Halakhah in the Making: The Development of Jewish Law from Qumran to the Rabbis »

Aharon Shemesh teaches in the Department of Talmud, Bar-Ilan University. He has published widely on the development of Jewish law in antiquity. This book is based on the series of talks he delivered for the Taubman Lectures in Jewish Studies at the University of California, Berkeley.

"Aharon Shemesh outlines in an accessible form the major features of the history of halakhah between the Dead Sea Scrolls and the early rabbinic traditions. While agreeing with other scholars on the conservative, stringent approach to halakhah of both the Sadducees and the authors of the Scrolls, Shemesh argues that this approach surprisingly had more impact on Pharisaic and rabbinic Judaism than usually assumed. This is a unique and original thesis."—Lutz Doering, Durham University