In "Demonic Desires," Ishay Rosen-Zvi examines the concept of "yetzer hara," or evil inclination, and its evolution in biblical and rabbinic literature. Contrary to existing scholarship, which reads the term under the rubric of destructive sexual desire, Rosen-Zvi contends that in late antiquity the "yetzer" represents a general tendency toward evil. Rather than the lower bodily part of a human, the rabbinic "yetzer" is a wicked, sophisticated inciter, attempting to snare humans to sin. The rabbinic "yetzer" should therefore not be read in the tradition of the Hellenistic quest for control...
In "Demonic Desires," Ishay Rosen-Zvi examines the concept of "yetzer hara," or evil inclination, and its evolution in biblical and rabbinic litera...
This study analyzes the specific textual formation of Mishna Sotah. Diverging significantly from its origins in the book of Numbers, the Mishnaic ritual was traditionally read by scholars as an "ancient Mishna," narrating an actual ritual practiced in the second temple. In contrast to this generally accepted view, this book claims that while Sotah does contain some traditions, its overall composition has a clear ideological and academic form. Furthermore, comparisons with parallel Tannaitic sources reveal the ideological redaction, which carefully selected only those opinions which support...
This study analyzes the specific textual formation of Mishna Sotah. Diverging significantly from its origins in the book of Numbers, the Mishnaic ritu...
Charlotte Fonrobert Ishay Rosen-Zvi Aharon Shemesh
Talmudic Transgressions is a collection of essays on rabbinic literature and related fields in response to the boundary-pushing scholarship of Daniel Boyarin. This work is an attempt to transgress boundaries in various ways, since boundaries differentiate social identities, literary genres, legal practices, or diasporas and homelands. These essays locate the transgressive not outside the classical traditions but in these traditions themselves, having learned from Boyarin that it is often within the tradition and in its terms that we can find challenges to accepted notions of knowledge,...
Talmudic Transgressions is a collection of essays on rabbinic literature and related fields in response to the boundary-pushing scholarship of ...
