Thesiss

This dissertation looks at the ways in which the Tannaitic Sages portrayed and discussed non-Jewish ritual. Although this has been traditionally characterized as "idolatry," this dissertation argues that that is not a category which would have been applied by the Sages of the Mi…

This dissertation argues that an assembly of passages of mid-fourth century redaction lays submerged below the textual surface of b. Rosh Hashanah. It claims that the third Babylonian amoraic generation (c. 290–320 C.E.) witnessed a cultural exchange that allowed some early vers…

This dissertation presents studies of four chapters of the Mishnah, the earliest compilation of Jewish-law, edited in Palestine c. 210 C.E. The focus is both methodological and topical. A claim is presented for a literary/anthropological approach to the reading of the Mishnah, a…

The Mishnah depends on the Bible for its authority, vocabulary, and much of its contents. Nearly six hundred Bible citations are distributed in fifty-three of the Mishnah's tractates and are quoted from all but six biblical books. Most citations are from the Torah and are used f…

In this dissertation I clarify the significance of verb form selection in the Qumran sectarian texts by determining the extent to which the semantic value of the Hebrew finite verb is temporal, aspectual, or modal in the selected corpus. Standard grammars claim Hebrew was aspect…

Jews of the Second Temple Period make manifold, clear references to the binary system of messianic expectation, yet by the Rabbinic period both emerging Christianity and contemporary Judaism were focused only upon one of these expected messiahs. While Christians were engaged in …