Authors: Jacob Neusner, A. Hirschfeld (Contribution by), Amy Hirschfeld
ISBN-13: 9780391041783, ISBN-10: 0391041789
Format: Paperback
Publisher: Brill Academic Publishers, Inc.
Date Published: February 2003
Edition: (Non-applicable)
Jacob Neusner is Research Professor of Religion and Theology and Senior Fellow of the Institute of Advanced Theology at Bard College.
From his extensive and intensive study of the rabbinic literature, Jacob Neusner shows how the rabbinic documents give expression to a very real, if implicit, theological system. While the rabbinic literature is often seen as a collection of miscellaneous responses to questions arising from study of the Hebrew Bible and its application to contemporary life, Neusner sees a system behind and embodied in the various writings. He discusses the ways in which the divine thought, and the human thinking that sought faithfully to interpret it, actually came to expression and treats what he calls the grammar of the divine self-expression in order to help us see the theological structure that it implies. Then he shows how this implicit system is expressed in the rules for the life of the people that God has chosen as his own. Citing passages from almost all of the mishnaic tractates, Neusner shows how they fit into and give expression to the system.
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List of Abbreviations | ||
Preface | ||
Bibliography | ||
Introduction | 1 | |
Pt. 1 | The Grammar of Rabbinic Theology: Vocabulary, Syntax, Semantics | |
1 | Prolegomenon to the Theological Language of Rabbinic Judaism | 19 |
2 | Vocabulary: Native Categories | 36 |
3 | Syntax: Connections and Constructions | 56 |
4 | Semantics: Models of Analysis, Explanation, and Anticipation | 82 |
Pt. 2 | The Theological System of Rabbinic Judaism: Norms of Belief | |
5 | Prolegomenon to the Theological System That Animates the Aggadah | 107 |
6 | Sources of World Order | 122 |
7 | Perfecting World Order | 178 |
8 | Sources of World Disorder | 243 |
9 | Restoring World Order | 276 |
Pt. 3 | The Theological Structure of Rabbinic Judaism: Norms of Behavior in the Israelite Social Order | |
10 | Prolegomenon to the Theological Structure of Rabbinic Judaism Realized in the Halakhah | 309 |
11 | What, Where, and When Is Eden? | 331 |
12 | Israel and Adam, the Land and Eden, Sin and Atonement | 415 |
13 | Enemies of Eden, Tangible and Invisible | 486 |
14 | Choosing Life in the Kingdom of God | 559 |
Epilogue: The Halakhic Structure Seen Whole | 601 | |
Index | 613 |