identity and alterity, of universalism and particularism, of justice and community.

مستند نام اشخاص تاييد نشده

Wasserman, Mira Beth

مستند نام اشخاص تاييد نشده

Boyarin, Daniel

مستند نام تنالگان تاييد نشده

UC Berkeley

نام الکترونيکي

فرمت انتشار

p

نوع ماده

[Thesis]

کد کاربرگه

276903

سطح دسترسي

a

تكميل شده

Y