This dissertation argues that, contrary to popular conceptions and the current scholarly consensus, rabbinic Jewry did not become a people of the book, or even the people of the Book, until the high middle ages. For in the classical rabbinic period, many rabbinic authorities app…
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This dissertation concerns the interpretation in antiquity of Gen 6.6, “and the Lord repented that He had made man on the earth, and it grieved Him to His heart” (RSV), specifically the phrase v'yinachem Adonaí, “and the Lord repented,” in early rabbinic and patristic tradition.…
Sherira, living in 10th century Baghdad, head of the world-renowned Academy there, popularly called Pumbedita, was the leading Jewish Halachic authority of his day. His responsa, dealing basically with Halachic and Talmudic issues, but also with social and economic problems, wer…
A crucial issue for research on rabbinic literature is the interaction between speech and writing as modes for creating and transmitting early rabbinic tradition. Whereas the chirographic aspects of early rabbinic manipulation and transmission of tradition have been championed b…
The subject of this dissertation is the intertextual relationship between the Siddur and the Bible. It analyzes the ways in which thirteen prayers found in the Siddur quote the Bible. A strong resemblance was found between the techniques employed by the Siddur in this process an…
Sabato Morais (1823–1897), an Italian-born Jewish minister who came to Philadelphia from London in 185 1, became the preeminent exponent in America of enlightened orthodox Judaism. To counter threats posed to Jewish group survival, Morais advanced a voluntaristic model of Jewish…
This dissertation surveys and analyzes rabbinic aggadic traditions on the fetus and its development. The primary focus is on aggadic traditions which appear in Palestinian documents of the 3rd to 6th centuries CE, but parallels from the Babylonian Talmud and later midrashic work…
The halachic interpolations and expansions in Targum Pseudo-Jonathan are derived either from the Targumist's independent reasoning, or from his use of rabbinic traditions and compilations. All the halachic material can be classified in one of three ways: l) that which is intende…
There has been a relatively recent rehabilitation of the visual in the study of Jewish culture, mostly in terms of the study of images and attitudes towards them. This thesis extends the recognition of the importance of visuality in Jewish studies by treating vision itself as a …
This dissertation analyzes the literary techniques and the cultural background of Late Antique rabbinic parodies that target rabbinic and Christian texts. Over the last decades, it has become commonly acceptable to treat rabbinic texts as literature. More recently, scholars have…
The tannaim and amoraim greatly restricted the practical applications of biblical punishments. At the same time, the rabbis were not opposed to the notion of punishment, as seen through a set of alternative sanctions they invented that lack roots in biblical mandates This disser…
The "Holy Spirit" is a familiar concept in Christianity, but in its original Hebrew construction as Ruah ha-Kodesh, it also plays an active role in classical Rabbinic literature. This dissertation surveys uses of the term Ruah ha-Kodesh in major texts from the Tannaitic period t…
This is an analysis of comparisons the Rabbis made with kings, limited to Roman Palestine and to the ninety-year period beginning with the accession of the Emperor Septimius Severus in 193 C.E. and ending with the accession of Diocletian. Based primarily on the original rabbinic…
Sotah is the rabbinic name for the ritual described in the Bible (Numbers 5:11-31) which offers an account of a husband who suspects his wife of adultery. The passage prescribes a ritual in the case of a husband's legally unsubstantiated suspicion that his wife has committed adu…
Through a study of the efforts of the rabbis of the Movement for Progressive Judaism in Israel to build and lead value-based and participatory communities, this dissertation attempts to expand our theoretical understanding of authority. It attempts to develop Weber's elusive fou…
This dissertation, utilizing part of Bavli Ta'anit Chapter 1 as a model, demonstrates how the theories and methods of contemporary Talmudic scholarship can be synthesized to create a comprehensive scientific edition of, and commentary to the Babylonian Talmud. I. The methodology…
The earliest rabbis inherited from antecedent Jewish sects and authors a theme of kinship between Israel and the Angels of heaven. This theme was prominent in the sectarian thought of Qumran (as evidenced in the Dead Sea Scrolls) and it pervaded pseudepigraphic writing in the ti…
This study traces the nuances and shifts in rabbinic portrayals of Ishmael over a period of a thousand years, and leads to the conclusion that in the pre-Islamic period, the rabbis did not systematically set out to use Ishmael for one purpose. The portrayal of Ishmael before the…
This dissertation seeks to contribute to our understanding of the Quran and ultimately to the situating of pre-Islamic Arabia in its Late Antique context. The core argument is that Quranic retellings of Biblical narratives are often much more indebted to the Christian Syriac tra…