This work follows the single tractate, Moed Qatan, in its passage through the principal documents of formative Judaism_the Mishnah (200 C.E.), Tosefta (300 C.E.), Yerushalmi (400 C.E.), and Bavli (600 C.E.). Author Jacob Neusner presents a systematic account of the Halakhah in its documentary unfolding from beginning to end. In acute detail, the study illustrates the comparison between the documents by showing each individual document's treatment of the same topic.

Facing a vast corpus of facts, the heirs of the Mishnah adopted analytical templates that transcended details and transformed the Mishnah's collection of topical expositions into a system of law. This was accomplished in the Bavli, the Talmud of Babylonia, which systematized and imposed an orderly program on the numerous subjects treated by the Mishnah. In this book, the author systematically defines and classifies four analytical initiatives of the Bavli.

This sourcebook collects and classifies how Israelite Scripture was received and recast in the language community that produced the dual Torah of Judaism. With extensive translation and documentation, Jeremiah in Talmud and Midrash uses the case of Jeremiah in the Rabbinic canon of the formative age to examine the Rabbinic documents response to the prophetic ones in terms of how they select, explain, and utilize the language of Scripture.

The Rabbinic Midrash, founded on a theological system and structure, is comprised by active category formations that turn facts into knowledge and knowledge into propositions of a theological character. This work defines the principal parts of the theological system that animated the Rabbinic sages' encounters with Scripture as embodied in the Rabbinic Midrash, and shows how these parts form a cogent theological system.

In the first six centuries of the Common Era, the Rabbis of formative Judaism, from the Mishnah through the Bavli, consulted the ancient Israelite prophets for guidance on issues of theology, law, history, and literature. In this anthology, Jacob Neusner collects and arranges in documentary sequence the Rabbinic comments on verses in the biblical prophet Hosea.

In the first six centuries of the Common Era, the Rabbis of formative Judaism, from the Mishnah through the Bavli, consulted the ancient Israelite prophets for guidance on issues of theology, law, history, and literature. In this anthology, Jacob Neusner collects and arranges in documentary sequence the Rabbinic comments on verses in the biblical prophet Amos.

This anthology illustrates how Judaism's classical rabbis of the first seven centuries of the Common Era read the ancient Israelite scriptures. It presents, in particular, a selection of writings that show what happens to the five books of Moses at the hands of the Rabbinical sages of the formative age of Judaism. Each Midrash-compilation takes up a book of Scripture and systematically expounds the message that the Rabbis derive from that particular book. No statement by the rabbis of the meaning of a biblical book emerges as a mere paraphrase of the plain sense of Scripture itself. The...

This analysis of how the Rabbis of the Talmud and Midrash made Jeremiah one of their own shows how Rabbinic Judaism rehearses the Prophetic message. Jeremiah offered hope to renew the relation that was broken, and Yohanan ben Zakkai promised another mode of atonement, involving individual conviction, and conduct. Joining the two yields, the thesis of this book is: in the case of Jeremiah Rabbinic Judaism continues and recapitulates Prophetic Judaism. Prophet and Rabbi confront the same kind of crisis with the same theological outcome. The Prophetic response to and the Rabbinic reading of the...

In the first six centuries of the Common Era, the Rabbis of formative Judaism, from the Mishnah through the Bavli, consulted the ancient Israelite prophets for guidance on issues of theology, law, history, and literature. In this anthology, Jacob Neusner collects and arranges in documentary sequence the Rabbinic comments on verses in the biblical prophets of Michael and Joel.

In separate multi-volumed works, form-analytical English translations of the Mishnah, Tosefta, Yerushalmi, and Bavli have been set forth. Outlines of the Yerushalmi and the Bavli have been brought about, and those outlines of the two Talmuds have been compared. In addition, for each subject the main points of the Halakhah of the topical expositions or tractates of the Mishnah-Tosefta-Yerushalmi-Bavli have been set forth. The theological message of the respective tractates has been spelled out. Here, we follow a single tractate through the principal documents of formative Judaism as these have...