Stories of the Law: Narrative Discourse and the Construction of Authority in the Mishnah

ISBN-13: 9780199773732 / Angielski / Twarda / 2012 / 304 str.

Moshe Simon-Shoshan

Opis

Moshe Simon-Shoshan offers a groundbreaking study of Jewish law (halakhah) and rabbinic story-telling. Focusing on the Mishnah, the foundational text of halakhah, he argues that narrative was essential in early rabbinic formulations and concepts of law, legal process, and political and religious authority.Simon-Shoshan first sets out a theoretical framework for considering the role of narrative in the Mishnah. Drawing on a wide range of disciplines, including narrative theory, Semitic linguistics, and comparative legal studies, he argues that law and narrative are inextricably intertwined in the Mishnah. Narrative is central to the way in which the Mishnah transmits law and ideas about jurisprudence. Furthermore, the Mishnah's stories are the locus around which the authority of the rabbis assupreme arbiters of Jewish law is both constructed and critiqued. In the second half of the book, Simon-Shoshan applies these ideas to close readings of individual Mishnaic stories. Among these stories are some of the most famous narratives in rabbinic literature, including those of Honi the Circle-drawer and R. Gamliel's Yom Kippur confrontation with R. Joshua. In each instance, Simon-Shoshan elucidates the legal, political, theological, and human elements of the story and places them in the wider context of the book's arguments about law, narrative, andrabbinic authority.Stories of the Law presents an original and forceful argument for applying literary theory to legal texts, challenging the traditional distinctions between law and literature that underlie much contemporary scholarship.

Recenzje

Moshe Simon-Shoshan offers an entirely fresh approach to the study of the Mishnah by concentrating on the literary form in which law is formulated. His analysis of legal texts as narrative and of Mishnaic stories as law finally breaks down the barriers erected by generations of scholars between halakhah and aggadah and between the Mishnah as authoritative law code or dialogic collection. Simon-Shoshan's book is informed by a wide variety of perspectives, from legal and literary theory to the historical method, all presented in a style of writing that is extremely clear and accessible. The result is a nuanced, methodologically diverse, and highly readable contribution to the field.

O autorze

Adjunct Lecturer, Rothberg School for Overseas Students, Hebrew University